
A BOOK obtained by an accidental encounter; a volume I had never considered in the several years since it first appeared in 2017 and won the Costa First Novel Award. Not even as an impulse buy while browsing bookshop shelves. This intriguing, mesmerising and continually delightful tale was plucked from a box of unwanted items discarded by a neighbour when she was moving out. Lucky me. Although I did hesitate when glimpsing that inked-in O of the cover illustration; what other markings had been inflicted inside, perhaps obliterating passages of text? The joke was on me; it transpired as a… Continue reading