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'I didn't want this book to end... Beautiful' DAISY JOHNSON 'A natural storyteller' PATRICK GALE 'A gorgeous folkloric novel of water and love' ZOE GILBERT London, 1985. Joe, father to eleven-year-old Matty, has disappeared, and nobody will explain where he's gone, or why. In the long, hot summer that follows, Matty's hunt for Joe leads to the ponds at Hampstead Heath. Beneath the water, there is a new kind of freedom. Above the water, a welcoming community of men offer refuge from an increasingly rocky home life. Fourteen years later, a new revelation sees Matty set off alone in a campervan, driving westwards through Ireland, swimming its wild loughs and following the scant clues left behind about Joe. The trip takes a dangerous turn, and Matty is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers. But safety comes at a price, and with desire and fear running high, the journey turns into an explosive, heart-rending reckoning with the past. *A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN i NEWSPAPER* 'Artfully paced, with queer undercurrents, this novel is tender and totally enveloping' Attitude
'I didn't want this book to end... Beautiful' DAISY JOHNSON
'A natural storyteller' PATRICK GALE
'A gorgeous folkloric novel of water and love' ZOE GILBERT
London, 1985. Joe, father to eleven-year-old Matty, has disappeared, and nobody will explain where he's gone, or why.
In the long, hot summer that follows, Matty's hunt for Joe leads to the ponds at Hampstead Heath. Beneath the water, there is a new kind of freedom. Above the water, a welcoming community of men offer refuge from an increasingly rocky home life.
Fourteen years later, a new revelation sees Matty set off alone in a campervan, driving westwards through Ireland, swimming its wild loughs and following the scant clues left behind about Joe. The trip takes a dangerous turn, and Matty is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers. But safety comes at a price, and with desire and fear running high, the journey turns into an explosive, heart-rending reckoning with the past.
*A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN i NEWSPAPER*
'Artfully paced, with queer undercurrents, this novel is tender and totally enveloping' Attitude