A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN TIME, THE DAILY MAIL, THE INDEPENDENT, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND THE ATLANTIC

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2024

'Like Edward St Aubyn and Anne Enright, Hamya is so good on generational conflict, the friction of family, and the damage done by charming but complacent men' DAVID NICHOLLS

'A slippery, excellent exploration of sexual politics, creative appropriation, and family dynamics . . . It lands its ending with all the force of a sharp knife hurled at a bullseye' VANITY FAIR

Sicily, 2010. Sophia, on the cusp of adulthood, spends a long hot summer with her father, a successful author. Over the course of that holiday, their relationship will fracture.

London, 2020. Sophia's father, now 61, sits in a large theatre, surrounded by strangers, watching his daughter's first play. A play that takes that Sicilian holiday as its subject and will force him to watch his purported crimes re-enacted. Set over the course of one climactic day, this is the story of a father and a daughter, of all that divides and binds them.

'Wickedly funny. A perfect novel' SARAH BERNSTEIN

'Brilliant . . . With a precision of language that ought to make Hamya's contemporaries quake and a tenderness you don't see coming' ATLANTIC