‘Rich in imagery and full of secrets, the heat of the summer of 1976 is brought vividly to life in When Everything Was Burning. A thoughtful, atmospheric debut that signals a new talent’ Kate Atkinson

'A tender, beautifully observed novel about family, survival and the different ways in which we search for love. It is so moving, I read the final pages with my heart in my mouth’ Clare Leslie Hall

****

In the blazing summer of 1976, as Britain buckles under drought, fire and a strange, airless heat, the Robinson family are living under pressures of their own. Then, on a stifling Sunday in June, a single terrible moment changes everything.

In the years that follow, a mother and her children – along with the neighbours, friends and lovers drawn into their lives – must live with the aftermath of that day, each carrying their own version of what happened. At the centre is Philip, trying to make sense of a childhood marked by tenderness and fear, of first love discovered in secret, and of memory’s shifting, unreliable truths.

Rich with atmosphere and quiet tension, When Everything Was Burning is a novel about what survives after the worst has happened: the heat that lingers in a family long after the flames have died, the stories that harden into truth, and the fragile, stubborn ways people go on loving one another.

****