Published in 2022
256 pages
Jessica Andrews is from Sunderland. She is the author of Saltwater (2019) which won the Portico Prize (2020) and Milk Teeth (2022). She is a Contributing Editor at ELLE magazine and writes for the Guardian, the Independent, BBC Radio 4 and Stylist, among others. She was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction Futures in 2022 and nominated for the ELLE list in 2020. She co-runs literary and arts magazine, The Grapevine and co-presents literary podcast, Tender Buttons. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing.
What is this book about?
From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain.
A girl grows up in the north of England amid scarcity, precarity and the toxic culture of heroin chic, believing that she needs to make herself smaller to claim presence in the world.
Years later, as a young woman with unattainable ideals, she meets someone who calls everything into question, and is forced to confront episodes from her past. Their relationship takes her from London to Barcelona and the precipice of a new life, full of sensuality. Yet she still feels an uneasiness. In the sticky Mediterranean heat, among tropical plants and secluded beaches, she must decide what form her adult life should take and learn how to feel deserving of love and care.
