Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty, with her career in ruins, she finds herself stranded with a man she doesn’t love and two kids whose dead mother she can never replace. She spends her days in isolated tedium and her nights in a blur of vodka and self-recrimination.

Until, early one morning, she sees a shadow drifting up the beach below her house. It is Luther Fox, an outcast, a man on the run from his own past. And now here he is stepping into Georgie’s life. He brings hope, maybe even love, but also danger . . .

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.