Love affairs, grief, unhappiness, the mess at the bottom of your handbag. This is a book about the things we hide from other people, and how we might find new ways to think about love and intimacy in the twenty-first century.

How do you learn to be a grown-up when you’ve never got over the death of a parent? What makes a ‘happy family’? What happens if you can’t stop thinking about an ex? And what does commitment really mean?

In this genre-defying memoir, Sophie Ratcliffe travels through time, space and great literature to capture the complex and often messy nature of life, love – and grief. Beautifully crafted, painfully funny and frank about things that most people keep to themselves, The Lost Properties of Love is a game-changing exploration of the human heart.