LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2018

'A masterful exploration of love, loss and the healing power of the natural world. Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure' Observer LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2018 Jonah roams Kew Gardens trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his life after the death of his wife, Audrey. Weathering the seasons and learning to love again, he meets Chloe, an enigmatic origami artist who is hesitant to let down her own walls. In the gardens he also meets ten-year-old Milly, and Harry, a gardener, both of whom have secrets of their own to keep – and mysteries to solve.

"A masterful exploration of love, loss and the healing power of the natural world. Like Max Porter’s Grief is a Thing With Feathers, it uses fable, mystery and a poetic sensibility to get at the nub of loss … Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure" - Observer

"Kew Gardens proves an abundant and richly suggestive backdrop for this unusual story ... Udall weaves a complex story about the mysterious ways a life can linger, like a scent, and how grief and love can sometimes feel so vast and overwhelming that no earthly landscape can contain them" - Daily Mail

"A moving story as intricate and elegant as the origami birds that Chloe, one of the characters, folds. I loved this whimsical debut novel" - Red, Summer Reads

"Unputdownable fiction ... Poetic and finely wrought" - Sunday Express

"A story of death and its aftermath, which lingers long after the last page" - Independent

"This novel is all about seeing a ‘scarred loveliness’ in a damaged world" - Psychologies

"A poetic exploration of those most difficult of topics, grief and love, against the backdrop of Kew Gardens … Udall deftly leads the reader through the tangled web of relationships binding each of these four people to Audrey, whose own story comes to be revealed through her diaries" - Scotsman