A haunting love story by a master storyteller, now a Penguin Essential

'A master of both language and storytelling' HILARY MANTEL

'Compact and ordinary, it was a town in a hollow that had grown up there for no reason that anyone knew or wondered about . . .'

Rathmoye, Ireland, in the middle of the last century, and into town comes a stranger on the day of Eileen Connulty's funeral. Taking unwanted and unasked for photographs, Florian Kilderry upsets its carefully settled status quo. But Ellie, a young convent girl married to a farmer still mourning his first wife, cannot help but be drawn to this trespassing youth. Over the course of a long, warm summer Ellie and Florian form an attachment that sleepy Rathmoye cannot ignore . . .

'Unbearably moving' Spectator

"A fabulously benign book ... a work of sympathetic magic" - Guardian

"I was totally entranced ... a rare book" - The Times

"I can't think of anything I've read recently that has chronicled more accurately the thumping chaos of human hearts or felt more questioning and youthful and alive" - Financial Times