Debut novel from an acclaimed short-story writer who has been shortlisted for the Sabotage Short Story Award 2015, and longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2015 and the Frank O’ Connor International Short Story Prize 2015. A psychological coming-of-age novel tackling themes of loss, loneliness, toxic love, ambition, the female experience and desire. Longlisted for the 2018 Mslexia Novel Competition. Author is a Hay Festival Writers at Work alumni.

Growing up in a lonely house on the edge of a wild common, Violet Hart is a quiet and sheltered only child who has always dreamt of becoming something extraordinary: a ballet icon as famous as Margot Fonteyn. Guarding her dream closely after suffering catastrophic loss, Violet falls further into quietness, learning to speak only with her feet as she pursues a path to a career in dance. On the cusp of adulthood, she finally starts to find her voice. But when a secret, all-consuming affair with her older lover Theo threatens to send her world into a tailspin, will Violet find herself? Or will she succumb to the silence she knows so well?