‘Tender, immersive, and thrilling’ GABRIELLE ZEVIN, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

‘One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman … Exciting and tension filled’ STEPHEN KING

‘A breathtaking, thrilling and unforgettable story of friendship, of hopes and dreams against a reality so harsh it broke my heart’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark

‘Profound and stunning … It will make you question yourself and every one of your beliefs’ LIZ NUGENT, author of Strange Sally Diamond

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A heartstopping story of friendship, thrill-seeking and defying expectations: the explosive second novel from the bestselling author of My Absolute Darling

Dan and Tamma are two Californian teenagers growing up dirt poor in the shadows of the Joshua Tree National Park, one of the world’s great rock climbing meccas. Their mothers had once been teenage waitresses and best friends until their paths diverged. Now Dan’s mother spends her days locked in her room, her dreams squandered and all her hopes pinned on getting her precociously clever son out of town and away to university.

Tamma’s mother holds no such ambition for her mouthy, queer, truant-playing, snaggle-toothed daughter, who everyone but Dan believes to be a troublemaker and no-hoper. But Tamma and Dan are fuelled by dreams of becoming legendary rock climbers, of devoting their lives to summiting the most challenging climbs and defying all the expectations, both good and bad, that others have for them.

Climbing at sun-up, on cliff faces that test their bodies to the limit, is where their friendship is forged. It’s also the one thing that gives them hope. But as their final year of high school unfolds and their climbs become ever more dangerous, and their home lives ever more extreme, it’s inevitable that something is going to snap…

‘I’m a piece of architecture, Detective. How should I know how humans are like to die?’

Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.

A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect’s will.

Dr. Selene Gisil, a former protégé, is the sole person permitted to come into Rose House once a year. Now, there is a dead person in Rose House. It is not Basit Deniau, and it is not Dr. Gisil. It is someone else. But Rose House won’t communicate any further.

No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. Dr. Gisil was not in North America when Rose House called in the death. But someone did. And someone died there.

And someone may be there still.

‘An exquisitely creepy exploration of the boundaries of life, death, the real and the artificial‘ – Adrian Tchaikovsky, Hugo Award-winning author of the Children of Time series

Three lives collide, not one of them will emerge unchanged – the exhilarating new novel from the author of the Patrick Melrose series.

When Olivia meets a new lover, Francis, just as she is welcoming her dearest friend Lucy back from New York, her life expands dramatically. Her connection to Francis, a committed naturalist living off-grid, is immediate and startling. Eager to involve Lucy in her joy, Olivia introduces the two – but Lucy has news of her own that binds the trio unusually close.

Over the months that follow, Lucy’s boss Hunter, Olivia’s psychoanalyst parents, and a young man named Sebastian are pulled into the friends’ orbit, and not one of them will emerge unchanged.

‘Moving and so funny’ Observer, Books of the Year

‘Heroic and astonishing’ Sunday Times

‘Clever and compassionate… A novel with heart’ Spectator

‘Entertaining… Immensely pleasurable’ Daily Mail