Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has.

Stevie’s been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he’s working as a labourer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But he’s not told his family – what’s left of them – that he’s back. Not yet.

He’s also not far from his Uncle Eric’s house: another one who left – for love this time. Stevie’s toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his own mother, Lindsey . . . well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie too.

This is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift?

Rachel Seiffert is an extraordinarily deft and humane writer who tells us the truth about love and about hope.