AMAZON BEST PICK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
- 'Written in big beautiful prose that expands throughout the novel and leaves the reader
full and satisfied ... Leila Mottley's grasp of human nature is unmatched' CANDICE
CARTY-WILLIAMS From the author of the Booker nominated international bestseller
Nightcrawling : a novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers
in a Florida beach town. When Adela Woods tells her parents she's pregnant they immediately
send her a thousand miles away to stay with her grandmother in Padua Beach. The intention is
that she will leave her baby in 'the forgotten Panhandle of Florida'. and resume her suburban
life nine months later as though nothing happened. But Adela's plans are soon washed away by
the tide. First Adela meets Emory a new mother determined to defy the expectations of
everyone around her returning to high school with her newborn baby strapped to her chest. Then
she meets Simone ringleader of 'the Girls ' a group of young mothers who create a village
together in the back of her red truck-dancing breastfeeding raising their children and
themselves. The town thinks they've lost their way. Really they are finding it. But as they
look for love make and break friendships navigate the miracle of motherhood and the paradox
of girlhood Adela Emory and Simone also find themselves on an inescapable collision course
with one another. A novel full of heart and life and hope set against the shifting sands of
secrets and betrayals The Girls Who Grew Big offers an explosive new perspective on what it
means to be a young woman a daughter and a mother. 'Opens up the world of young mothers in
its makeshift sticky struggling glory ... Sensuous gripping and utterly believable' EMMA
DONOGHUE
