'Beautiful incredibly painterly and full of breathtaking details. A devastating portrait of a
particular place which draws you in with its brutality and beauty ' CARYL LEWIS author of
DRIFT 'Incredibly assured carefully observed full of heart. A quietly devastating read
which lingers long after the final page' JAN CARSON _____________ Tucked into the Welsh
valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine the village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet
sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface tensions simmer hearts ache and painful truths
threaten to emerge. Sixteen-year-old Catrin Bone knows only what she has been told. Now she
is beginning to question her small world and a version of the past that seems to entrap and
embitter her reclusive mother Mary. Mary had a sister once a girl of unparalleled beauty.
Why did she disappear from the village in a shroud of shame all those years ago - and where is
she now? Meanwhile the Clements brothers skint and all out of hope run rampant across the
hills and lanes. And old Dai Bevel whose frailty masks a dark history dreams of a girl he
used to know... The sins of the past are approaching for it takes a village: to raise a child
to bring down a woman to hide something monstrous and to look the other way. In this tender
sly exquisitely wrought novella a unique cast of characters give voice to their versions of
the truth. But it is the story of Rosalind Bone of her strength and of all that she has
endured that rises above the rest shimmering with hope and possibility...
