In the quiet, lonely hours of the middle of the night, a woman scrolls social media on her phone. Babies are everywhere. All her friends seem to have one. But she is full of doubt - just the creep sniffing at the window. How can she consider the enormity of new life when the world outside is burning?

Besides, there's something wrong in her body. She can feel it: pain, a constant dull ache she is too frightened to investigate.

And then there's something darker, pulsing beneath the surface, threatening to catch up with her. Hers is a life deeply affected by grief and chaos; the death of her mother, a long buried sexual assault, and a drawn-out affair with a married actor of middling fame and maximum ego - full of glamour, hedonism, obsession and control.

Is it possible to rebuild, when all you feel is lack?

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'A stunning poet and an equally gorgeous storyteller. I love everything Cecilia Knapp writes' HOLLIE MCNISH

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