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From the prize-winning author of The Giant Dark comes a beautiful exploration of the ties that bind us and the scars they leave when they break. Aliyah and Ava arrive in England from opposite corners of the world with dreams built upon Emily Bronte, Brideshead Revisited and Richard Curtis films. Instead, in the shadow of their historic, fairytale campus, they get the sense that they don''t belong. The two form a Vita-and-Virginia-like bond, building a world full of stories that they write together. For a time, they are inseparable in their identity as ''strange girls''. When the end of university looms, they will have to return to the world where a devotion like this seems impossible to maintain. Years later, Aliyah has everything Ava wants - a room of her own and a publishing deal - and, worse, the thing Ava was certain neither of them had ever wanted: a sensible doctor husband. Arriving back in London for a mutual friend''s hen party, Ava is desperate to unpack the truth of what she really meant to Aliyah. Was what they had - whatever you call it - real? And what will become of the stories they tell themselves about one another?
About the author
Sarvat Hasin is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan. She has a master's in creative writing from the University of Oxford. Her first novel,
This Wide Night, was longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her second book,
You Can't Go Home Again, was featured in
Vogue India's and
The Hindu's 'best of the year' lists. Her third novel,
The Giant Dark, was a runaway critical success, won the Mo Siewcharran Prize and was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. She lives in London.
