Unsettled Ground : Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance. But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.

Unsettled Ground is a powerful novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness. ____________________________________________________________________’The way she writes (with empathy but never sentimentality) moves my heart’ ELIZABETH DAY, author of Magpie’A relevant and powerful exploration of isolation and life on the fringes of society’ CLARE MACKINTOSH, author of Hostage’An atmospheric thriller that’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming’ RED