Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. Hes seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. Id have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I dont think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn't feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me. Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because hes a good man and this could break him. Shes trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming larger by the day while the past wont let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her. Its a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melodys life. Donal Ryans new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.

Donal Ryan is from Nenagh in County Tipperary. His first three novels,The Spinning Heart, The Thing About DecemberandAll We Shall Know, and his short story collectionA Slanting of the Sun, have all been published to major acclaim.The Spinning Heartwon the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was recently voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel,From a Low and Quiet Sea, will be published in March 2018.A former civil servant, Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.