'He is a big man - five eleven in his stockinged feet - and I am not a hefty woman. It takes several goes. But I have surprise on my side. In the end I use my crutches as well. I don't stop till he's down and twitching, till he's stopped shouting and screaming, till he's down.'
On a humid, thundery afternoon, Laura commits an appalling act. Or is it so appalling to free yourself, to run after the only passion you've ever known? It is Billy who has to find an answer - Billy, fifteen years younger than her and already a father of five. But what he doesn't know yet is that Laura also had a child, a child she gave up to the Foundling Hospital and whose memory will shape their future together in unimaginable ways.
Julie Myerson's new novel moves through a Victorian London which is tender, murky, unsettling. An eerily unforgettable love story.
