Description

‘I didn’t want this book to end… Beautiful’ DAISY JOHNSON
‘A natural storyteller’ PATRICK GALE
‘A gorgeous folkloric novel of water and love’ ZOE GILBERT

London, 1985. Joe, father to eleven-year-old Matty, has disappeared, and nobody will explain where he’s gone, or why.

In the long, hot summer that follows, Matty’s hunt for Joe leads to the ponds at Hampstead Heath. Beneath the water, there is a new kind of freedom. Above the water, a welcoming community of men offer refuge from an increasingly rocky home life.

Fourteen years later, a new revelation sees Matty set off alone in a campervan, driving westwards through Ireland, swimming its wild loughs and following the scant clues left behind about Joe. The trip takes a dangerous turn, and Matty is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers. But safety comes at a price, and with desire and fear running high, the journey turns into an explosive, heart-rending reckoning with the past.

*A ‘BOOKS OF 2021’ PICK IN i NEWSPAPER*

‘Artfully paced, with queer undercurrents, this novel is tender and totally enveloping’ Attitude

Publisher Review

Andrew's wonderful second novel is the deeply involving story of a difficult childhood, a search for a long-missing parent, how we view our bodies and the secrets we keep even from those who know us best. -- 75 Books for 2021 * i Newspaper * A sweeping coming-of-age narrative whose on-point themes of gender and sexuality are embedded in evocative descriptions of London during the 1980s, and of boomtime Ireland a decade later * Mail Online * This evocative and sensitive tale is grounded by the authentic complexity of its characters... Inspired. -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail * Artfully paced, with queer undercurrents, this novel is tender and totally enveloping. -- Uli Lenart * Attitude * An atmospheric creation... Skin stirs with references to water myths, from selkies and mermaids to sirens and cursed bodies of water. -- Bidisha * Observer *