Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has.

Stevie's been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he's working as a labourer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But he's not told his family - what's left of them - that he's back. Not yet.

He's also not far from his Uncle Eric's house: another one who left - for love this time. Stevie's toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his own mother, Lindsey ... well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie too.

This is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift?

Rachel Seiffert is an extraordinarily deft and humane writer who tells us the truth about love and about hope.