Moving to the countryside is supposed to fix Clare and Phoebe’s relationship. A fresh start, a change of scenery, a chance to heal after the miscarriage of their baby girl.
Instead, Phoebe feels suffocated. Back in the rural community she ran from at seventeen and unable to face the partner she cannot help, she throws herself into work on the family farm. Clare is a stranger in the village, uninitiated and out of place. She spends her days drifting around the cottage, its walls groaning and shifting as she withdraws into a world inside her head.
One day, wandering through the forest nearby, Clare finds a leveret – her own little Isla. A surrogate to lick and love. A way to feel whole again.
But as Isla grows into an adult hare she becomes wild and unruly – a kicking, biting, scratching creature. With Clare’s grasp on reality growing ever more tenuous, Phoebe begins to question whether Isla is the cure for grief Clare is searching for as she desperately clings on to the woman she loves…
Read this exclusive extract now, as chosen by library staff across the UK for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.
