The dark circle

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 'Extraordinarily affecting' Alex Preston, Observer 'This is a novel whose engine is flesh and blood, not cold ideas . . . Grant brings the 1950s - that odd, downbeat, fertile decade between war and sexual liberation - into sharp, bright, heartbreaking focus' - Christobel Kent Guardian All over Britain life is beginning again now the war is over but for Lenny and Miriam, East End London teenage twins who have been living on the edge of the law, life is suspended - they've contacted tuberculosis. It's away to the sanatorium - newly opened by the NHS - in deepest Kent for them where they will meet a very different world: among other patients, an aristocract, a young university grad, a mysterious German woman and an American merchant seaman with big ideas about love and rebellion. They are not the only ones whose lives will be changed forever. 'Grant is so good at conjuring up atmosphere and writes with earthy vivacity'- Anthony Gardner Mail on Sunday 'Read this fine, persuasive, moving novel and contemplate' John Sutherland, The Times