ABOUT THE BOOK

Paul and Johnnie are born twelve years apart, in a one-bedroom flat in Barking. Their ascent to money and power looks easy from a distance, but it burns those who get too close. When Paul marries Louise, Johnnie is part of the contract, while their daughter, Anna, is tangled in it from birth. Paul deals in the development of contaminated land; self-destructive, seductive Johnnie deals in crime. When Johnnie has to get out of the country, Louise goes with him. This has been her story, too, almost a Dickensian one, and she's going to tell it in all its crookedness, force and tenderness.

Helen Dunmore is a novelist, short-story writer and poet. Her books include Zennor in Darkness, awarded the McKitterick Prize in 1994; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, winner of the 1996 Orange Prize for Fiction; Talking to the Dead; Love of Fat Men; and Your Blue-Eyed Boy. All of these titles are published in Penguin.

Her poetry collections include The Sea Skater, winner of the Poetry Society's Alice Hunt Bartlett Award; The Raw Garden, a Poetry Book Society Choice; and Secrets, winner of the 1995 Signal Poetry Award. A selection of her poems can be found in Penguin Modern Poets 12. Her latest collection of short stories, Ice Cream, is published by Viking.