**SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS DEBUT FICTION AWARD 2025**

‘I’ll be thinking about it for ever’ Barbara Kingsolver
‘A gorgeously written story?a must-read’ Jennie Godfrey
‘Powerful and beautifully written? Lynch is a huge new talent in fiction’ Good Housekeeping, Book of the Month
‘I was caught up from the first page and completely taken aback by this story. I loved it’ Clare Chambers

A mother following her heart. A father with the law on his side. A child caught in the middle.

1982 Dawn is a young wife and mother hemmed in by village life. Then Hazel appears like a torch in the dark. Their attraction is instant and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected.

2022 Maggie has always lived with an absence where her mother should be. Her father never speaks of her and it feels impossible to ask. Then an official letter arrives with news from the past, and Maggie must face a truth far bigger than just her family’s secret.

‘A beautiful and tender exploration of parental love, prejudice and the things we carry’ Rachel Joyce
‘A brilliant book? Full of heart, sympathy and sadness’ Sara Pascoe
‘A triumph! Like the great Maggie O’Farrell, Claire Lynch deals brilliantly with both big themes and small moments’ Elin Hilderbrand
‘Smart and heartbreaking’ Guardian

***READERS ARE IN LOVE WITH A FAMILY MATTER***
‘I would rate this 10 stars if I could’
‘Utterly brilliant, I was captivated from page one’
‘This book had my whole heart and more’
‘A beautiful, heartbreaking, important book’
‘I can’t get the story out of my head’
‘It totally broke my heart’
‘I’ll be thinking of these characters for a long time to come’

The Ritual Year

A Family Matter