ATimesbestseller

'Wonderful...I was hooked from the first page. It's the real stuff.' - Michael Frayn 'Deeply affecting'-Guardian 'Superb'-Mail on Sunday 'Barney Norris isa rare and precious talent'- Evening Standard

'There exists in all of us a song waiting to be sung which is as heart-stopping and vertiginous as the peak of the cathedral. That is the meaning of this quiet city, where the spire soars into the blue, where rivers and stories weave into one another, where lives intertwine.'

One quiet evening in Salisbury, the peace is shattered by a serious car crash. At that moment, five lives collide a flower seller, a schoolboy, an army wife, a security guard, a widower all facing their own personal disasters. As one of those lives hangs in the balance, the stories of all five unwind, drawn together by connection and coincidence into a web of love, grief, disenchantment and hope that perfectly represents the joys and tragedies of small town life.

Barney Norris's second novel,Turning for Home, will be published in January 2018.

Barney Norris was born in Sussex in 1987, and grew up in Salisbury. Upon leaving university he founded the theatre company Up In Arms. He won the Critics' Circle and Offwestend Awards for Most Promising Playwright for his debut full-length playVisitors.He is the Martin Esslin Playwright in Residence at Keble College, Oxford. This is his first novel.