You were the last one here, before I closed the door of Burntcoat. Before we all closed our doors.

In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days.

Downstairs, the studio remains lit - a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and even darker world.

‘Nobody writes like Sarah Hall, and here her lucid, vital, extraordinary style is matched perfectly to its subject - it’s an extraordinary work that will stand as a blazing witness to the age that bore it.’ - Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent

‘A dark and brilliant novel about love, art and fragility in a time of crisis.’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater