‘Suspenseful, dazzling and moving’ Rumaan Alam ‘Arresting and powerful’ Lily King ‘Breathtakingly propulsive and insightful’ Leslie Jamison

It’s 22 December and siblings Henry, Kate and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry’s house in upstate New York. This is their first Christmas since their mother passed. Without her once ever-present advice and gentle nudges to connect with each other when they need it most, they’ve grown distant. Over the course of the next three days, old resentments and instabilities arise as the siblings, with a gaggle of children afoot, attempt to perform familiar rituals while also trying to decide what to do with their sole inheritance, their mother’s house.

As each tries and fails and tries again to figure out how to reconcile their various needs and impulses around the house, they must also see whether they can and will remain a family without their matriarch. They are all feeling the strain but when a local child goes missing they are forced to come together, and all of them will cross a line.

Praise for Lynn Steger Strong

‘Furious, aching and razor sharp’ Emma Cline

‘A deeply intelligent and sneakily moving novel about having the ground fall away beneath your feet. Strong ingeniously undercuts conventional wisdom about what it means to be a success in this world’ Jenny Offill

‘A defining novel of our age of left-behind families… as if Anne Helen Peterson’s viral burnout article and John Steinbeck’s oeuvre had a baby’ Vulture

‘Elizabeth’s anxious, raw voice ties these threads together, coalescing into a story about the price women pay for craving what’s just out of reach’ Time magazine

‘Through Elizabeth’s experiences and in her propulsive voice, the novel explores race, class, privilege, coincidence, family, friendship and love’ Guardian

‘A smart, sharp novel’ Elle

‘Strong strips away at the imbalance of advantages that ultimately injure us all and the collisions that never cease. Yet, in this stunning novel, she never loses sight of the irrepressible desire to love, connect and forgive one another’ Observer