This is the story of a marriage and infidelities of the body and the mind. Gus (Augusta) is married to Owen, and they are both recovering from an affair that Gus has had several years previously. They move to the country, where their idyll is darkened when a woman comes to rent the house next door.

I loved everything about it. Black took me through all of the emotions of betrayal, hard-won forgiveness, love, commitment; all of that, as well as juggling a very believable sub-plot about a father with alzheimer's and a back story about grief. That makes it sound like a sad book. Oh, it is a sad book, and written with a wonderfully sad tone, but it's also a book about struggling to make art (both written and painted) which I really identified with.

And then it has this spectacularly well-handled ending that made me cry.

Basically this was everything I want to read in a book. Couldn't recommend it more.

www.clairefuller.co.uk