From the author of Blackberry & Wild Rose comes an extraordinary story of two women who never meet and yet share the closest possible bond.
STELLA and CONNIE are strangers, brought together by two traumatic events - cruel twists of fate that happen thousands of miles apart.
Stella lives with her mother, a smothering narcissist. When she succumbs to dementia, the pressures on Stella's world intensify, culminating in tragedy. As Stella recovers from a near fatal accident, she feels compelled to share her trauma but she finds talking difficult. In her head she confides in Connie because there's no human being in the world that she feels closer to.
Connie is an expat living in Dubai with her partner, Mark, and their two children. On the face of it she wants for nothing and yet ... something about life in this glittering city does not sit well with her. Used to working full time in a career she loves back in England, she struggles to find meaning in the expat life of play-dates and pedicures.
Two women set on a collision course. When they finally link up, it will not be in a way that you, or I, or anyone would ever have expected.
Velton gives [her characters] genuine depth in a moving story of love, secrets and betrayal' - Sunday Times on Blackberry & Wild Rose
This exquisitely evocative novel will appeal to fans of The Miniaturist - Red on Blackberry & Wild Rose
A sumptuous and moving debut - Laura Purcell, author of The Silent Companions
An utterly absorbing novel that draws you into a fascinating and often sinister world - Elly Griffiths on Blackberry & Wild Rose
Sonia Velton grew up between the Bahamas and the UK. After graduating from university with a first class law degree, she qualified as a solicitor at an international law firm, later going on to specialise in discrimination law. Sonia relocated to the Middle East in 2006. Eight years and three children later she returned to the UK and now lives in Kent. Blackberry and Wild Rose, inspired by real characters and historical events, was short-listed for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize as a work in progress, was longlisted for the Mslexia novel competition, and is Sonia's first novel.