
Following a family tragedy, Jessie Noon moved from the Fens to the Midlands and now lives in the Scottish Borders with a cat, a dog and – she is convinced – a ghost in the spare room. Her husband walked out almost a year ago, leaving a note written in steam on the bathroom mirror, and Jessie hasn’t seen her son for years. When Jessie meets Robert, a local outreach worker, they are drawn to one another and begin a relationship; meanwhile, Jessie has begun receiving messages telling her I’m on my way home. As a translator, Jessie worries over what seems like the terrible responsibility of choosing the right words. It isn’t exactly a matter of life and death, said her husband, but Jessie knows otherwise. This is a novel about communication and miscommunication and lives hanging in the balance (a child going missing, a boy in a coma, an unborn baby), occupying the fine line between life and death, between existing and not existing.
Author

Born in Manchester in 1971, Alison Moore lives next but one to a sheep field in a village on the Leicestershire-Nottinghamshire border, with her husband Dan and son Arthur. She is a member of Nottingham Writers’ Studio and an honorary lecturer in the School of English at Nottingham University. In 2012 her novel The Lighthouse, the unsettling tale of a middle-aged man who embarks on a contemplative German walking holiday after the break-up of his marriage – only to find himself more alienated than ever, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.