The place is Liverpool, a dying port facing the Atlantic, once the embarkation point for nine million future Americans. Alix Rebick, arrogant and angry, is a survivor of the sexual revolution, but at forty-nine she believes that she is fated to spend the rest of her life alone. Returning from exile in France to the bedside of her dying mother, Alix and her brother Sam receive a final message: forcing them to uncover the family secrets that lie in pre-war Dresden.

Joseph Shields, an American architect of Liverpool’s restoration, is at war with the city’s underworld, with his wife back in Chicago who has left him, and his own memories of a military battle in which he once fought as a combat soldier. What he is not interested in is an affair with the woman who unlocks the city’s secrets for him and who is consumed by erotic desire for the American stranger.

As each struggles to come to terms with the flawed truths of their own middle-aged lives, each is forced to confront the choices they made long ago.

From the Orange Prize-winning author, Still Here is an exhilarating story of cities, lust, war and emigration.

Publishing details: Available in the UK from 30 May

Little,Brown Hardback £15.99

Trade paperback £10.99