A new Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry with a very different but equally unlikely and heartrending hero. A story of secrets, a terrible mistake, and the destructive nature of perfection.

‘It is her clever did-I-read-that-right twist at the end that really got to me and had me scrabbling through the chapters, open-mouthed.’ Evening Standard

Summer, 1972- In the claustrophobic heat, eleven-year-old Byron and his friend begin ‘Operation Perfect’, a hapless mission to rescue Byron’s mother from impending crisis.

Winter, present day- As frost creeps across the moor, Jim cleans tables in the local cafe, a solitary figure struggling with OCD. His job is a relief from the rituals that govern his nights.

Little would seem to connect them except that two seconds can change everything.
And if your world can be shattered in an instant, can time also put it right?