Cloudless

A powerful debut novel charting the faultlines that open in a farming family in North Wales as they wait for their son to return from the Iraq War

It is autumn 2004 and in a farmhouse on the hills outside Llandudno, Catrin and John endure the agonizing wait for their older son to return from Iraq. His decision to join up has left them reeling, yet there are other battles at home- the working of the land that has been theirs for generations and what to do with their troubled younger son.

Catrin's childhood sweetheart comes back to their small town, forcing the boys' doting mother to confront the life she might have had. And John, desperate to keep farm and family together, turns to ever riskier methods to stay afloat.

As each member of the family grasps at their own tenuous lifeline, they drift further from one another - until, on a cold winter evening, there is a fateful knock at the door.

Written in luminous, exquisitely calibrated prose, Cloudless is a masterful portrayal of the fragility and resilience of human connection.