An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from'a writer of show-stopping genius' Guardian.'Dark and brilliant.' SARAH MOSS'A masterpiece.' DAISY JOHNSON'Extraordinary.' SARAH PERRY'Searing . . . Sarah Hall's best work yet.' JON McGREGOR'One of the best books of the year.'TELEGRAPH'Hall has set a bar . . . Finely wrought, intellectually brave and emotionally honest.'THE SCOTSMANIn the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days.Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world.'Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn . . . One of the finest writers at work today.'DAMON GALGUT'Wonderful . . . The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page.'ANDREW MILLER'Transporting . . . A beautiful novel, full of heat and darkness.'AVNI DOSHI'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers . . . With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to.'BENJAMIN MYERS

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria. Twice nominated for the Man Booker Prize, she is the award-winning author of five novels and three short story collections: The Beautiful Indifference, which won the Edge Hill and Portico prizes, Madame Zero, winner of the East Anglian Book Award, and Sudden Traveller, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. She is currently the only author to be four times shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, which she won in 2013 with'Mrs Fox' and in 2020 with'The Grotesques'.