A haunting story of love and division against the backdrop of the Troubles: an Irish modern classic. Cal is a Catholic boy on a Protestant estate. His Ulster is a violent world in the grip of fear, where tenderness flickers only briefly in the dark.

As Cal becomes guiltily entangled with local IRA activities, he also falls for Marcella, a librarian – and the widow of a Protestant his friends have killed. Cal’s choices are devastatingly simple: brood on the past, or try to plan a future with the woman he loves?’Simple humanity, eloquently caught’ New York Times’McLaverty has a true feeling for tragedy’ Anita Brookner