The froggitt chain (First edition)

Everybody's best mate but nobody's soul mate. Milkman Peter Froggitt is stressed out and when life overwhelms him he always runs.

Now he is terrified. In his new stealth-camper, he heads north, running from the memory of a dead woman, his fear of the Watcher on the scrubland and from his own interminable loneliness.

In his possession is the heavy gold chain he has kept since childhood.

The chain he took from The Blackened Man. At 4.30am, in an attempt to re-invent himself as a carefree man, Peter tosses his burden into a field; a bag containing the chain, along with letters from his father and his ex-wife, his phone, some keys and a mysterious photograph of a pale, scruffy child.

But from a hotel balcony, Hugo Quin is watching. And when Hugo is watching, anything is possible. The Froggitt Chain is a story of ordinary people who long to belong.

It is about brokenness, connection and hope. "It's rare to come across such an original voice and to find a book that is both very funny and intensely moving." K.

Holmes