Emma recommends... All the Little Bird-Hearts - Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

Emma recommends... This is a stunning novel about class, vulnerability, neurodiversity, and a mother and daughter whose world is turned upside down by a pair of manipulative new neighbours. The book brilliantly evokes the 80s without feeling like a period piece, and Sunday is a beautifully written, completely unforgettable main character in this very special book.

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Longlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction 2023

Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods.

Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly - her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home. Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday's book.

Soon they are in and out of each others' homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has precisely what Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.