One morning Laine wakes up to discover that the man she's been married to for 15 years has been secretively living out a monstrous lie. Her world is tilted on its axis. Now she must unstitch her entire existence, and peck through the pieces of her past, to understand what has brought her to this place.
How much has Merle, her chain-smoking, self-medicated mother played a role in Laine choosing her controlling, manipulative husband? Could her loving but cowardly father, Larry, not have waited longer before he died, to help Laine avoid her tragic mistake?
And then there's the spectre of her magical childhood nanny, Dora Modise, who comes to her in dreams and those long ago memories of pine trees bleeding with wounded birds. Just as Laine thinks she has reached the end of uncovering all the bitter truths, a child appears who demands her attention.
This small, fierce person forces her to see the horror of her world and ignites the tiniest flame of hope within. A brilliant debut novel.
