Life can change in a spilt second. And nothing you can do will stop it.
A girl’s life hangs in the balance. A marriage is driven to breaking point. When the unimaginable happens, who can you turn to?
As a London suburb reels from riots in neighbouring Brixton, Graham Jones finds fatherhood an increasingly frightening place. How can he hope to protect his daughter Judy when the world is already so different from the one he grew up in?
But the future holds more fear than he can possibly imagine. One afternoon, a wall collapses, burying thirteen-year-old Judy beneath it. Rescuers who recover her shattered body from the rubble are amazed. “She’s alive,” they tell her shaking mother, Elaine. “And we’ll do everything we can to keep her that way.”
With Judy’s life hanging in the balance, Graham’s anxieties seem trivial. The unimaginable has happened. Who can he turn to? While his wife puts her trust in medics, Graham’s answer is to do something he’s never done before. He goes in search of the hospital chapel, gets down on his knees and prays. And in his desperation he isn’t beyond bargaining.
When Judy defies medical predictions, Graham tells anyone who is willing to listen about his ‘miracle girl’. Elaine is living with the constant grip of fear that comes with caring for a seriously injured child. She knows this is a tough label for any teenager to live up to, let alone one who’s battling physical and psychological scars.
But we all of us live on a knife edge. And things are about to get far, far worse. Judy claims to be seeing visions. But are these apparitions delusion, deception or divine?
As their story is exposed to public speculation, Elaine is increasingly at odds with her husband. Under siege from the press, pushed to breaking point by the onslaught of miracle-seekers who set up camp outside their house, she gives in to her yearning for escape and seeks solace in the arms of strangers.
Refusing to be drawn into her parents’ emotional tug-of-war, Judy is adamant. She must tread her own path. Wherever it takes her.
With the trademark elegance and profound thoughtfulness one expects from this award-winning author, this emotionally-charged novel will make you reflect on belief, faith and the enduring power of love.
awesome indies
Davis is a phenomenal writer. And this is a coming of age story like no other.
compulsion reads
Davis has a light touch. She writes with subtlety and nuance. And she does that most important of things, something many writers of literary fiction fail to do, she tells a good story.
Angelica Reads
