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“Sarah Lean weaves magic and emotion into beautiful stories.”
Cathy Cassidy
“Touching, reflective and lyrical.” Culture supplement,
The Sunday Times
“… beautifully written and moving. A talent to watch.”
The Bookseller
“Sarah Lean’s graceful, miraculous writing will have you weeping one moment and rejoicing the next.”
Katherine Applegate, author of The One and Only Ivan
For Edward, who filmed our home and showed me his point of view … and the cat’s
Table of Contents Praise for Sarah Lean 1. GRANDAD DRAWS THE OARS INTO THE BOAT as we coast on the glassy water until we nudge into the bank. We both have our fingers over our lips, not to tell each other to be quiet, because we are, but because we think alike. I don’t know what Grandad has seen, I only know to trust him. “Can you see it, Hannah?” Grandad whispers. The dappled and striped shadows are barely moving in the golden September evening and I can’t see anything in the jumble of grasses and reeds. I shake my head. “Keep looking,” Grandad whispers. I follow his eyes, but it takes me a long while to spot the fawn, curled up and waiting. Its skin is hardly any different from the landscape around it. I can see the glisten of its black nose, but it knows to stay still, to be safe. Once I see it, it stands out a mile. I whisper, “Is the fawn all right on its own, Grandad?” He nods his head towards another curve of the bank. A deer is looking at us, anxious because she doesn’t want to draw attention to her fawn, who is separated from her by a channel of
