Author(s): Sarah Hall

General Fiction

An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from 'a writer of show-stopping genius' (Guardian).

'Dark and brilliant.' SARAH MOSS
'A masterpience.' DAISY JOHNSON
'Extraordinary.' SARAH PERRY

'Hall has set a bar . . . Finely wrought, intellecutally brave and emotionally honest.'
THE SCOTSMAN

In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days.

Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world.

'Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn . . . One of the finest writers at work today.'
DAMON GALGUT

'Wonderful . . . The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page.'
ANDREW MILLER

'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers . . . With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to.'
BENJAMIN MYERS

Matilda Bookshop Review

While creating a new work in her industrial-sized warehouse, Burntcoat, a celebrated sculptor is making art on a grand scale out of steel and cladding in reverence to nature, humanity, destruction. With intersecting lines of desire and artmaking, she is living out her final days. A deadly virus has felled her lover, but she writes of their sweet beginnings hunkering down in Burncoat together as the pandemic begins, and then their swift transformation as they become much more than lovers in the short time they are given together. The writing is visceral, the action subtle, as this is really a story of human connection and devastation. Molly