As children, Hester and Elias were inseparable. Every year, their families would spend the summer together at their beach huts on a wild and windswept sandbank, where the two of them never left each other’s side.

But childhood friendships can stretch and warp as you grow up, and in the summer of 1976, the year they turned 14, Hester did a terrible thing that would shatter both of their lives.

For her 60th birthday, Hester goes back to her family’s beach hut to hide from the husband she wants to leave and the daughters she’s never fully understood. It is here that she finally faces up to what she did that fateful summer, wondering whether it’s ever too late to become the person you were meant to be. And if there’s still a chance of finding Elias again…

From the Costa-shortlisted author of The Other Half of Augusta Hope, All My Mothers and Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly, this is a raw and sweeping novel about the power of a dark secret, the resilience of love and the possibility of redemption.

'Perfect for fans of The Paper Palace, charting imperfect but very human journeys. A wonderful read' JO LEEVERS, author of Tell Me How This Ends

'A beautiful story that exquisitely captures the bittersweet pain of being a teenager in love, and the power of that time in our lives to haunt us down the years. Poignant yet hopeful, with a deliciously subversive sense of humour, this book is as good for the soul as a summer at the seaside.' FRANCES QUINN, author of The Smallest Man

'Impeccable prose and an extraordinary sense of time and place… a revelation. I could not love it more!' JULIETTA HENDERSON, author of The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman

Praise for Joanna Glen:

THE OTHER HALF OF AUGUSTA HOPE:

‘Sure to make you cry’ THE TIMES

‘The most gutsy, endearing and entertaining meditation on the meaning of human existence that you're ever likely to read’ DEBORAH ORR

ALL MY MOTHERS:

‘So beautiful I almost couldn’t bear it, and so moving I was reading through tears’ STACEY HALLS

‘A truly glorious life-affirming book, in which love, hope and friendship trump sorrow’ DINAH JEFFERIES

MAYBE, PERHAPS, POSSIBLY:

'Exquisitely beautiful and so perceptive' JOANNA CANNON

'Fabulous, relaxing, page-turning, dream-inspiring' MIRANDA HART

Joanna Glen read Spanish at the University of London, and went on to become a teacher of English and Spanish, and a school principal. Her debut novel, The Other Half of Augusta Hope, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. She and her husband live in Brighton. The First Act of Summer is her fourth novel.