'Some people are your family, no matter when you find them, and some people are not, even if you are laid, still wet and crumpled, in their arms.' Elizabeth Taube, shy, chubby, isolated from parents who are as remote as planets, has to take love where she finds it: at the sweet counter in Frank's Five and Dime; in the mirror at Furs by Klein, where Mr Klein watches as she tries on his coats; and in the longing gaze of Max Stone, her married English teacher. Then love captures her completely in the person of Huddie Lester. It takes Elizabeth, Huddie and the others whose lives intertwine with theirs into places where they never expected to be and into unknown parts of themselves. 'Bloom writes with delicacy, wit and gut-wrenching power about the messy complexities of love, loss and damage' Christina Patterson, Observer 'Amy Bloom knows who to plug a heartstring, how to bring emotions to life on the page' Cressida Connolly, Literary Review 'Bloom moves her prose along with exquisite wit and energy, phrases chinking musically against each other, scenes swerving scarily round corners' Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday 'An extremely moving, personal, almost nostalgic view of love and the body, its beautifully textured descriptions are both reassuringly accurate and disturbingly suggestive' Lesley McDowell, Scotland on Sunday