SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE

For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, a richly atmospheric debut about lost innocence and rural America...

'Remarkable. This novel reads like a miracle' NPR

'Brimming with longing, with heartbreak' New York Times

Jude is popular, beautiful, wealthier than most in Deep Valley. Cindy is Jude's neighbour - younger, poorer, a kid from the kind of family everyone knows will come to no good. Jude is black and Cindy is white.

One summer, Jude disappears. Search parties go out but come back empty-handed and strangely pleased. Jude thought she was better than everyone else. Look at her now. Meanwhile Cindy is performing a vanishing act of her own. She is slipping out of her old life and into someone else's. She is becoming Jude...

'Lyrical, sexy, humane, and just a total pleasure to read' Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

'One of the most exquisitely written books I've read in a long time. A haunting novel about craving escape so badly you're willing to erase yourself, by a writer I would follow anywhere' Julie Buntin, author of Marlena