Bodies of Light

From the acclaimed author of 'Night Waking' comes this beautiful and nuanced historical novel about maternal failures, sibling affection and the everyday savagery of the family...

Ally is intelligent, studious and engaged in an eternal – and losing – battle to gain her mother's approval and affection. Her mother, Elizabeth, is a religious zealot, keener on feeding the poor and saving prostitutes than on embracing the challenges of motherhood. Ally devotes herself to her mother's ambitions, working hard to join the first generation of female doctors. But bitterness and tragedy divide the family, and Ally leaves home to escape the subtle terrors of her childhood and begin a new life in London.

'Bodies of Light' is a profound and provocative book about family, and a radically modern novel with a 19th-century setting. It is a gripping story told with rare precision and tenderness.