Two families. Seven days. One house.

Angela and her brother Richard have spent twenty years avoiding each other. Now, after the death of their mother, they bring their families together for a holiday in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours.

Once again Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother, has written a novel that is funny, poignant and deeply insightful about human lives.