A stunningly powerful novel of love and suffering for fans of Anita Shreve and Rosie Thomas.
It is a wild and terrible night when Madeline Light sets eyes on Flynn Brennan, out in the North Sea trying to help the survivors of a devastating oil-rig disaster. Weeks later, the same man appears at her door. A war photographer, he can no longer work, locked in his memories of one trip in particular. Unable to access his creativity, he is gradually shutting down and shutting out those he loves: his wife, his teenage children. Madeline is a trauma therapist and Flynn believes she can heal him. He begs her to help.
Madeline lives a carefully ordered, calm life with her sculptor partner, Patrick, and Flynn's arrival is an unwanted interruption. But despite her hostility, she breaks her rules and takes him on. And as she struggles with this proud, difficult, passionate man, with whom she feels an extraordinary connection, she finds that she, too, must face up to her own demons from the past - and start to heal - even as she faces up to her present and her feelings for Flynn.