Publisher's Synopsis
Lila Grey reads fortunes from tea leaves. But there is one thing she can't bear to see, and that is the symbol for pregnancy. When it is revealed in Rae Perry's cup, Lila never ever wants to have contact with her again.
Disillusioned and pregnant by a man she no longer trusts, Rae turns in loneliness to Lila. Unable to escape, Lila is forced to face the younger woman, and to reach into the past and come to terms with her own secret shameful pregnancy and the baby she lost.
'Confident, powerful, lush, rich, vivid and sharp . . . It is in its juxtaposition of the mythic, the apocalyptic, with the resolutely ordinary, in its portrait of eccentric characters living in a very familiar world, that this novel finds its unique voice' New York Times
'Extremely moving' Daily Telegraph
'Aglow with natural magic . . . [Hoffman] observes clearly the cruelties people inflict on one another in and out of love' New Statesman
