Second Lives

FROM THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF HUNGRY GHOSTS

'Beautiful. A layered and intricate puzzle box of a novel ... I will be thinking about it for a long time' Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

Lenore hasn’t left the house in months. She lives in darkness, ignoring calls, surviving on delivered groceries and sending her sister proof of life updates in the form of a daily Wordle score. She is numb, suspended, estranged from others and from herself.

Then, her online therapist sets her a task: to write a letter a day for thirty days. She can write about anything, to anyone, so long as she feels the words. Through this act, Lenore begins to unravel her past - who she was, who she became and what grief has made of her. Slowly, a purpose emerges: to finish the brutally difficult videogame her teenage son left behind. She doesn’t know why, only that completing it feels like a way back to meaning and, perhaps eventually, to the living.

Lyrical, devastating and fiercely original, Second Lives is a story of healing and survival in the aftermath of unthinkable loss.

PRAISE FOR HUNGRY GHOSTS: 'An astonishing novel' Bernadine Evaristo 'Deeply impressive' Hilary Mantel 'Hosein is a new enormous giant of fiction' Daisy Johnson '[A] sumptuous, brilliantly written novel' The Times

© 2027 Bloomsbury Publishing (Audiobook): 9781037207631

Release date

Audiobook: 20 May 2027