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. Numb and suspended, she has become estranged from others and from herself.

Then, her online therapist prescribes her the task of writing a letter every day for thirty days. It’s through this act that Lenore begins to excavate her past – who she was, who she became and what grief has made of her. Slowly, a purpose emerges: she will attempt to finish the brutally difficult videogame her teenage son left behind. She can’t explain 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 survival in the aftermath of unthinkable loss, and an ode to the enduring human capacity for connection.

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 April 2027