The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home – twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone – to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.

Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defence against the coming climate catastrophe. Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing, setting them on a collision course with each other.

Isa has long suspected that her father thought only of himself, and hopes to seek out her childhood love, who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage.

And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they’ve built their lives.

The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home—twenty bedrooms of carved Sussex sandstone—to bury Philip: husband, father, and the blinding sun around which they have orbited their entire lives.

Eldest daughter Frannie, inheritor of a thousand acres of English countryside, has dreams of rewilding and returning the estate to nature: a last line of defense against the coming climate catastrophe. Her brother Milo envisages a treetop haven for the super-rich where, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, a new ruling class will be reborn. Each believes their father has given them his blessing, setting them on a collision course with each other.

Isa, Philip’s estranged youngest child, only hopes to reconnect with her childhood love who still lives on the estate, to discover whether it is her feelings for him that are creating the fault lines in her marriage.

And then there is Clara, who arrives in their midst from America, shrouded in secrets and bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they’ve built their lives.

Beautifully layered and utterly compelling, Anna Hope’s multigenerational saga is a bold, brilliant, and deeply contemporary examination of family dynamics, colonial legacies, and class, set against the backdrop of the climate crisis.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BALLROOM AND EXPECTATION 'Poetic, philosophical and wildly captivating... I swam in this book and didn't want to come up for air' Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals and Adults ___________________ They are separating, she and her husband, after two decades together. This fact is new. Only really a fact for a few weeks or so. Before that it was a possibility - one potential outcome among many. But now it appears to be, unequivocally, the case. There are many ways of telling the tale ... There are many different sides to every story ... The White Rock stands, ancient and sacred, off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Four people, across four centuries, each navigating ruptures to the world they know, are irresistibly drawn to it. A British writer travels in 2020 with her husband and young daughter to give thanks for the birth of their child. She looks to the White Rock for answers, even as her faith in her marriage, and the future itself, is unravelling. An American rock star in 1969 is in the final act of his self-destruction. On the run from the law, from his rabid fans and an America burning with the fever of the Vietnam War, he washes up at the edge of Mexico, hoping to lose, or maybe find himself. A Yoeme girl is torn from her homeland at the turn of the twentieth century and taken by force to the coast. As her future is recast in the name of progress and power, she turns to the stories of her people, to resist, and to survive. And in 1775 a young Spanish naval officer, preparing to set sail from the White Rock to continue the conquest of the Pacific coast, appears to lose his grip on reality, with far-reaching and fatal consequences. And as they each find themselves at the end of the story they have lived by, their tales echo, breathtakingly, through time . . . ___________________ 'So bold and wild, but controlled and fierce. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, but it's very much itself. Stunning' Russell T. Davies, writer of It's A Sin 'Absolutely a story for our times, and a fiercely important one, too' Clover Stroud, author of The Red of my Blood 'I loved it . . . It is full of wisdom, intricate and emotional, and it will linger in my head for a long time' Dave Haslam, author of Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor

What happened to the women we were supposed to become?

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry – and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends.

Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?

The most razor-sharp and heartbreaking novel of the year, EXPECTATION is a novel about finding your way: as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a rebel.

FOR FANS OF SALLY ROONEY, My Sister the Serial Killer, DOLLY ALDERTON, ELIZABETH DAY AND FLEABAG

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BALLROOM AND EXPECTATION 'Poetic, philosophical and wildly captivating... I swam in this book and didn't want to come up for air' Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals and Adults ___________________ They are separating, she and her husband, after two decades together. This fact is new. Only really a fact for a few weeks or so. Before that it was a possibility - one potential outcome among many. But now it appears to be, unequivocally, the case. There are many ways of telling the tale ... There are many different sides to every story ... The White Rock stands, ancient and sacred, off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Four people, across four centuries, each navigating ruptures to the world they know, are irresistibly drawn to it. A British writer travels in 2020 with her husband and young daughter to give thanks for the birth of their child. She looks to the White Rock for answers, even as her faith in her marriage, and the future itself, is unravelling. An American rock star in 1969 is in the final act of his self-destruction. On the run from the law, from his rabid fans and an America burning with the fever of the Vietnam War, he washes up at the edge of Mexico, hoping to lose, or maybe find himself. A Yoeme girl is torn from her homeland at the turn of the twentieth century and taken by force to the coast. As her future is recast in the name of progress and power, she turns to the stories of her people, to resist, and to survive. And in 1775 a young Spanish naval officer, preparing to set sail from the White Rock to continue the conquest of the Pacific coast, appears to lose his grip on reality, with far-reaching and fatal consequences. And as they each find themselves at the end of the story they have lived by, their tales echo, breathtakingly, through time . . . ___________________ 'So bold and wild, but controlled and fierce. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, but it's very much itself. Stunning' Russell T. Davies, writer of It's A Sin 'Absolutely a story for our times, and a fiercely important one, too' Clover Stroud, author of The Red of my Blood 'I loved it . . . It is full of wisdom, intricate and emotional, and it will linger in my head for a long time' Dave Haslam, author of Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor

The unputdownable historical novel by the acclaimed and bestselling author of WAKE and EXPECTATION: a devastating story of love and madness at the brink of the Great War. 'Absolutely heart-breaking. One of the best books I've ever read' DINAH JEFFERIES, author of The Tea-Planter's Wife 'Compelling, elegant, insightful' OBSERVER 1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows, there is a ballroom vast and beautiful. For one bright evening every week they come together and dance. When John and Ella meet it is a dance that will change two lives forever. Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM tells a rivetting tale of dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which. It is a love story like no other. ***************************************** Praise for Anna Hope's The Ballroom: 'Beautifully wrought, tender, heartbreaking' Sunday Express 5/5 'Moving, fascinating' Times 'A tender and absorbing love story' Daily Mail 'Unsentimental and affecting' Sunday Times 'Exquisitely good' Metro 'Absolutely fantastic . . . I'm in real awe of her writing' ELIZABETH MACNEAL, author of The Doll Factory ______________