Discover First: Get one of 100 copies of A Family Matter by Claire Lynch before it hits bookshops

One family torn apart by secrets, prejudice and their own best intentions.

It's 2022, and Heron, an old man of quiet habits, has just had the sort of visit to the doctor that turns a life upside down. Sharing the diagnosis with Maggie, his only daughter, seems impossible. Heron just can’t find the words to tell her about it, or any of the other things he’s been protecting her from for so long.

It's 1982, and Dawn is a young wife and mother penned in by the expectations of her time and place. Then Hazel comes into her life like a torch in the dark. It’s the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected. But Dawn has responsibilities, she has commitments: Dawn has Maggie.

A Family Matter is an immersive and tender debut, at once heart-breaking and hopeful, that asks how we might heal from the wounds of the past, and what we might learn from them.

'A wonderful novel: profoundly sad but also absolutely gripping' Mark Haddon

'A beautiful and tender exploration of parental love, prejudice and the things we carry that we don’t even fully understand; the terrible decisions made in ignorance, and the almost unbearable consequences' Rachel Joyce