These Dividing Walls
Shortlisted for the 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award

One Parisian summerA building of separate livesAll that divides them will soon collapse... In a forgotten corner of Paris stands a building.Within its walls, people talk and kiss, laugh and cry; some are glad to sit alone, while others wish they did not. A woman with silver-blonde hair opens her bookshop downstairs, an old man feeds the sparrows on his windowsill, and a young mother wills the morning to hold itself at bay. Though each of their walls touches someone else's, the neighbours they pass in the courtyard remain strangers. Into this courtyard arrives Edward. Still bearing the sweat of a channel crossing, he takes his place in an attic room to wait out his grief.But in distant corners of the city, as Paris is pulled taut with summer heat, there are those who meet with a darker purpose. As the feverish metropolis is brought to boiling point, secrets will rise and walls will crumble both within and without Number 37...'Confident and brilliant. She will immerse you in a world I dare you to turn away from.' Lisa O'Donnell, author of The Death of Bees(P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited