The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone by Alex McCarthy

A devastating mix of beauty and brutality, McCarthy's sly and disquieting novella presents an unforgettable cast of characters in a fictional Welsh village and the dark secret that lies at the heart of the community.

Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine, the village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet, sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface, tensions simmer, hearts ache, and painful truths threaten to emerge.

Sixteen-year-old Catrin Bone knows only what she has been told. Now, she is beginning to question her small world, and a version of the past that seems to entrap and embitter her reclusive mother, Mary.

Mary had a sister once, a girl of unparalleled beauty. Why did she disappear from the village in a shroud of shame all those years ago - and where is she now?

Meanwhile the Clements brothers, skint and all out of hope, run rampant across the hills and lanes. And old Dai Bevel, whose frailty masks a dark history, dreams of a girl he used to know...

The sins of the past are approaching, for it takes a village: to raise a child, to bring down a woman, to hide something monstrous and to look the other way.

In this tender, sly, exquisitely wrought novella, a unique cast of characters give voice to their versions of the truth. But it is the story of Rosalind Bone, of her strength and of all that she has endured, that rises above the rest, shimmering with hope and possibility...