Stone Cradle

**A BIRD IN WINTER - THE GRIPPING NEW NOVEL FROM LOUISE DOUGHTY - AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW** FROM THE WRITER OF BBC SMASH HIT DRAMA CROSSFIRE Captivating and beautifully written.' Mirror From the bestselling author of Apple Tree Yard comes this story of three generations of one Romany family in England, as they face family life, love and marriage along with the changes and upheavals for Travelling people at the turn of the nineteenth century. Clementina Smith is just a young girl when she gives birth to her illegitimate son, Elijah, in a graveyard in Victorian Cambridgeshire. Others have been put out on the highroad for less, but Clementina's parents stick by her and Elijah grows up greatly loved by his small but tight-knit family. But then he meets Rose, a non-Romany girl. Based on Louise Doughty's own family history, Stone Cradle is a love triangle between a mother, a son and his wife that asks whether the Romany spirit and traditions can survive as rural Britain moves into the modern world.

Louise Doughty's novels include Platform Seven, recently filmed for ITV; Black Water, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; the bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which was adapted for BBC One; and Whatever You Love, nominated for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for fiction. She has been nominated for many other prizes including the Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the CWA Silver Dagger, along with creating and writing the hit BBC drama Crossfire. Her work has been translated into thirty languages. She lives in London.