The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times

Shortlisted for the 2017 Costa First Novel Award * Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2018 * Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2018 * Longlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. A dark social-realist fairytale, spotlighting the shadowy underside of 1920s England.

Summer 1923: the modern world. Orphaned Lucy Marsh climbs into the back of an old army truck and is whisked off to the woods north of London - a land haunted by the past, where lost souls and monsters conceal themselves in the trees. In a sunlit clearing she meets the 'funny men', a quartet of disfigured ex-soldiers named after Dorothy's companions in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Here are the loved and the damaged, dark forests and darker histories, and the ever-present risk of discovery and violent retribution. Xan Brooks' stunning debut is heartbreaking, disturbing and redemptive.