From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER comes MOTHER'S BOY, a superb historical novel of Cornwall, class, desire and two world wars

'A celebration of love in hidden places, and love in ordinary places, and the courage required to be true to the person you are, when there is no road map to guide you. Sublime' Rachel Joyce

Laura is a young laundress, struggling to bring up her adored son, Charles, in a country still shadowed by war. Fiercely independent and recently widowed, she vows to do everything for her child, but gradually becomes aware that he is too gifted to ever be happy.


As a young adult, Charles briefly escapes the gossipy confines of his town and signs up to be a coder in the Navy. There, amid the violence of a new war, he relishes friendships - and love - of a kind he could never have found at home. Yet even as he tastes delicious liberty, he senses it will be lost with the return of peace.


MOTHER'S BOY is the tender, illuminating story of a well-loved poet, and a beautifully drawn evocation of the relationship between a mother and her son.


'A wonderfully tender account of a poet's coming of age. Patrick Gale is a master of atmosphere, detail and the deep currents of latent passion' Philip Marsden

'His women shine as brightly as the men, his characters age and grow by themselves, alive in their actions, hopes and losses' Stella Duffy