The Spoiled Heart

An impossible love, an unthinkable loss, and the desire to make a better world: discover a thrilling new state-of-the-nation novel with a family mystery at its heart

'Gripping... irresistible... brilliant' The Times 'A plot-packed, propulsive story' New York Times 'Perfectly judged and intimately alive' Guardian 'Will consume any reader' Washington Post

Nayan Olak hasn't risked love since his young son died. Instead he has ploughed his grief and energy into his work at the union, trying to create the world he would have wanted for his boy. Now he's running for the leadership: a huge moment for Nayan, the culmination of everything he believes. But as he grows closer to the mysterious Helen Fletcher, and to the possibility that their pasts may have been connected, much more is suddenly threatened than his chances of winning.

A magnificent and multi-layered account of one man's inexorable fall, The Spoiled Heart is an explosively contemporary story of secrets and assumptions whose consequences could never have been imagined.

'Thoughtful, searching... a novel at once Shakespearean and thrillingly of our time' Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different

'Fearlessly contemporary and flawlessly observed... one of our essential novelists' Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs