How do you recover from something like that? Carol never quite does. Sent to live with her aunt, who barely tolerates her presence, Carol is grief-stricken, and all too aware she’s not wanted. Desperate for love, but unable to ask for it, she nonetheless – and almost despite herself – finds it where she least expected. Her Uncle Joey is the only one to notice her when she’s a teenager; years later, he’s also the man with whom she builds a home and a life. But when Carol helps to rescue a young refugee from the sea, that life suddenly threatens to unravel, just as surely as it did when she was thirteen.

Written in tight, spare prose, Little Monsters is a novel of creation, redemption and obsession; it’s also the story of what it’s like to experience the unthinkable – and what happens next.

'Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer' Beryl Bainbrdge

'Sharp like sherbert, poignant and gripping' Griff Rhys Jones

'With exquisitely tender writing and quiet authority, Little Monsters is a powerful debut' Jill Dawson