Friendship and first love. Full of pathos and threaded with vibrant mathematical imagery. For fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss.

“Bring Kara here, to my new life, and see what colour she will paint it.”

Newly out of prison, Alec hides from his past in music and a white-walled flat. His dry humour makes the grey monotony of life on a council estate just about bearable. Then a chance discovery of a young woman’s mathematics textbook takes him back to the late 1990s, when he arrived at university determined to become someone more interesting.

First, he befriended Phil, full of drama and flair. 

Then he fell in love with Kara.

For Kara, patterns and theorems were both a refuge and a living, dancing world that could explain everything. The ‘x’s and ‘y’s of mathematics were so much easier to calculate than Alec and his reckless best friend. But as logic and emotion collided, her life would spiral out of control

Now the textbook’s owner keeps turning up at Alec’s flat. She reminds him of Kara—and of the question he has spent years avoiding: how much of what happened to her was actually his fault?

From the author of Helen and the Grandbees; shortlisted for Best Fiction Audiobook production at the 2026 Audio Production Awards.

Praise for Helen and the Grandbees:

“Engaging and uplifting” — Daily Mail

“Breathtaking and moving” — Awais Khan