Absorbing, lyrical, vivid and compulsively readable – The Heart is a Star is beautiful storytelling from a talented new writer. A novel for fans of Holly Ringland, Jacqueline Maley, Hannah Richell.

Layla Byrnes is exhausted. She’s juggling a demanding job as an anaesthetist, a disintegrating marriage, her young kids, and a needy lover. And most particularly she’s managing her histrionically unstable mother, who repeatedly threatens to kill herself.

But this year, it’s different. When her mother rings just before Christmas, she doesn’t follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there’s something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father. In response, Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania. She’s determined to finally confront her mother – and find out what really happened to her father – and lay some demons to rest.

The Heart is a Star is an engrossing, lyrical and