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The darkly funny new novel from Polari Prize-shortlisted author Crystal Jeans, inspired in part by Dickens' Great Expectations…
It’s 1924, and the village of Skimpole is full of secrets.
When Anastasia’s mother dies, she must move in with ‘the Aunt’ – a writer, too fearsome for a first name, who lives in a dilapidated mansion with her dogs.
But mysteries abound: who wrote the raunchy love letters she discovers in the Aunt’s bedroom, signed ‘Big Willy’? Why do the villagers hate the Aunt so much? And how did Anastasia’s father, who passed before she was born, really die?
When the Aunt’s friends arrive at the house one summer, wreathed in cigarette smoke and an air of debauchery, Anastasia may be closer to finding answers – but the truth will turn her world upside down…
Author: Crystal Jeans
Paperback Published 30 September 2025 336 pages