The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage - not a notorious woman on the run from her past.
But seandals follow like hunting dogs.
And she has some questions of her own to anewer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?
Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea, but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did
-and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding any peace.
Like the best novelists, John Boyne shines a light in dark places and forces us to confront the many conflicting truths which contribute to the boundless complexity that is human nature.