It’s the blazing-hot summer of 1994, and there’s nothing for Cora Mowat to do but hang around. Stuck in her mom’s claustrophobic house and tired of her own restless mind, she’s desperate to break free of the limits of her bleak small town. After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise. Gunner is kind but strange too—a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy soon strikes, Cora rebels against her provincial existence in search of love, acceptance, and a path to something good. Drawn from experience but written with riotous imagination, Tom Newlands’ heart-piercing novel explores a teenage girl’s coming-of-age in postindustrial Scotland and what it means to yearn for a life that feels out of reach.