Permanence

An all-consuming modern love story from the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure 'Chic, enthralling, utterly plausible... The literary equivalent of a crisp glass of rosé' Sunday Times Clara and Francis are adulterers. For months they have been pursuing a feverishly sensual affair, meeting each other in anonymous hotel rooms. Until one morning they wake in a room neither of them recognises... They find themselves in a parallel world populated entirely by adulterers - a lush and beautiful place dedicated to romance, to pleasure, to true love. The sky outside is painted in perfect, cornflower blue. Fruit grows ripe on the trees each morning and the sun sets in a blaze of pink each night. And as long as Clara and Francis remain here, they will have no one but each other. How do you know when you've found true love? How much would you sacrifice to keep hold of it? And how long can you stay in paradise before the cracks start to show?

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including The Water Cure and Cursed Bread. She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. Her new novel, Permanence, will be published in April 2026.