Another sheep, mangled and bled out, her innards not yet crusting and the vapours rising from her like a steamed pudding ...

For a first sentence, that doesn't pull any punches. This is far and away the most gripping novel that I have read this year (and the best-written, the two don't always go together).

Jake is a young woman with a dark past, now living alone with her flock of sheep on a bleak, un-named island off the west coast of Britain. How did she acquire the terrible scars on her back?

Evie Wyld is an amazingly skilful writer. How rarely one comes across a novel as beautifully structured as this. As she takes you back into Jake's past in Australia, she exercises a masterly control and each time you think, so that's what happened ... you're wrong. Whole-heartedly recommended.