Things to Make and Mend

This long-awaited first novel from one of Scotland's most admired short story writers tells the story of Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell, school friends whose lives were changed at the age of fifteen by a shocking event. Now in their late thirties, they are estranged, both single mothers, both haunted with memories of their intense friendship. Sally is an embroiderer, a needlewoman (""the homelier sister of Wonderwoman""), who works at In Stitches, a repairs shop in East Grinstead. When she wins an embroidery prize and is invited to a conference in Edinburgh to deliver an embroidery lecture, she has to leave her teenage daughter Pearl alone and step into a new role - lecturer, prize-winner. Rowena Cresswell is in Edinburgh too, helping her son move out of his student accommodation. This beautifully woven, perfectly pitched story of two women caught in the shadow of their teenage years will stay in the hearts of readers long after they put it down.