Rebecca Watson

''Profoundly moving, funny and beautifully written.'' Michael Magee ''Completely immersive.'' Natasha Brown ''Exceptional and startling.'' Colin BarrettIt wasn’t just the being hurt, it was the endlessness of it, us misfiring without break without end without rest, unable to peacefully be in the same place. It’s been six years since Rosa stopped talking to her brother. And now it’s too late: too late to forgive, too late to make amends. But her brother had tried, hadn’t he? With him gone, Rosa must look back at the years of silence, at everything she has long held as true. As she gathers together the pieces her brother left behind, their shared history curves into a question mark. Who was her brother? What was the other side of the story? ‘A one-of-a-kind storyteller.’ ObserverFrom the acclaimed author of little scratch, this is a moving, powerfully honest novel about how we love, how we grieve and how we forgive.

little scratch tells the story of a day in the life of an unnamed woman, living in a lower-case world of demarcated fridge shelves and office politics; clock-watching and WhatsApp notifications. In a voice that is fiercely wry, touchingly delicate and increasingly neurotic, the protagonist relays what it takes to get through the quotidian detail of that single trajectory - from morning to night - while processing recent sexual violence. little scratch is about the coexistence of monotony with our waking, intelligent lives. It is a powerful evocation of how the external and internal aspects of our lives exist in a helix, and what it means to live out the course of a single day consumed by trauma. 'Wry, funny and heartbreaking.' Sophie Mackintosh 'little scratch is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told.' Meena Kandasamy 'Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion... daring and completely readable.' Colin Barrett 'little scratch is a little miracle... impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it.' Alan Trotter 'Confident and vital... little scratch is an absolute gift.' Naoise Dolan

little scratch tells the story of a day in the life of an unnamed woman, living in a lower-case world of demarcated fridge shelves and office politics; clock-watching and WhatsApp notifications. In a voice that is fiercely wry, touchingly delicate and increasingly neurotic, the protagonist relays what it takes to get through the quotidian detail of that single trajectory - from morning to night - while processing recent sexual violence. little scratch is about the coexistence of monotony with our waking, intelligent lives. It is a powerful evocation of how the external and internal aspects of our lives exist in a helix, and what it means to live out the course of a single day consumed by trauma. 'little scratch is a story that is urgent. It is a story that needs to be told.' Meena Kandasamy 'Reads like the cinders settling in the air after an explosion... daring and completely readable.' Colin Barrett 'little scratch is a little miracle... impossible to read it and not wish there were more books like it.' Alan Trotter 'Confident and vital... little scratch is an absolute gift.' Naoise Dolan