“A writer should never mark the page with their own tears.” — Richard Flanagan

The Bradshaws suggests an extraordinary civilisation that existed long before modern man reached the British Isles.

I had long wanted to write a love story, and I had long - wisely, I felt - shirked the challenge because I felt it the hardest story of all to write.

We like love - we love love - but perhaps its only meaning lies in its ubiquitous meaninglessness. We apprehend it, we feel it, and we think we know it, yet we cannot say what we mean by it.

Of all the love stories ever published, I have - realistically - read very few.