A finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Fiction, discover this year’s most uplifting and heart-warming debut* ‘Absolutely gorgeous’ RUTH WARE ‘The most heartfelt read of the summer’ SHONDALAND ‘A joyful, uplifting read!’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A captivating debut’ HEIDI SWAIN A faded list. Nine favourite stories. For two strangers, friendship is only a page away . . . When Mukesh Patel pops to the local library, forgoing his routine of grocery shopping and David Attenborough documentaries, he has no idea his life’s about to change. He meets Aleisha, a reluctant librarian and the keeper of a curious reading list – just a scrappy piece of paper with the names of 9 stories. It doesn’t seem anything special. Yet something tells her to keep it close . . . Story by story, Mukesh and Aleisha work their way through the list – their worries slipping away with every encounter, with every world discovered in their unlikely book club of two. A fresh chance at life, at friendship, wasn’t on the cards for these lonely souls – but every story starts somewhere . . .