THE CURE FOR SLEEP

Just days into motherhood, a woman begins dying. Fast and without warning.

On return from coma - shaken awake by wild regret - she vows to stop sleepwalking through her life. To live with more courage and connection, like the characters in the fairytales she loved as a small girl, before loss and fear had her retreat into routine and daydreams.

Around the care of young children, she starts to play with the shape and scale of her days: to stray from the path, to get lost in the woods, to make bargains with strangers. As she moves beyond her respectable roles as worker, wife and mother in a small town, she learns what it takes - and costs - to break the spell of longing for love, approval, safety, rescue. It is a painstaking path that will lead her through joy and sorrow to extraordinary people and places.

Tanya Shadrick is founder of The Selkie Press and editor of Wild Woman Swimming by Lynne Roper - a journal of west country waters longlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Prize. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, she is also a sought-after artist in residence who encourages creativity in others.