Ailsa is eighteen and ready for anything, until she hears that her father raped a schoolgirl.
At eighteen and saddled with a needy and secretive mother, Ailsa already has a lot on her plate. But it’s the discovery that her father Tom, an art teacher, raped one of his pupils, that sends her off on the wrong path - and with the wrong man. Fishmonger Ian introduces her to the joy of sex but is never a long-term plan. She goes on to make a play for his friend, man-about-town Andy but gets a body blow when he turns out to know more about her family’s past than she does. Ailsa takes off for Edinburgh and tries to lose herself in the company of shady art dealer Shane, but when he turns out to have a crony who once knew her father, she find herself once again fishing for clues about Tom.
Moving from the east coast of Fife to the art galleries of Edinburgh, this is a novel about family secrets, the gravitational pull of sex, and how we deal with things we’d rather not know.
Completed novel, revised.