Young academic Talissa Adam believes she is simply carrying a child for a grateful family, but the baby inside her is different from any living human.

The boy, Seth, grows up unaware, though his parents not that he’s different: he can’t make plans, is unaware of danger and seems to have at least one extra sense. But as Seth becomes a man, the truth about him is revealed and the world starts to hunt him down.

‘An unsettling book from one of our most popular novelists; it’s also one of his best’  Financial Times

‘His greatest novel yet' Antony Beehor

'Profoundly moving . . . a wonderful and life-affirming love story' James Holland

‘Faulks is an enviably graceful and economical writer’ Guardian