Patrick Carey

There's an older woman who's escaped a 48-year abusive relationship, I think.

and also a woman of African heritage who's trying to win custody of her children.

So we are kind of getting this spectrum of different experiences that not only inform our understanding of Katie's situation, but also kind of give us this holistic understanding of what domestic violence can feel like for different people, for different women.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that Moore's trying to do with this sort of complicated structure, and to be clear, it's not complicated to read, it reads quite well, but with this sort of interlocking structure, is try and reflect the fact that domestic abuse is...

violent situations are never simple.

They're complicated.

They involve human beings who are multi-level and multifaceted and who are not just bad or good.

They are, you know, yeah, definitely Shades of Grey play a big role in this book.

It's also set in the north of England, so it feels quite great to read, I must say.

Yeah, I mean, that's another great thing.

I think another wonderful thing about this book is

by giving voice to all of these women that have experienced domestic violence in sort of nuanced and individual ways, you sort of get the impression that everyone outside the women's refuge is against the women on the inside.

And I think that's a very, very, that's a very pointed decision by Moore because I think she's trying to do two things.

One, she's trying to recreate the experience of a domestic violence survivor, which is this constant paranoia, this constant feeling of, is he going to be just around the corner?

Is he coming to find me?

And beyond that, I think she's also trying to, in a metaphoric way, illustrate how the system, the social systems, legal systems, are very much against these women and make life difficult for these women even after they've escaped their abusers.

The connective tissue between all these characters is that they're very unsurprised by the situation that they're in.

They're not shocked.

They're not really sort of thinking, how did I get here?

They're kind of jaded in the way that the cop is, in a way.