Perfect

Byron Hemmings wakes to a morning that looks like any other: his school uniform draped over his wooden desk chair, his sister arguing over the breakfast cereal, the click of his mother's heels as she crosses the kitchen. But when the three of them leave home, driving into a dense summer fog, the morning takes an unmistakable turn. In one terrible moment, something happens, something completely unexpected and at odds with life as Byron understands it. While his mother seems not to have noticed, for eleven-year-old Byron nothing can ever be the same.- - What happened and who is to blame? Over the days and weeks that follow, Byron's perfect world is shattered. Unable to trust his parents, he confides in his best friend, James, and together they concoct a plan. . . . - As she did in her debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has imagined bewitching characters who find their ordinary lives unexpectedly thrown into chaos, who learn that there are times when children must become parents to their parents, and who discover that in confronting the hard truths about their pasts, they will forge unexpected relationships that have profound and surprising impacts. Brimming with love, forgiveness, and redemption, Perfect will cement Rachel Joyce's reputation as one of fiction's brightest talents. - Praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - “[Rachel] Joyce's beguiling debut is [a] modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary' English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”—People (four stars) - “[A] gorgeously poignant novel of hope and transformation.”—O: The Oprah Magazine - “A moving story about an ordinary man on an extraordinary journey.”—Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank - “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is not just a book about lost love. It is about all the wonderful everyday things Harold discovers through the mere process of putting one foot in front of the other.”—The New York Times - “[Rachel Joyce] has a lovely sense of the possibilities of redemption. . . . She's cleared space where miracles are still possible.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post