The Pretty Lily

Bethan has spent years keeping the past buried. As an administrator in local government, she is good at systems, at process, at moving things forward. But when she is sent to persuade an old man to give up his home for a regeneration project, something begins to crack.

Memories she has long ignored start to surface, of a girl called Lily, of laughter that was never kind, and of a moment in childhood she has never allowed herself to examine. As the days pass, the boundaries between her ordered present and her unresolved past begin to blur.

In a town where old men are disappearing without explanation, Bethan finds herself caught between the machinery of progress and the quiet, insistent pull of memory. Some things, once disturbed, do not settle easily.

A haunting novella about complicity, the weight of the past, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to keep going.

Readers who enjoy the work of W.G. Sebald, Jon McGregor, Claire Keegan, and Carys Davies may find something to appreciate here.