Stone Cradle

FROM THE WRITER OF BBC SMASH HIT DRAMA CROSSFIRE

Captivating and beautifully written.' Mirror


From the bestselling author of Apple Tree Yard comes this story of three generations of one Romany family in England, as they face family life, love and marriage along with the changes and upheavals for Travelling people at the turn of the nineteenth century.


Clementina Smith is just a young girl when she gives birth to her illegitimate son, Elijah, in a graveyard in Victorian Cambridgeshire. Others have been put out on the highroad for less, but Clementina's parents stick by her and Elijah grows up greatly loved by his small but tight-knit family. But then he meets Rose, a non-Romany girl.

Based on Louise Doughty's own family history, Stone Cradle is a love triangle between a mother, a son and his wife that asks whether the Romany spirit and traditions can survive as rural Britain moves into the modern world.