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Grace tells the story of Peterman, an inmate at Greenwood Walls secure hospital, whose dramatic escape leaves him seriously injured, lost in the snow. Half-delirious, he encounters an old woman and a young girl who live deep in the nearby forest. Peterman stays with them as he convalesces, and an extraordinary relationship develops between the three tragically damaged people, until circumstances propel Peterman and the Girl back to the harsh world of the city. For Peterman, the Girl represents all the love, trust and beauty that has been missing from his life – she represents his second, and last, chance. How could he possibly survive her loss and to what lengths will he go to prevent it? In luminous, lyrical prose, Alex Pheby has created a powerful tale of love, danger and madness, in a world on the fringes of reality. With the urgency of hyper-realism and the rich strangeness of a fairy tale, Grace is an unforgettable work of literary fiction.

'A world evocative of Grimm and Kafka, and furnished by Freud... Pheby's style conjures Penelope Fitzgerald, Angela Carter and A.S. Byatt... This is an accomplished fable of how we are all constantly struggling to escape our histories and reach a state of grace.' Scottish Review of Books

'A lyrical tale that suggests Pheby is an author to keep an eye on.'
Scott Pack, The Friday Project

'The descriptive passages are beautiful, characterisation is gloriously strange and whilst the plot is relatively small in its scale, it is not simple. When viewed as a whole, the novel has a mesmerising, unsettling quality that might be considered quite rare in this age of supposed "lowest common denominator" publishing.' Lisa Glass, Vulpes Libris.

'Vividly realistic and increasingly surreal ... a poignant study of loss and the ensuing madness of grief.' Marcia Jarnell, Lizzy's Literary Life.