A novel about the wonder and difficulties of childhood, families and growing up by the author of Hideous Kinky and Love Falls

“A beautiful book, savage and tender by turns ... attending to Esther Freud's still, truthful voice becomes not only a pleasure but a necessity” Jonathan Coe

“Wonderful ... Freud has a precious and remarkable gift for creating fictional children. She is infinitely patient with the subtle differences between the worlds of children and adults, and her descriptions of the collisions between them are hauntingly beautiful” The Times

Nine-year-old Tess has never seen anything like The Wild.

An old bakery, converted into a home, it has a fireplace big enough to sit in, a garden with a badminton net and another one for vegetables. And then there’s William, its owner. Single father of three, he cooks homemade ravioli, cuts trees down with a chainsaw and plays the guitar. When her mother, Francine, rents two rooms from him, Tess can hardly believe her luck.

Her brother Jake, however, proves harder to convince. As the two grown-ups begin to fall for each other, Tess struggles to please the adults as well as win Jake round. But she finds that good intentions don’t always bring happiness and that adults are disturbingly capable of making mistakes...