Cara is a dedicated neuroscientist with a research post at Cambridge. Heather is her almost-stepdaughter, drifting towards the end of school, trying to picture a future that fits her. Paul is Cara’s partner and Heather’s father – and when he suddenly disappears with no explanation, these two very different women, legally and biologically unrelated, need to figure out their place in each other’s life.

Set in Cambridge and Las Vegas, each city in its way as artificial as the other, Pathways is about connections forged and connections failed, and how people struggle to understand themselves and each other. A novel of both the heart and the head, it is perceptive, wry and unexpectedly moving, a love story of deep originality and intelligence.