As read on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. Luke Kanowski is a young playwright: intense, magnetic, fleeing a disastrous upbringing in the North East. Arriving in London, he meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the girl Paul loves.

Luke, Paul and Leigh set up a radical theatre company, living and working together, a connection forged in the smoky late-nights of Chelsea's run-down flats and damp rehearsal rooms above pubs, candlelit during power cuts, where a new generation of writers and directors is fighting for its place. Nina Jacobs is a fragile actress, bullied by her mother and in thrall to a controlling producer. When Luke meets Nina he recognises a soul in danger and loyalty, friendship, everything he has fought for, is drawn into the heat of their collision.

How much must he risk to save her? As Luke ricochets between honesty and deceit, the promise of the future and his own painful past, suddenly the fallout threatens to be immense.