LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 HWA CROWN AWARDS

'Deeply researched and utterly convincing' Melissa Harrison, Guardian

'Not a word is out of place. Full of understated lyricism ... an exquisite and spellbinding debut' Heather Clark, author of Red Comet

'Luminous ... Helen Bain's prose is exact and alive, and the novel builds with a quietly devastating inexorable force you can't look away from' Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

In the early 1960s, in a small town near Dartmoor, the church bells ring. The people of North Tawton go about their days, catching glimpses of one another's lives.

There's the local GP, who knows more about his patients than he would sometimes prefer. There's the young shop assistant at Kestrels, who understands that the ladies who come there for a new outfit sometimes hope to find a new self. There's the tenant farm labourer who rings the tower bells at the church three times a week, the notes - harmonious and clashing - rippling out across the rooftops of the town.

Amid all these lives, a young couple move into focus. New to the town with their small daughter, they have escaped London for a quieter existence in the thatched house beside the church, Court Green. The life they intend to build here - out of fresh lino tiles, second-hand furniture painted with hearts and flowers, and expertly-cooked suppers for weekend guests - will be a good and happy one.

The Daffodil Days depicts a pivotal year in the marriage of 20th-century literature's most infamous couple, witnessed by the people they lived among. It is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this enigmatic pair, refracted through the rich inner lives of a rural community caught - if only for a moment - in their light.