Excerpt from A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

There had also been a photograph of Mr. Orchard standing beside a little boy. The boy was sitting at a table eating his breakfast; you could tell it was breakfast because there was a jar of Shirriff's marmalade on the table—Clara could just make out the label. Mr. Orchard had a tea towel folded neatly over his arm and a platter heaped with food (Clara had studied it closely and decided it was sausages and bacon, which would fit with it being breakfast) rested on the tea towel. Mr. Orchard was standing very upright and stiff, looking down at the little boy, who was looking up at him and grinning a huge grin. Clara had asked Mrs. Orchard if the boy was her son and Mrs. Orchard had said no, they hadn't had any children, he was a neighbour's son, but she and Mr. Orchard had loved him very much. Is it your favourite photo? Clara had asked, and Mrs. Orchard smiled at her and said they were all her favourites. But Clara suspected that wasn't true because Mrs. Orchard had taken that photo plus the one of Mr. Orchard in the flowery doorway with her when she went into hospital, Clara had noticed they were missing straight away. If you were only going to take two photos you'd take your favourites.

The strange man had stooped over now and was examining the photos. "Don't touch any of them," Clara whispered fiercely, but as if he had heard her and was being deliberately disobedient he immediately picked one up. Clara's fingers clenched tight. "It's not yours!" she said out loud. He was studying one in a wooden frame. From its location Clara thought it might be the one of Mr. and Mrs. Orchard together but she wasn't sure—it might have been the one of Mrs. Orchard's sister, Miss Godwin, who had lived alone in the house before Mrs. Orchard had come to live with her, and who had died a few years ago.

The man put the photograph back on the sideboard with the others. He stood for a minute more, looking at them, then turned and went out of the room and out of the house. 

Clara ran back to the front window—you could see Mrs. Orchard's driveway more clearly from there. For a moment she thought he was leaving but then he went around to the back of the car, opened the trunk and lifted out one of the boxes. One after another he unloaded them, two from the trunk and two from the back seat, and took them into Mrs. Orchard's living room and put them on the floor. At first Clara had the encouraging thought that they might be full of things for Mrs. Orchard (though what would she want that was so heavy and took up so much room?) and having delivered them he would now get back into his car and drive away. But instead he did something that wasn't encouraging at all: he took out a suitcase

Excerpted from A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson. Copyright © 2021 by Mary Lawson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.