How to Find Your Way Home

There's me, standing at the open bathroom window again, the ladder up against it, so close I can touch it, a figure halfway up it. There's a storm brewing. I can feel the wind picking up, the air growing cooler; I can sense it rolling in from the estuary, across the marsh edge-lands before me, which lie under a blanket of leaden sky, the dark clouds contrasting with the grass, making it seem a brighter green, like a football pitch under floodlights. And now the swifts . . . I can hear their screams from far away, but getting nearer. They are just black dots at first, but then their scythe-shaped wings come into focus, and soon they're so close I can make out their individual feathers. They come thick and fast, a black cloud, flying past the ladder and into the bathroom, as if fleeing from the storm. The wind is making the ladder shudder, the glass of the open window shake. "Stop!" scream the swifts. "You're going to kill him." Then the ladder falls backward, in slow motion. An almighty thud as something hits the ground. The figure at the bottom now, blood seeping from a wound I can't see. I watch it, spilling outward, spreading over the marshes, turning the hay russet like the fur of a wounded animal, creeping like a trickling brook, out toward the sea.

"STORK"

Canvey Island, Essex

1987

Whoosh! Stephen woke to the sound of his bedroom curtains being pulled open.

"Well, Stevie, you've got a new sister," Dad said. "Emily Adele Nelson-born three hours ago. She's absolutely perfect."

Stephen pulled himself up on his pillows, his legs jiggling already, his chest feeling as if something was trying to get out, he was so excited.

Outside, the sky was gold and pink over Canvey Marshes, and there was a beam of sun across his duvet cover. The birds were singing, too, but extra loud, as if it were a special hello to the baby: Welcome to your first day in the world!

Four days later, Stephen stood at the front room window with Grandma Paradiso,

Katy Regan was brought up in a seaside town in northern England. She studied at the University of Leeds before moving to London, where she worked as a journalist and as a commissioning editor at Marie Claire magazine. Katy has written four books published in the U.K. Little Big Love was her U.S. debut.

"[A] heartwarming novel." Woman's World

"Beautiful, heartbreaking and life-affirming." Rosie Walsh

"A truly touching story about love, hope, belonging and memory, with authentic and lovable characters who you're rooting for from the first moments." Araminta Hall
 
"A gorgeous book. Regan s characters really do walk off the page and into your heart. I loved it" Eve Chase

Regan tugs at the heartstrings again in her latest (after Little Big Love, 2018), about a sibling bond and how, sometimes, you can go home again...How to Find Your Way Home is a well-crafted, compelling family drama that explores the meaning of home with care and grace. A must-have for contemporary shelves." Booklist

Regan is a meticulous, graceful writer whose insight on the human condition makes for a completely absorbing story. As in her other novels (Little Big Love), she presents a full, well-balanced picture tragic, yet buoyed by hope of the far-reaching influences of family dysfunction. Shelf Awareness