Paula Spencer is turning forty-eight, and hasn t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They re grand kids, but she worries about Leanne.

Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job seem to come from Eastern Europe. You can get a cappuccino in the cafe and the checkout girls are all Nigerian. Ireland is certainly changing, but then so too is Paula – dry, and determined to put her family back together again.

A phenomenally rewarding read… Could not be bettered in its depiction of the minutiae of the life of a recovering alcoholic: relentless, trivial, terrified Observer