A retired New York professor's life is thrown into chaos when he takes a young great-nephew to the French Riviera in hopes of uncovering his own mother's wartime secrets, in the new masterpiece from bestselling author Emma Donoghue.

From the bestselling author of Room, a gripping and deeply moving story of progress and reaction, of evil and love.

Europe is racing towards the future. Steam travel is the emblem of progress; industry and invention are creating ever greater wealth and ever greater deprivation; and on an autumn day in 1895 a young woman determined to make her mark on history boards the Granville to Paris Express with a bomb.

With her travel the train crew and her fellow passengers: the men who run the engine, who have built a life together away from their wives; a little boy travelling alone for the first time; a ...