Andrew Michael Hurley

For centuries, the inhabitants of Barrowbeck, a remote valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, have lived uneasily with forces beyond their reckoning. They raise their families, work the land, and do their best to welcome those who come seeking respite. But there is a darkness that runs through the village as persistently as the river.

A father fears that his daughter has become possessed by something unholy. A childless couple must make an agonising decision. A widower awaits the return of his wife. A troubled man is haunted by visions of end times.

As one generation gives way to the next and ancient land is carved up in the name of progress, darkness gathers. The people of Barrowbeck have forgotten that they are but guests in the valley. Now there is a price to pay. Two thousand years of history is coming to an end.

The locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is. I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget.... Costa Winner 2015

Both terminally ill, Tom and Oliver have been bound by the saddest of circumstances, though they have found some solace in writing to one another via a pen-pal scheme set up by their respective cancer clinics. So far, their friendship has been conducted solely through letters, with Oliver proving himself to be a treasury of literary quips and quotes. Yet, for all his flamboyance and verbosity, he is guarded, and Tom suspects that he is lonely and nomadic. And Oliver sees Tom for what he is too: a man haunted by guilt and desperate to try and atone in some way before it's too late.

Regret is what brings others to Saltwash. Much to Tom's surprise, dozens more guests appear, dressed in their finest to take part in a prize draw that offers one person the chance of deliverance from their remorse. But does everyone deserve the opportunity?