How the Light Gets In

Lou Connor wants to escape her emotionally crass family and life of poverty, and so she travels from Sydney to the USA as an exchange student. But her host-family, the Hardings - who live in a prefabricated mansion in a nameless chicago suburb - are in suffocating pursuit of a particular form of suburban perfection. From the very beginning, nothing is as it seems.

How the Light Gets In is a complex and cleverly observed portrait of Lou Connor's world- a world full of mixed messages. M.J Hyland masterful first novel mesmerises the reader from hopeful beginning to haunting end.