Bleak but terrific debut

It is a lie she lives with for 10 years until she discovers her mother is not an adulterer but a criminal, deported to a remote, inhospitable island in the North Sea.

Set in a richly imagined, alternate 1986, The Godless Boys tells the story of a country torn apart by the conflict between religious belief and violent secularism. In Wood’s England, waves of church burnings have led to the expulsion of the unbelievers while the clergy control the mainland, starving the exiles of all but the barest necessities for survival.