On The Up

Can not-quite-perfect be enough? Big-hearted novel about motherhood, community and figuring out what's really worth fighting for.

By reading Style magazine, I was training myself not to want things. It was going quite well. I had already found that I did not want a pair of Yves Saint Laurent mules, a chandelier made from plastic antlers, or a diamond-encrusted necklace in the shape of a pineapple.

I was still working on not wanting a fitted farmhouse kitchen in warm wood. Sylvia lives in a flat on a council estate with her not-quite-husband Obe and their two young children. She dreams of buying a house on a leafy street like the one she grew up in.

If she closes her eyes, she can see it all so clearly: the stripped floorboards, the wisteria growing around the door... It's not ideal that she's about to be made redundant, or that Obe, a playworker, is never going to earn more than the minimum wage. As sleep deprivation sets in, and the RnB downstairs gets ever louder, Sylvia's life starts to unravel.

But when the estate is earmarked for redevelopment, the threat to her community gives Sylvia a renewed sense of purpose. With a bit of help from her activist sister, and her film-maker friend Frankie, she's ready to take a stand for what she believes in.