KEELY feels alone in the world – grief consumes her, she wants to escape it, to take both her father's and her own pain away. She knows that solace lies in the act of loving and being loved but, struggling in ever-deepening waters, she doesn't know how to find it.

FINN has been devastated too. As a young boy, growing up with his grandparents, he feels neglected by those meant to care for him most. With no real friends to turn to, he cannot find the vocabulary to deal with the loneliness and heartache that haunt him.

As we watch them each grow, connection seems to be the answer – to be seen and heard and received as who they are. Maybe it's this that could release them from their private pains. Is it that simple?

"Empathetic, honest, compelling. I'll read anything Paddy Crewe writes." – Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

“Paddy Crewe's True Love is a piercing look at the fissure love opens in us, revealing both our deepest joys and our deepest pains.” - Ingrid Persaud, author of Love After Love

'True Love is a wonderful novel. Brilliant storytelling and exhilarating prose from Paddy Crewe had me entranced and rooting for Keely and Finn from the start. The depictions of loneliness, voicelessness and grappling with language to find connection are spot on. There are themes of painful abandonment, grief, refuge in reading and, of course, redemption through true love. A deeply moving love story that combines elements of fairy tale and gritty realism to offer a compelling exploration of young love.' – Priscilla Morris

'True Love had me from its gorgeous, lyrical opening to its transcendent final pages. Paddy Crewe is an exceptionally gifted writer.'– Louise Kennedy

‘Paddy Crewe writes with a lyrical, lonely prose that’s full of the kind of tenderness which both frightens and saves us.’ - Minnie Driver

‘No doubt about it, Paddy Crewe is the real thing. Such skilful handling of love’s warring tides and such emotional depth. And prose of real visceral presence bringing to light that most delicate instrument, the human heart.’ - Mike McCormack, author of Solar Bones

‘A gorgeous, compulsive, lionhearted book which I was caught up by and rolled along with over the course of a single breathless weekend. Beautiful and clever.’ - Nick Blackburn, author of The Reactor

‘Paddy Crewe has a 24-carat gift.’ - Sebastian Barry

‘Crewe is an author of huge imaginative range.’ - Literary Review

'Paddy Crewe brings out the longing, the fire, and the strange melancholy of love in the tale of Keely and Finn where love is ripped away, rebuilt, and found again. A love story in the truest sense told with stinging insight and moments of quiet beauty.' - Scott Preston, author of The Borrowed Hills

‘A raw and beautiful novel. Paddy Crewe writes about people and places seldom seen in literary fiction, and creates an astonishing portrait of love on the margins. Lives like these are rarely handled with such tenderness and precision.’ - Tom Newlands, author of forthcoming Only Here, Only Now