Melissa Harrison wrote the highly acclaimed 'Clay' in 2013. This is her second novel. It's a pastoral novel, set in an English village, and it traces the lives of 4 main characters over a spring month. There is a tragic car accident in the prologue, but you don't know who is involved, or what the circumstances were - the lead up to that tragedy is the climax that the novel builds towards.
This is a beautifully observed novel. The characters are all completely convincing, the dialogue extraordinary, the filling in of the characters pasts clever and well-timed. The village setting, the flow of nature in an English spring, are both nostalgic and honest. The decision to make the reader aware of the ending gives the unfolding narrative an inevitable direction, which you just can't look away from.
Melissa Harrison is clearly a writer to watch.