She marvels at the way a single day can unravel everything, like ribbon pulled from a present.

In 2017, Megan Hunter burst onto the literary scene with her debut novel, The End We Start From, a startlingly beautiful story of climate change and motherhood that is now a feature film starring Jodi Comer. Her second book, The Harpy, fiercely explored marriage and power through a dark, imaginative tale of revenge. A writer of remarkable range, Hunter now delivers her first historical novel, a gorgeous story of art, desire, and faith set against the backdrop of a changing England.

Easter Sunday, 1938. Ivy is nineteen and ready for her life to finally begin. Her sprawling, bohemian family and their friends gather in the idyllic English countryside for lunch, arranging themselves around well-worn roles. They trade political views and artistic arguments as they impatiently await the arrival and first sight of Frances, the new beau of Ivy’s beloved older brother, Joseph. In this auspicious atmosphere of springtime, Ivy’s world feels on the cusp of something grand–but neither she nor those closest to her predicts how a single, enchanted evening will alter the rest of their lives.

A radiant, philosophical, and intimate journey through time, Days of Light chronicles six pivotal days across six decades to tell the story of Ivy’s pursuit of answers—to the events of this fateful Easter Sunday and to the shifting desires of her own heart. Moving through the Second World War up to the close of the 20th century, Hunter captures the galvanic love and transformative moments that define a winding, beautiful life.

Praise for The End We Start From:

“The End We Start From is a stunning tale of motherhood. Megan has crafted a striking and frighteningly real story of a family fighting for survival that will make everyone stop and think about what kind of planet we are leaving behind for our children.”—Benedict Cumberbatch

“A beautifully spare, haunting meditation on the persistence of life after catastrophe. I loved it.”—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

“Startlingly poetic . . . Hunter writes with delicacy and precision; her imagery is pearlescent in places. It’s a sliver of a novel, but it shimmers.”—The Guardian

“Spare, stylish . . . The real strength of this wonderfully earthy novel is in its sharpened lens on motherhood’s apocalyptic-feeling joys and terrors, and how they can form an all-encompassing world.”—Vogue

“In elegiac lines, Hunter tells a love story through the eyes of a new mother, who witnesses the death of an old life and the start of a new one . . . a perfect portrait of rebirth the final testament that time, and life, do go on, despite our best efforts.”—Elle

“The End We Start From is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, in that it shares the same narrative detachment, and the same precise poetry. It is of course told from the perspective of a mother, rather than a father, and is set in a world that is only beginning to fall into chaos . . . Megan Hunter’s remarkable debut novel feels like the other half of the story.”—Financial Times