WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY FIRST BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2017 "A profoundly affecting, intellectually challenging and beautifully written fable ... a marvellous piece of work." - Stuart Kelly, Scotsman. Goblin is an oddball and an outcast. But she's also a dreamer, a bewitching raconteur, a tomboy adventurer whose spirit can never be crushed. Running feral in World War II London, Goblin witnesses the carnage of the Blitz and sees things that can never be unseen...but can be suppressed. She finds comfort in her beloved animal companions and lives on her wits with friends real and imagined, exploring her own fantastical world of Lizard Kings and Martians and joining the circus. In 2011, London is burning once again, and an elderly Goblin reluctantly returns to the city. Amidst the chaos of the riots, she must dig up the events of her childhood in search of a harrowing truth. But where lies truth after a lifetime of finding solace in an extraordinary imagination, where the distinction between illusion and reality has possibly been lost forever?