ROOSTER

Natashas life is a perfectly calibrated illusion, motivated by a feverish desperation to hide her working-class, dysfunctional childhood. No one who looks at her life can deny this strategy is working.

Social mobility: tick.

Happy daughter: tick.

Keeping recovering addict mother at bay: tick.

Scheduling sex to keep marriage alive: tick.

The only stain on perfection is the rooster, Freddie Mercury, next door, whose operatic crowing pushes Natasha to the brink.

When her husband leaves her for their slovenly, easy-going dog walker, Natashas carefully curated life implodes, and she is plunged into a spiral of chaos and obsession as her perfect life unravels.

But an unlikely friendship with Freddie Mercury the rooster and his owner Barry sets Natasha on the slow journey back home, to her family, her roots, and herself.

Rooster is a poignant, laugh-out-loud story of marriage, perfectionism, middle life, and how the ghosts of childhood come back to haunt us even when were sure weve left them behind.