Welcome to Alabaster Harbour© The three Flynn daughters - Abigail, Louise and Harper - are each rebelling towards adulthood, whilst their two Flynn parents - Bud and Catherine - just can''t stop behaving like kids. It''s been disastrous since Bud and Catherine opened up their marriage, and none of the Flynns can remember the last time a meal was cooked, a load of laundry was done, or a social code was abided by. Not that Catherine and Bud aren''t trying - and trying new things. Bud still drives to his job at the Harbour© in the family minivan, which, yes, is also now his home, and Catherine still refuses to conform to domestic pressures - she''s an artist, a woman, and no one understands her! And the girls? Surely they''re fine, whatever it is they''re up to. As the Flynns are each occupied by their own upheavals, Lost Lambs expands past them into a hilarious portrait of suburban dysfunction, all the way up to a nefarious local billionaire whose machinations may just - finally - bring the family closer together. This is an original, funny and compassionate portrait of the perverse pleasures and perils of our most intimate reality: our family.

Autorentext

Madeline Cash is the founder of Forever Magazine and the author of the story collection Earth Angel. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The Baffler, The Sewanee Review, The Drift, and Bomb, among other publications. Lost Lambs is her debut novel.

Klappentext

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2026

'EXTREMELY SMART, IMPOSSIBLY FUNNY, AND JUST PLAIN FUN TO READ' CARO CLAIRE BURKE, AUTHOR OF YESTERYEAR

'A VOICE LIKE NO OTHER' LENA DUNHAM

Think your family is dysfunctional? Meet the Flynns.

For the three Flynn daughters, it's been disastrous since their parents opened up their marriage. Abigail, the eldest, is dating an ex-soldier several years her senior nicknamed 'War Crimes Wes'. Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist. And the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to a wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone - or something - is monitoring the town's citizens.

Casting a shadow across their lives is Paul Alabaster, a nefarious local billionaire. Rumours of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with Alabaster's machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy - one that may just, finally, bring them closer together.

The instant Sunday Times bestseller

'THE MOST WILDLY ORIGINAL BOOK OF THE YEAR' HARPER'S BAZAAR

'THE DEBUT NOVEL FOR 2026 THAT HAS UNDOUBTEDLY BEEN THE MOST SHOUTED ABOUT' THE SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

'A DARKLY FUNNY FAMILY SAGA' BUSTLE

'AN INSTANT CLASSIC' SHORTLIST

Readers love LOST LAMBS
'What a ROMP!'
'The hype is real!'
'Hilarious, weird, original and addictive!'
'If Wes Anderson wrote Little Women.'
'I'm shouting it from every rooftop: THIS IS THE BOOK OF THE YEAR!'
'Perhaps the funniest book I've ever read.'