The Small Hours — Susie Boyt

Harriet Goodman, brave, wry and handsome, is determined to triumph no matter what. With a decade of therapy under her belt and a new large inheritance, it seems there is nothing she cannot achieve. When she finds herself in charge of a school full of precocious little girls, rich in everything but care, she vows to make their childhoods amongst the happiest ever spent. For everyone knows that early years passed in delightful ways can you set you up for life. But can this ambitious new departure spill some retrospective sweetness onto Harriet's own harsh beginnings, or better still cancel them out altogether? Will the family she's estranged from ever grant her the recognition she craves? Written with deep psychological insight and coal-black humor, "The Small Hours" is a stunning meditation on love, self-love and forgiveness, and their shadowy opposites.