Anna and the Angel

I’ m getting in touch because Tobias is here. He’ s a fine boy: handsome, kind. You and your husband must be so proud of him. He and Az came for supper and are staying the night… They don’ t actually know I’ m writing to you. I hope you don’ t mind... And so begins a secretive, tentative and increasingly affectionate correspondence between two strangers. Edna and Anna are both mothers, both lonely in different ways. When Anna’ s son Tobias turns up at Edna’ s house in Newport, en route to somewhere else altogether, it seems to be an act of pure serendipitous coincidence. He settles into the heart of this adopted family, healing fractures they hadn’ t even acknowledged were there. But he also has a mission to retrieve a fortune on behalf of his ailing father, the difficult and unhappy T. And there is the mysterious Az ? beautiful, enigmatic, and mesmerising. His presence is the thread that stitches these two families together and makes them one.

Eleanor Williams was born and lives in Cardiff. She is disabled, works as a lawyer in the public sector specialising in disability discrimination and is a Reader – someone who is licensed to preach and teach – in Llandaff (Cardiff) diocese in the Church in Wales.