Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

‘It’s the hope that’ll kill you.’This haunting story of hope and heartbreak wrenches the emotions as it explores the meaning of life and death, love and forgiveness.

For Joe, his brother Ed is the person who attended his parents’ evenings, who saved up money so he could have proper Christmas presents, and who protected him from the disorder of a life of poverty with an alcoholic mother. But when Joe was seven, his brother – himself damaged by the disorder – left home. Then Ed is wrongly accused and found guilty of the murder of a cop in Texas, where the penalty for the crime is death. Years of appeals have failed, and now there’s a date for his execution. Joe, still only a teenager, travels alone from New York to Texas to visit his brother. There’s one final hope for reprieve.

Flashbacks fill in the details of the brothers’ relationship and show the poignant contrast between public perceptions and private memories of a convicted murderer on Death Row. Written in verse, the language is spare and simple and cuts directly to the emotional centre of Joe’s young life. I liked the way it is carefully nuanced. There is empathy rather than judgment for all the characters – even the warden responsible for the Death Row prisoners and Aunt Karen, who assumes that Ed is guilty and does her best to keep Joe from his wicked older brother. This beautiful book made me think, and cry – and I’m still worrying about Joe.