Ultra

A state-of-the-nation novel rooted in Newcastle about family, class, belonging and the cost of coming home. 'Sharp, funny, beautifully observed' LOUISE O'NEILL Football is coming home, and so is Lara. After four years away, she’s back in Newcastle for her stepbrother’s wedding on the night of the Euros final, colliding headfirst into old flames, family drama, and a country ready to combust. England is a mess: fractured by anti-immigration tensions and a cost-of-living crisis, with riots on the horizon and opportunistic politicians fanning the fire. In contrast, Lara’s life in Amsterdam is stable, safe, and cultured. She has a career as an illustrator, a loving and well-adjusted boyfriend and none of the ghosts she left behind. But back home, everything she tried to outrun is waiting. Her mother, a cleaner on the estate she grew up on, is a mercurial whirlwind of complicated affection. Her dad is slower now after a diabetic coma, and carries the weary presence of a man who’s been outnumbered for decades. June, her step-mother and once-mentor, has impeccable taste but a heart of ice. And then there’s her ex-boyfriend, Wayne, who is looking really good these days… Over one charged summer, Euros madness reaches fever pitch and the pints don’t seem to stop. But some ghosts can’t stay quiet forever, and Lara finds herself pulled back into long-buried tensions and the shadow of her violent stepfather, recently released from prison. She’s forced to confront what – and who – she left behind.