A snow-filled paradise is the scene for A Heart Bent Out of Shape from Emylia Hall, author of the Richard and Judy book club pick The Book of Summers. Readers of Patrick Gale and Esther Freud will adore this moving and evocative story of a first love, a terrible tragedy and a year that will never be forgotten.

For Hadley Dunn, life so far has been uneventful - no great loves, no searing losses. But that's before she decides to spend a year studying in the glittering Swiss city of Lausanne, a place that feels alive with promise. Here Hadley meets Kristina, a beautiful but elusive Danish girl, and the two quickly form the strongest of bonds. Yet one November night, as the first snows of winter arrive, tragedy strikes.

Hadley, left reeling and guilt-stricken, beings to lean on the only other person to whom she feels close, her American Literature professor Joel Wilson. But as the pair try to uncover the truth of what happened that night, their tentative friendship heads into forbidden territory. And before long a line is irrevocably crossed, everything changes, and two already complicated lives take an even more dangerous course...

Emylia was born in 1978 and grew up in the Devon countryside, the daughter of an English artist and a Hungarian quilt-maker. After studying English & Related Literature at the universities of York and Lausanne, she spent five years working in a London ad agency, before moving to the French Alps. It was there that she began to write. Emylia now lives in Bristol with her husband, the comic-book writer and children's author, Robin Etherington, and young son. She is the author of The Book of Summers, which was a Richard & Judy Summer Book club pick in 2012, A Heart Bent Out of Shape and The Sea Between Us.