The Instant - Hardcover

Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney island life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. Searching for new experiences, inspiration and love, she rents a loftbed in a shared flat and looks for work. She explores the streets, nightclubs and parks and seeks out the city’s wildlife – goshawks, raccoons and hooded crows. She looks for love through the screen of her laptop. Over the course of a year Amy makes space hoping for the unexpected. And it comes with an erotic jolt, in the form of a love affair that obsesses her. The Instant is an unapologetic look at the addictive power of love and lust. It is also an exploration of the cycles of the moon, the flight paths of migratory birds, the mesmerising power of Neolithic stonework and the trails followed by a generation who exist online. Praise: “A slim, luminous account of living and loving in Berlin, picking up where The Outrun left off” sunday Times “I loved this book, such an intimate portrayal of emotional landscapes and the pull of the moon – it’s one I’ll return to often” Raynor Winn “Brilliant on the addictive bliss of romance … [The Instant is] a parable about the quicksands of internet dating, and a survivors’ handbook ‘for the heartsick’” telegraph “Intoxicating, generous and refreshingly original. The way Liptrot weaves her inner life with the natural world and the digital world is utterly absorbing. This book is so alive and so wild” Lucy Jones “Elegant, melancholic and deeply yearning, The Instant captures something vital about our age: its strange dislocations and connections. I drank it in” Katherine May