There’ s a gap where my sense of place should be. It’ s quite a useful one sometimes. It allows me to sit on the cusp of an opinion.

Following a move to the Netherlands, a young woman dissects the developments of her new life: awkward exchanges with the people she meets, days spent alone freelancing in her apartment, her confrontation with boredom and unease. In her newfound isolation, she develops an unusual friendship with Colette, a woman she neither likes nor can keep away from. As her feelings of dislocation grow, larger anxieties about her purpose – or lack of it – begin to encroach. And underneath it all, a burgeoning frustration bubbles.

Intimate, incisive and brilliantly observed, Temper explores loneliness, self-worth and disconnection with head-nodding accuracy.