This book consists of two seemingly unrelated narratives, and the connection between them isn’t clear until the end. Both stories are riveting and so sometimes it’s hard to turn from one to the other.

One is the story of three women, missionaries traveling in China in the 1920s. The other is set in modern-day London, and concerns a young woman who befriends a homeless Arab man. Both narratives deal with belonging and alienation, and with the feeling of being lost.

There’s a tentative quality, both in the characters’ lives and the ways in which the stories are told, which is in stark contrast to the sharply drawn landscapes. The writing is textured, nuanced, with characters that only gradually become known and understood.