The Other Side of Loss

'Maybe lottery tickets are like that. It's all in the dream, just the possibility – however remote.'

When the Revd Robert Melton first arrives at St Mungo's, his initial enthusiasm quickly turns to despondency – until the biggest jackpot in US lottery history triggers a series of uncanny events that throws him, and the seemingly unconnected lives of people on both sides of the Atlantic, into a vortex of questioning, self-doubt and the search for truth. For all of them, try as they might to escape it, the past remains a constant presence.

From the run-down despair of Robert's dying inner London parish to the yearnings for love and physical contact of the city's social outcasts – and from the money-driven hubris of Manhattan's financial elite to the home-spun wisdom of rural New England – The Other Side of Loss is a modern-day parable of loss and redemption, of despair and triumph, of human weakness and the life-affirming salvation of human strength in all its meanings.

'Any novel that weaves a high-tension narrative out of two priests, prostitution, and a lottery ticket has to keep you turning the pages.'
Gyles Brandreth

'Zounds! Not since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein has a more colourful story come from a more surprising source. Tom Vaughan is a very imaginative soul.'
George Butler, film producer, The Endurance, Roving Mars, Tiger Tiger

'The Other Side of Loss is, at its simplest, about forgiveness and redemption. It is an affirming story of how belief can be a powerful sign of contradiction in our secular times…much to explore and much to enjoy.' Peter Stanford, The Tablet

'A compelling and thought-provoking debut novel about temptation, corruption, loss and love.' Hereford Times