Once it seemed to Kathleen Healey that Africa was empty and all of it belonged to her. An aviator, big game hunter and knitting devotee, who once boxed three rounds with Ernest Hemingway, she would land her plane wherever and whenever she chose. She was free with her favours, too, and her multitude of lovers came from all over Africa. When Kathleen dies, her only son returns to Johannesburg to carry out her last wishes and must confront the final part of his mother's legacy - his capacity for love.

My Mother's Lovers is Christopher Hope's most ambitious novel yet. Bitingly funny, outrageously inventive and peopled with a fantastical cast of characters, it shows how the hunger to be loved and to belong affects us all.