There’s a delicate balance throughout the novel between the tight, restrictive control of the protagonist and the indulgence she’s attempting to embrace.

For a novel that is so sharp and often written with such linguistic utility, it isn't at all sparse. How appropriate, then, that Jessica Andrews’ second novel, Milk Teeth, (the follow-up to her much-lauded 2019 debut Saltwater) can be described in such a way. I’m not gonna drop the horse talk because I don’t know where that’s come from and I’m also scared of horses.Nor as the woman who relates to that sense of never being whole, never being enough, while wanting nothing more than to let someone else fill me up and decide where life goes next.

She also navigates the fear of living with regrets, making bad choices and not living up to your potential. As for a new book that I'm excited about, Jessica Andrews' Milk Teeth - her follow-up to award-winning debut novel Saltwater - would have to be it. However, sentences get shorter, more restrained, when they describe her denial: ‘you reach out your hand. She fluctuates between a frenetic tasting of the world around her and a consequential clenching of the jaw. Growing up as a female, finding your space; the constant worry that you are taking up too much of it, and the things that, as a young woman, you do to ensure you don’t, the things you do to ensure you are diminished, smaller, more palatable to those around you, contorting yourself to fit the patriarchal norms that for the most part inform the structures we inhabit.

The book is heavy with heartbreak, loneliness, want and desire, but there's plenty of love and positivity too. I still haven’t got around to reading Jessica Andrews’ debut, Saltwater, leapfrogging over the copy on my TBR to read her new novel. it also had brilliant settings, jumping around between northern England, london, paris and barcelona when we see the different stages of our main characters life. I refuse to perpetuate the stereotype that all female written fiction is autobiographical – of course it isn’t.

The diet culture discussed was equally devastating and hilarious, and I urge any 90s babies to read for these parts alone.Andrews takes aim at the cultural pressures shaping unhealthy ideals of femininity without ever seeming to preach. It's immediate and ultra-sensual and has the emotional pitch and intensity of the best gig you've ever been to. From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain.