She helps people die in peace. Then one of them tells her why her mother never came home.

Now Peg Ashdown, eighty-one and dying in a cottage above the harbour, has asked for Iris by name. She has kept a secret from Iris for twenty-nine years. She has a tape recorder, and she wants to tell it her own way, one recording at a time. Her son Martin wants every word to go through him first.

Meanwhile, Iris's father, the town's old lifeboat coxswain and the steadiest man she knows, has booked his own death at a clinic in Switzerland without telling her. He wants his daughter holding his hand. And he would rather she let someone else sit with Peg.

With two people she loves running out of time, Iris must decide how much truth she can bear, and what she is willing to do to hear the rest.

Because every kind lie has a price. And Iris has been telling them all her life.

A gripping, emotional British psychological thriller about family secrets, mercy and the stories we tell the people we love. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Clare Mackintosh and K.L. Slater.

• Short chapters that keep the pages turning
• A small-town mystery with a ticking clock
• An ending that will stay with you long after the last page

Would you rather die with the truth, or with a comforting lie?