* An extraordinarily haunting, subtle and moving first novel about secrets and lies and moths - the luanch of a very brilliant new talent. Won in a major UK auction

From her lookout on the first floor, Ginny watches and waits for her adored younger sister to return to the crumbling mansion that was once their idyllic childhood home. Vivien has not stepped foot in the house since she left, forty seven years ago; Ginny, the reclusive lepidopterist, has rarely ventured outside it. The remembrance of their youth, of loss, and of old rivalries plays across Ginny's mind. Why is Vivi coming home? Ginny has been selling off the family furniture over the years, gradually shutting off each wing of the house and retreating into the precise routines and isolation that define her days. Only the attic remains untouched. There, collected over several generations, are walls lined with pinned and preserved Bordered Beauties and Rusty Waves, Feathered Footmen and Great Brocades, Purple Cloud, Angle Shades, the Gothic and the Stranger ...

** 'The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams is a debut and new and emphatic voice; this story of the reunion of two batty sisters in their huge and crumbling house completely grips and the lepidopteran theme is totally convincing.' Rodney Troubridge, Waterstone's