HIDING IN THE DOLL'S HOUSE

Ellis and her two sisters were all named after their father's mistresses. It is the 1970's, and for a while they are raised as neither girls nor boys as part of a gender experiment. Dressed in dungarees and given neutral toys, their childhood is a tangle of visitors to the family's rambling North London home. Meanwhile, their mother is arguing about Marx at the breakfast table and their father is running male-only sweat lodge weekends on Dartmoor.

As an adult, Ellis still strives for a flawless life. But the last, final part of her life is missing: a baby. Ellis can't conceive, and it is consuming her. When her younger, drifter sister Cressie turns up on their doorstep asking to stay - and then offers to have a baby for her and David – Ellis is torn by the decision. Their eldest sister Amber meanwhile, is losing herself in motherhood, as she slips through the dark-light corridors of life after birth.

As Ellis' marriage starts to collapse, she discovers that Cressie has been hiding a terrible secret from her – that they do not share a father. Faced with the falsehood that her life is built on, Ellis must ask who she is and what she really believes in.

SAMIA MURPHY spent her childhood between the heat of Bahrain and the damp of the West Country. After studying English Literature and Art History at Goldsmiths, she went on to spend seven years at the BBC, working on documentaries and features, from Louis Theroux projects to What Not to Wear. She is currently a development producer at an independent production company.

She lives in South London with her husband and two children, loves going back to Somerset for the weekend, and always dreams of escaping the British winters for the sun.