An exceptional Black British debut filled with desire and jeopardy and set on a south London estate

A JUNE INDIE BOOK OF THE MONTH PICK

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 NERO BOOK AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION
WINNER OF THE 2025 KATE O'BRIEN AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE

'A taut generational story set on a South London estate' Independent, July Book of the Month

'McDonald is skilled at investing her characters with complicated vitality ... This highly promising debut invests the small things that are so easily taken for granted with quietly shattering significance' Daily Mail

'A gem of a book about mothers and daughters, about being Black and working class in today's London. Beautiful writing, taut with emotion, poetry and insight' Priscilla Morris, Women's Prize shortlisted author of Black Butterflies

Alone among the lush tangle of plants on his balcony, Earl watches as a broken family reunites in the flat below.

There's Livia, who has been running for long enough to think her past might never catch up with her. Now she's forced to catch her breath and face the daughter she left behind. Then Mickey, angry about having a mother who left, a father who died, about the mess she's made of her own life. With no other place to go, she needs the mother who abandoned her. And Summer, whose new grandmother is weird, and whose mum is always sad or out looking for men to distract her. Left to roam, she finds friends who are willing to give her the attention that Mickey won't. But are they as kind as she thinks they are?

Burning with hope and desire, No Small Thing evokes the power and pain of mothering, and the damage we can do to the people we should love the most.