Ten-year-old Jamie Mathews moves to the Lake District from London with his 15-year-old sister Jasmine and alcoholic father after their mother has an affair and leaves them. Jasmine's twin sister, Rose, was killed on September 9 in the London Bombings five years earlier - her ashes remain in an urn on the mantelpiece. Jasmine and their parents have been deeply troubled by Rose's death, yet Jamie was too young to remember Rose and thus remains mostly unaffected. At his new Church of England school, Jamie befriends a Muslim girl named Sunya. Jamie's father has developed a Islamophobic belief following Rose's death, which he blames on the entire Muslim population. Knowing his father would not approve, Jamie struggles to keep his friendship with Sunya a secret from him while also trying to make sense of the tragedy that has permanently changed his family.
