Invisible

Tom, in his mid-thirties, sells his London pub chain (themed around Charles Dickens' novels), splits with his girlfriend and moves to rural west Oxfordshire. There he begins a relationship with Sarah, which he recounts later as a form of writing therapy. Having trained as a potter, Sarah owns an Oxford gallery and lives with Welsh Brit Art sculptor, Griff, in a battlemented Victorian tower. To her diaries she confides the history of her secret life. Invisible is a dystopian romance in which the characters struggle against obsession and misunderstandings in their quest for happiness. It is set against the topsy-turvy backdrop of New Labour's Britain. "The topic of eating disorders is a central theme of Invisible. The main female character struggles with bulimia and [Frank Egerton] says his desire to write about it was sparked by watching a close friend's similar battle. 'A friend had a chronic eating disorder which she began to confront in her mid-30s after living with it for 20 years. But when she finally got treatment, nothing was tailored to someone of her age. It is something that is not really talked about. People know about the acute form that happens to teenagers but adult sufferers do not get much attention.' While researching the book, he was surprised by the number of people who confided they had experienced some type of obsessive compulsive disorder or cutting. He added: 'Using these experiences and the fact that I went through a mild form of OCD in my teens, I built up a composite picture. But I wanted to broaden the book to look at obsession in all its many forms.'" Interview with Frank Egerton by Gill Oliver for The Oxford Times