The Seven O’Clock Club

At seven o’clock, in a perfectly ordinary tower block near Westminster, four strangers meet for the first time. They each share two things in common: a traumatic experience six months earlier and an inability to put it behind them.

DENIAL
Victoria is a sharp-tongued senior partner at a cut-throat city law firm who refuses to admit she’s grieving. Her privileged upbringing is one she’d rather forget – but might be the one thing she needs to acknowledge in order to move on.

ANGER
Callum is a 29-year old musician who found success way too young. Struggling to stay on the straight and narrow, and forced to keep out of the public eye by his record label, he rages against the world so he can forget what happened that day.

BARGAINING
Mischa is an impressionable young woman from an east London council estate, who left school to be a full-time carer. Plagued by loneliness and blackouts she can’t control, all she wants is something or someone to live for.

DEPRESSION
Freya is a 32-year-old interior designer who had a picture-perfect home, marriage and career but can now barely bring herself to leave the house – nor admit the life she had isn’t one she necessarily wants back.

ACCEPTANCE
Four strangers brought together by the unconventional Genevieve: a determined woman with an unusual theory to test.

But this isn’t a novel about psychotherapy or self-forgiveness. Because there is another reason these four people have been brought together. And when that perfectly ordinary tower block near Westminster turns out to be not quite so ordinary, all five are forced to make some unexpected – and, for some, impossible – decisions . . .

A novel about friendship, strength and love, The Seven O’Clock Club is a reminder that life can give you hope. Even in the darkest of spaces.

Amelia Ireland wrote The Seven O’Clock Club in memory of her mother, who died shortly after being diagnosed with early onset dementia. She travels extensively for work, beginning the novel on a flight to Kampala and finishing it in a Hilton in Frankfurt.

A lawyer by profession, Amelia lives and works in London. The Seven O’Clock Club is her first novel.