While this is a wild statement to make with so many fantastic books published in 2011, Blood is a book that has lingered with me like a hauntingly vivid dream that feels dangerously real. Tony Birch shows us the life of a teenage boy trying to learn how to be a man in order to look after his beloved sister. His father is not around and his mother may as well be another child for him to take care of. She regularly leaves the kids alone and prefers them to call her Gwen rather than Mum as the term Mum makes her feel old.

At its heart, Blood is about love and how familial love is the most complex of all. I read it, read it again, and now tell as many people as I can to read it too.