Love in the Present Tense - Catherine Ryan Hyde

‘So much of how it was started when that cop got out and came up to me. But I didn’t know all this when it first happened. I didn’t know there would ever be a Leonard, or that this man would be his father, or that anybody would have to die!

Leonard is an eerily wise five-year-old boy with asthma and vision problems, who captivates everyone he meets.

Pearl is Leonard’s devoted teenage mother, desperately trying to hide a violent secret from her past.

Mitch is Leonard’s 25-year-old neighbour, busy running his own company and entertaining the Mayor’s wife.

Then one day, Pearl drops Leonard off with Mitch and never returns.

How do you go on loving someone who isn’t there? As truth and fiction, memory and dreams collide, Mitch finds himself learning from a surprising source the true, magical definition of love.