Nowhere to Return: A novel of exile, desire, and memory

By Huiyi Liu

She lands in London; her heart is still mid-air.

Between rented rooms, midnight buses, hospital corridors and riverlight, a young woman keeps renaming herself-lover, stranger, survivor-while the city asks for proof. Each encounter redraws the map of her body and the borders of consent; each goodbye files another shard of memory under "keep" or "forget."

Nowhere to Return is an intimate city-novel about exile, desire, and what remains after both. Told in clear, lyrical prose, it traces years of almost-homes and almost-loves, where language becomes a passport, touch a question, and courage the only address left.Atmospheric London settings-night streets, river tides, quiet rooms.Sharp yet tender insight into intimacy, agency and becoming.For readers of Sally Rooney, Annie Ernaux, and Deborah Levy.
Read if you've ever tried to start again in a place that never promised you belonging.

About the author:
Huiyi Liu writes about cities, theatre, and women's interior lives. She has lived between Beijing and London and publishes essays and poetry alongside fiction.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FNN9MF4P
• ISBN13: 9798299400670
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"