It is June 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come..."On Chesil Beach" is another masterwork from Ian McEwan - a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

Winner of British Book Awards: Galaxy Book of the Year Award 2008 and British Book Awards: Reader's Digest Author of the Year Award 2008. Shortlisted for Independent Booksellers' Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2007 and Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007 and RTE Radio 1's The Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award 2008.