SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT 'Just read it. It's unforgettable' India Knight, The Sunday Times 'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary' Guardian 'Full of snappy one-liners but, at the same time, remarkably poignant' Craig Brown 'Probably the best book you'll read this year' Mail on Sunday 'Completely brilliant. I think every girl and woman should read it' Gillian Anderson 'Exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry' Observer 'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year' Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie 'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book' The Times 'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House 'One of those "read it in one sitting and tell all your friends" kind of books' Evening Standard 'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave? Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain. Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself. THE BOOK OF THE YEAR An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping

EVENING STANDARD'S 'BEST FICTION BOOKS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2022' What do you do, when you find the perfect family... ...and it's not yours? 'Rare and delightful . . . A beautifully crafted novel about female relationships. I couldn't put this book down' Marie Claire The only thing Abi ever wanted was a proper family. So when she falls pregnant by an Australian exchange student in London, she cannot pack up her old life in Croydon fast enough, to start all over in Sydney and make her own family. It is not until she arrives, with three-week-old Jude in tow, that Abi realises Stu is not quite ready to be a father after all. And he is the only person she knows in this hot, dazzling, confusing city, where the job of making friends is turning out to be harder than she thought. That is, until she meets Phyllida, her wealthy, charming, imperious older neighbour, and they become almost like mother and daughter. If only Abi had not told Phil that teeny tiny small lie, the very first day they met...