From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER, TREE SURGERY FOR BEGINNERS is a funny, elegant and eclectic novel of love, lies and the secrets we live with ' A very funny, often sad, erudite eclectic novel writ with style. Terrific' Time Out 'Excellent' The Times When Lawrence Frost wakes up one morning to discover his wife and child have gone missing, there is gruesome evidence to suggest he may be the main suspect in a murder investigation. Confused, threatened with the loss of everything he loves, Lawrence is sent to the Caribbean on a kill-or-cure cruise. On board and ashore he will discover love, deceit, the truth about his missing family, and the blessings that come with surrendering to destiny.

'Tender, evocative' TLS 'Richly engaging' Spectator A Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week 'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer 'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A compelling read, beautifully crafted and sensitively written' Irish Examiner _______ Laura, a laundress, meets her young husband when they are both placed in service in Teignmouth in 1914. They have a baby, Charles, but his father returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave Laura a widow. As a new war looms, Charles signs up for the navy as a coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to a more colourful life in action sees him blossom, as he experiences the possibility of death, and the excitement - even terror - of a love that is as clandestine as his work. _______ 'Stands with the best queer literary fiction of a historical bent, illuminated as it is by Gale's devilish wit and talent for both social observation and intricacies of character' Sydney Morning Herald 'A wonderful novel - a touching, utterly convincing portrait of the nascent artist' Mail on Sunday 'A deeply moving novel. The portrait of a complex relationship that constricted as much as it sustained is brilliantly done' The Tablet

Patrick Gale's LITTLE BITS OF BABY is a charming, witty novel of love, possibility and life in crisis - 'Richly comic, affectionate and perceptive' Mail on Sunday Eight years ago, Robin fled from his family, friends, and entire life, to suffer a complete breakdown in an island monastery. Now he's reconnecting with those he left behind: his mother and father, with their own small secrets, and Jake and Candida, both of whom were impossibly close to Robin when he disappeared. But while the people he abandoned have missed him, Robin finds that everything has changed. He alone can decide what he will do in this new world of resentment, possibility and triumphant love.

A bestselling 'Cornish' novel, NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION is a moving, intuitive novel of artistic compulsion, marriage, and the secrets left behind. It was a Richard & Judy bestseller. 'Poised and pitch-perfect throughout' Mail on Sunday Celebrated artist Rachel Kelly dies alone in her Penzance studio, after decades of struggling with the creative highs and devastating lows that have coloured her life. Her family gathers, each of them searching for answers. They reflect on lives shaped by the enigmatic Rachel - as artist, wife and mother - and on the ambiguous legacies she leaves them, of talent, torment and transcendent love.

An entertaining, warm and quirky novel of families, secrets and the truth of love - 'A powerful and moving novel' Independent on Sunday Judith shares her life with her partner Joanna on the lonely wilds of Bodmin Moor, far from the memories and trauma of her childhood. But when Judith's sister, Deborah, is tragically widowed, the women agree to meet. And what is intended to be a harmonious reunion turns into an entanglement of resentment, jealousy and desire, as aspects of the past force themselves into an uneasy present, with some surprising results. 'Engrossing . . . Gale is a charmingly idiosyncratic writer who could not write a cliche if he tried' Daily Telegraph

Devastatingly moving and full of psychological insight, A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN is a warm, humane Cornish novel from the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER 'A convincing, moving account of man's struggle with faith, marriage and morality' Sunday Times On a clear, crisp summer's day in Cornwall, a young man carefully prepares to take his own life, and asks family friend, Barnaby Johnson, to pray with him. Barnaby - priest, husband and father - has always tried to do good, though life hasn't always been rosy. Lenny's request poses problems, not just for Barnaby, but for his wife and family, and the wider community, as the secrets of the past push themselves forcefully into the present for all to see.

From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER, Patrick Gale's THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH is the beautiful structured story of the choices we make when we come face to face with our past. 'Wry, clever, faultlessly crafted' Guardian 'Poignant and acutely observed' Daily Express Laura Lewis has left her life in Paris and returned home to Winchester to care for her aging, but still sharp mother. Ben has moved away from his beautiful and loyal wife to support his brother, living alone since their mother's death. A chance encounter reminds them both of the relationship - and the spark - they once shared. In the course of a single summer's day, they come face to face with the feelings of love and regret they share, and the choices they must make; whether to be true to themselves, or to what they believe is the right thing to do.

'Tender, evocative' TLS 'Richly engaging' Spectator A Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week 'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer 'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A compelling read, beautifully crafted and sensitively written' Irish Examiner _______ Laura, a laundress, meets her young husband when they are both placed in service in Teignmouth in 1914. They have a baby, Charles, but his father returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave Laura a widow. As a new war looms, Charles signs up for the navy as a coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to a more colourful life in action sees him blossom, as he experiences the possibility of death, and the excitement - even terror - of a love that is as clandestine as his work. _______ 'Stands with the best queer literary fiction of a historical bent, illuminated as it is by Gale's devilish wit and talent for both social observation and intricacies of character' Sydney Morning Herald 'A wonderful novel - a touching, utterly convincing portrait of the nascent artist' Mail on Sunday 'A deeply moving novel. The portrait of a complex relationship that constricted as much as it sustained is brilliantly done' The Tablet

Patrick Gale's FACING THE TANK is a witty, eccentric novel of clergy, scandal and English eccentrics - 'Made me laugh out loud' Sunday Times' 'Gale speedily unleashes his merrily black mischief. The uncovering of the sadness behind the doilies and twinsets is in the best tradition of black humour' Observer American Professor Evan Kirby, moving to Barrowcester to research Paradise after a successful book on Hell, expects a very English cathedral society of gentle clergymen and coffee mornings. What he finds instead is a town thrown into chaos by strange, supernatural events, scandalous pregnancies and a Satanic summoning of a young feral girl.

A quirky, warm novel of eccentric adventure from the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER - 'A huge treat' Daily Mail 'Patrick Gale is among the great, unsung English novelists. Think Austen, Hardy, Murdoch. Remarkable' Independent Domina Tey is a playwright, celebrated by friends, her husband, and the public alike, yet she fears losing her vital edge. Her solution: to leave her beautiful home in Bristol and seek adventure in a squalid West London bedsit, where she will live under an assumed name with only her typewriter for companionship. Once installed, however, she can't resist meddling in the business of others, forgetting that blurring fact with fiction can be a dangerous game.

Patrick Gale's KANSAS IN AUGUST is a witty, warm novel of childhood and abandonment 'Modern, excellent and sympathetic' Stephen Fry Musical-obsessed Hilary Metcalfe, abandoned by his lover Rufus on his birthday, gets drunk, discovers a baby and brings it home to his flat above a corner shop to provide comfort and company. Rufus, meanwhile, allows himself to be seduced by a frivolous young woman, who is actually Hilary's professional, high-powered sister, romancing under a pseudonym to escape the reality of her own loneliness. In this witty, bawdy slice of sex and lies, the trio will find themselves drawn together ever more tightly by the lures of hedonism, self-delusion and the inescapable desire to be needed.

THREE DECADES OF STORIES is a unique collection of Patrick Gale's two volumes of dark, moving, often witty and eccentric stories, GENTLEMAN'S RELISH and DANGEROUS PLEASURES. It also includes the acclaimed long story, CAESAR'S WIFE. Ranging from a lonely prisoner governor's wife, to a housewife desperate for a makeover; a father's trip to his former school to a long-term mistress offered an unexpected marriage, this is a volume that highlights Patrick Gale's skill of digging beneath the surface of relationships and exposing the often brutal mechanisms that drive them.

From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER comes a compassionate, compelling new novel of boyhood, coming of age, and the confusions of desire and reality. 'It's delicious, it's dear, it's heart-breaking and very funny' Rachel Joyce 'An incredibly beautiful story told with compassion. Nothing is wasted. Each sentence is beautifully crafted' Joanna Cannon 1970s Weston-Super-Mare and ten-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music-making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from his young teacher, not noticing how her brand of glamour is casting a damaging spell over his frustrated and controlling mother. When he is enrolled in holiday courses in the Scottish borders, lessons in love, rejection and humility are added to daily practice. Drawing in part on his own boyhood, Patrick Gale's new novel explores a collision between childish hero worship and extremely messy adult love lives.

Insightful and full of understanding and warmth, Patrick Gale's FRIENDLY FIRE is a richly compelling story of adolescence, sexuality and the lessons we carry forever. 'An intense tale of love, life, intellectualism and passion. Inspirational' Daily Express 'Utterly compelling from first to last' Stephen Fry Sophie, an orphan in love with learning, is sure she will thrive in Tatham's, an esteemed boarding school, having survived years of institutional living. But she soon finds herself lost among its cliques and rituals. Befriending two teenage boys, she experiences the first ache of futile love, then a brilliant teacher's inappropriate attention to one of the trio threatens to destroy them all. Sophie swiftly realizes that there are tougher lessons to absorb outside the schoolroom - of class, sex, families and the emotional disaster they can bring to even the most privileged lives.

Bittersweet and startling, A SWEET OBSCURITY is a novel of childhood, love and the consequences of how lives are lived. 'Intriguing and impressive. A memorable study of a child forced cruelly, even tragically, to grow up too soon' Sunday Times Since her mother's death, nine year old Dido has been living with her eccentric aunt, acting as peacekeeper between Eliza, her estranged husband Giles and his girlfriend. They are each cruelly burdened in different ways. Chance draws them down to Cornwall, where a country idyll offers to lighten their urban cares. Eliza falls in love with local farmer, Pearce, an event that causes the four adults to re-assess their lives, with some painful and unforeseen consequences for adults and child alike.

Patrick Gale's THE FACTS OF LIFE is a mesmerising, epic yet intimate novel of love, music and the life events that stay with us forever - perfect for any reader of Armistead Maupin, or E M Forster 'Absorbing . . . deftly characterised, deeply involving and relevant' The Times German composer Edward Pepper escapes to England just before the war begins in earnest. Struck with TB, he is recuperating in hospital when he meets Sally, a young doctor who has battled her way through medical school, despite the opposition of her parents. They fall in love and marry, settling in the fenlands of East Anglia. Years later, Edward watches as his grandchildren trip up against life and death, and realises that patterns can repeat themselves, bringing both pain and unexpected discovery.

THE AERODYNAMICS OF PORK is an irresistible novel of love, music and comedy - 'A master storyteller' Independent on Sunday 'Gale's concoction is irresistible: modern relationships with period charm' Armistead Maupin Seth, a musical prodigy on the eve of his sixteenth birthday, is obsessed with sex and with the men he might meet, as well as with his strange family - his arch mother, his beautiful sister, and his damaged, distant father. Mo, a policewoman struggling with moral dilemmas and her sexuality in the violent, bigoted police force of the 1980s, wants only to find romance. In this haunting tale of self discovery and hidden identities, Mo and Seth will connect to face unexpected truths about themselves, and those they have chosen to love.

** Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2015 ** From the writer of BBC TV's MAN IN AN ORANGE SHIRT comes Sunday Times Top Ten hardback and paperback bestseller, A PLACE CALLED WINTER - picked for the BBC Radio 2 Simon Mayo Book Club and the Waterstones Book Club. 'A mesmerising storyteller; this novel is written with intelligence and warmth' The Times A shy but privileged elder son, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence - until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest force him to abandon his wife and child and sign up for emigration to Canada. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war and madness that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before.

Sophie is a self-contained,exceptionally bright child who has no known parents and has spent all her life in a children's home. Her life is transformed when she wins a scholarship to Tatham's, a kind of Oxbridge university for teenagers, but this is only the start of an education as much emotional as intellectual. She falls hopelessly in love with Lucas, adored gay son of a wealthy Jewish family and, through him, is drawn into a tangle of betrayed friendship and forbidden passions that ends in tragedy and disgrace. But school is only half the story. Spanning the years 1975 to 1979 the chapters alternate between terms and holidays, between Sophie's dogged pursuit of the glittering prizes and her slow, painful discovery of who she is and where she belongs. Through other people's families, and especially other people's mothers, she learns as much about the mysterious laws of class and love as she learns from her teachers about the Latin and Greek that will prove her passport to security.

Beautifully written and deeply compassionate, Rough Music is a novel of one family at two defining points in time. Seamlessly alternating between the present day and a summer thirty years past, its twin stories unfold at a cottage along the eastern coast of England.

Will Pagett receives an unexpected gift on his fortieth birthday, two weeks at a perfect beach house in Cornwall. Seeking some distance from the married man with whom he's having an affair, he invites his aging mother and father to share his holiday, knowing the sun and sea will be a welcome change for. But the cottage and the stretch of sand before it seem somehow familiar and memories of a summer long ago begin to surface.

Thirty-two years earlier. A young married couple and their eight year-old son begin two idyllic weeks at a beach house in Cornwall. But the sudden arrival of unknown American relatives has devastating consequences, turning what was to be a moment of reconciliation into an act of betrayal that will cast a lengthy shadow.

As Patrick Gale masterfully unspools these parallel stories, we see their subtle and surprising reflections in each other and discover how the forgotten dramas of childhood are reenacted throughout our lives.

Deftly navigating the terrain between humor and tragedy, Patrick Gale has written an unforgettable novel about the lies that adults tell and the small acts of treason that children can commit. Rough Music gracefully illuminates the merciful tricks of memory and the courage with which we continue to assert our belief in love and happiness.


From the Hardcover edition.

Truly compelling and rich with emotional insight , Patrick Gale's Cornish novel, ROUGH MUSIC is a beautiful story of a marriage and the secrets a family holds. 'Sparkling with emotional intelligence. A gripping portrait of a marriage and the quiet, devastating fall-out of family life' Independent Julian is a contented if naive only child, and a holiday on the coast of North Cornwall should be perfect, especially when distant American cousins join the party. But their arrival brings upheaval and unexpected turmoil. It is only as a seemingly well-adjusted adult that Julian is able to reflect on the realities of his parents' marriage, and to recognise that the happy, cheerful boyhood he thought was his is infused with secrets, loss and the memory of betrayals that have shaped his life.