Sorrow and Bliss: The Instant Sunday Times Top Five Bestseller

"The Book Everyone Is Talking About" is a novel that follows Martha Friel, who is on the edge of 40 and has been loved by her husband Patrick every day of her adult life. However, everything is broken, and Patrick has decided to leave. Martha returns to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents and has one last chance to find out if a life is ever too broken to fix. The book has received rave reviews from critics and is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 10 June 2021
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

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, heart-breakingly 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.

Weight: 566g
Dimension: 164 x 240 x 34 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474622974