Amanda Craig

'If you like your novels wide-ranging, ambitious, socially panoramic, and engaged in the most important issues of the day, Amanda Craig is the writer for you. For more than twenty years now she has been anatomising the state of the British nation with wit and empathy' Jonathan Coe 'She's such a skilful storyteller who vividly dramatises our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion' Bernardine Evaristo When Hannah is invited into the First-Class carriage of the London to Penzance train by Jinni, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them? But when Hannah goes to Jinni's husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems - not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth - and who is the real victim? The Times - Books for 2020 Sunday Times - Books to look out for in 2020 Observer - Fiction to look out for in 2020, Alex Preston: 'The Golden Rule does what her novels do best, wrapping the reader in a tight, lean narrative, showing the strangeness that lies at the heart of normal-seeming lives' Daily Mail - 2020 Top Pick, Stephanie Cross: 'Craig's The Golden Rule promises to be a typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner about two women who decide to murder each other's husbands' i paper - 'If there were any justice, the versatile Craig would be one of our most lauded novelists. Her eighth novel [The Golden Rule] takes inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train to spin a story of deception and deceit' New Statesman - Books for 2020 Financial Times - Books for 2020 'shrewd contemporary satirist Amanda Craig reworks Strangers on a Train' Praise for Amanda Craig 'Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny' India Knight 'As satisfying a novel as I have read in years' Sarah Perry 'Amanda Craig is one of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists now working in Britain' Alison Lurie

The Golden Rule

Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded. Mud, mice and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them. Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor and a sheep farmer's wife; and when Lottie's innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed for ever. Part black comedy, part psychological suspense, this is a rich, compassionate and enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside, and the potentially lethal interplay between money and marriage. Although it stands alone, it continues Amanda Craig's sequence of novels featuring inter-connected characters which illuminate aspects of contemporary life. It is the work of a writer at the height of her powers.

The Lie of the Land

Will must run, or die. He's seen a murder, and the gang on his estate are after him. Hurt, hungry and afraid, he comes to an abandoned house in a different part of the city. Behind its high fences is a place of safety. Here, he can hide like a wounded beast. He can find food, and healing - and learn how to do more than survive. But when Will meets Padma, he must choose between his good side and his bad one. For the gang he left behind is still there. How can he live without becoming a killer? How can he love without being a thief? Exciting, fast-paced and different, this is a story that keeps you reading until the last line.

The Other Side of You

The enchanting Casa Luna, a villa near Cortona, become the scene for a family vacation that forces each traveler to discover significant differences in himself or herself, in a modern-day story of love and lies, set against the backdrop of Tuscany, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Love in Idleness

'Hugely entertaining' Telegraph 'She's such a skilful storyteller who vividly dramatises our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'I revelled in The Three Graces - such an intriguing cast, so convincingly presented, and a narrative that continually surprises' PENELOPE LIVELY 'A brilliant piece of storytelling... it should be the book everybody's reading this summer' ANDREW O'HAGAN 'Gorgeous and generous... rich with characters and suffused with sunlight' LISSA EVANS When Enzo shoots an illegal migrant from his bedroom one night, it triggers a series of events that embroil old and young, rich and poor, native and foreign. His elderly neighbours Ruth, Diana and Marta are three friends who have retired to Tuscany. Ruth's favourite grandson Olly is about to get married from her idyllic hillside farmhouse; however, the bride, Tania, seems curiously unengaged by anything but vlogging as a social media influencer. Marta, preparing to give the annual music recital sponsored by a Russian oligarch in hiding from Putin, is increasingly unwell, and her grandson, Xan, is full of resentment at the inequalities he encounters. Diana is nursing her husband, Lord Evenlode, who is living with dementia, and looking back over a long and troubled marriage. Over two weeks in May, all these characters will face challenging choices as they grapple with their own past and with present dangers. For although the Tuscan spring looks as ravishing as a Renaissance painting, the realities of modern life make it harder and harder to believe that there is more that unites us than what keeps us apart. Brilliant, enthralling, funny and generous, this is an exploration of the indomitable human heart.

'The book everybody should be reading this summer' Andrew O'Hagan

The Three Graces

Connect with Your Tween While They Are Still Listening

Who Are You and What Have You Done with My Kid? : 

A satire of modern manners, dissecting and connecting modern London, from its literary circuit to its hospitals and slums, as well as giving an amusing and poignant portrait of childbirth and motherhood.

A Vicious Circle

A Novel

In a Dark Wood

Quick Reads

'She's such a skilful storyteller who vividly dramatises our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion' Bernardine Evaristo'Do you know why lifeboats have an axe in them?''To chop down trees on a desert island?''No. To cut off the hands of swimmers who can't be saved, because otherwise the boat and everyone in it will sink.'When Enzo shoots an illegal migrant from his bedroom one night, it triggers a series of events that embroil old and young, rich and poor, native and foreign. His elderly neighbours Ruth, Diana and Marta are three friends who have retired to Tuscany. Ruth's favourite grandson Olly is about to get married from her idyllic hillside farmhouse; however, the bride, Tania, seems curiously unengaged by anything but vlogging as a social media influencer. Marta, preparing to give the annual music recital sponsored by a Russian oligarch in hiding from Putin, is increasingly unwell, and her grandson, Xan, is full of resentment at the inequalities he encounters. Diana is nursing her demented husband, Lord Evenlode, and desperate for her own freedom to begin.Over two weeks in May, all these characters will face challenging choices as they grapple with their own past and with present dangers. For although the Tuscan spring looks as ravishing as a Renaissance painting, the realities of modern life make it harder and harder to believe that there is more that unites us than what keeps us apart.Brilliant, enthralling, funny and generous, this is an exploration of the indomitable human heart.

So you have a Tween! What now? Dr. Amanda Craig knows what it’s like to watch your child go from sweet elementary student to moody tween in the span of just a few years and she’s here to help navigate you through it! How do we keep our kids close while cultivating the confidence they’ll need to grow up? How do we navigate the inevitable dips, divides, and potholes? Where do we find the strength, self-awareness, and wisdom that amount to a path forward? Despite the parenting opportunities in the tween years, we often spend time focused on academics and the social concerns of elementary school then quickly pivot to worries about safety, drugs, sex and the rebellious behavioral issues of the teen years. We think we’re connecting but we’re not. We miss the neurological explosion that is taking place before us as tweens experience four significant changes that shake them (and us) to their core. Their brains are changing. They feel and experience emotions they do not recognize. They’re hyperaware of themselves. They do not know how to express themselves. Most importantly, parents still have a “seat at the table” to make positive impressions on their tweens as they prepare them for the teenage years.

Who Are You & What Have You Done with My Kid?

Knotshead is a school catering for the children of the rich, famous, liberal - and deluded. With its progressive curriculum, complacent staff and beautiful grounds, it looks like Paradise. But the clever, the odd and the bookish are relentlessly persecuted as pupils make their own rules in a bubble of privilege and prejudice. When Alice, the Headmaster's intellectual step-daughter, and the much-expelled American millionaire Winthrop T Sheen join forces against the school bully, Grub Viner, a gifted pianist and school "joker", has to choose between love and loyalty, and black comedy escalates to murder.

A Private Place

Rich or poor, five people, seemingly very different, find their lives in the capital connected in undreamed-of ways. There is Job, the illegal mini-cab driver whose wife in Zimbabwe no longer answers his letters; Ian, the idealistic supply teacher in exile from South Africa; Katie from New York, jilted and miserable as a dogsbody at a political magazine, and fifteen-year-old Anna, trafficked into sexual slavery. Polly Noble, an overworked human rights lawyer, knows better than most how easy it is to fall through the cracks into the abyss. Yet when her au pair, Iryna, disappears, Polly's own needs and beliefs drag her family into a world of danger, deceit and terror. Riveting, humane, engaging, HEARTS AND MINDS is a novel that is both entertaining and prepared to ask the most serious questions about the way we live.

Hearts And Minds

Quando Hannah viene invitata da Jinni nello scompartimento di prima classe del treno che da Londra sta andando in Cornovaglia, non sa che sta per precipitare in una tela di ragno. Ora una madre single in forte difficoltà economica, Hannah era fuggita dalla Cornovaglia per andare all’università. Ma una volta sposato Jake e avuta una bambina, i suoi sogni si trasformano in un’amara disillusione. Il marito l’ha lasciata per Eve, ricca e senza figli, e Hannah suo malgrado si è messa a fare la donna delle pulizie per sopravvivere. Anche Jinni è ugualmente arrabbiata col marito e in cerca di vendetta, e nel corso del viaggio le due donne decidono di uccidere ciascuna il compagno dell’altra. Dopotutto, sono due estranee su un treno: chi potrà mai collegarle? Ma quando Hannah incontra il marito di Jinni, ben presto capisce che lei non le ha raccontato tutta la verità su se stessa e sulla persona da assassinare. Chi mente? Chi è la vera vittima? Amanda Craig reinterpreta al femminile, al tempo della Brexit e del #MeToo, il noir di Patricia Highsmith Sconosciuti in treno e il film di Alfred Hitchcock Delitto per delitto, regalandoci un romanzo che avvolge il lettore in una narrazione serrata e mette a nudo la stranezza di vite apparentemente normali.

La regola d'oro

Un bellissimo ed efficace ritratto dell’Inghilterra (e dell’Europa) di oggi, con un focus sulle complicazioni della vita matrimoniale, della crisi economica, dell’integrazione o mancanza di. Una coppia profondamente in crisi, lei architetto lui giornalista, non solo non si possono permettere di divorziare ma non riescono neanche più a vivere a Londra, vista la crisi economica. A lui hanno chiuso il giornale, lei ha perso il lavoro. La casa in cui vivono non si riesce a vendere per un prezzo accettabile: l’unica soluzione sembra essere quella di affittarla e con i soldi dell’affitto andare a stare in un posto molto più economico, una località remota del Devon. E così, la coppia che non funziona con i loro tre figli si trasferisce. E qui si apre la visione non più idilliaca da turista, ma grama da residente della vita in campagna, una campagna povera, piena di immigrati pagati una miseria, e di inglesi favorevoli alla Brexit. In più aleggia sulla casa che hanno affittato un mistero, perché l’affitto è ridicolmente basso, e presto scoprono il motivo: il precedente abitante era stato ammazzato proprio nel posto in cui vivono. Pubblicato nel 2017, è stato nominato libro dell’anno dal Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Telegraph, Irish Times e Financial Times.

Le circostanze

Joanne Harris

Philip Hensher

Ali Smith

Tracy Chevalier

James Robertson

Salley Vickers

Susan Elderkin

Blake Morrison

Kate Mosse

Maggie O'Farrell

Maria McCann

Terence Blacker

Tahmima Anam

Richard Mabey

Philippa Gregory

Rachel Billington

Catherine O'flynn

William Fiennes

A charming collection of stories and fables inspired by Britain's nineteen species of native trees, written by nineteen of Britain's leading authors. Why Willows Weep is edited by Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, and contains beautiful colour illustrations by Canadian artist Leanne Shapton. With sales in hardback of 10,000 this collection has already helped the Woodland Trust plant nearly 50,000 trees across the United Kingdom, and it is now available in paperback for the first time.

Contemporary Tales from the Woods

Why Willows Weep

Thirty-nine, divorced, jobless: Benedick Hunter is going nowhere, heading in the exact opposite direction he expected. So when he comes across a children's book that his mother, Laura, wrote, he decides that her life and work - haunting stories replete with sinister woods, wicked witches and brave girls who battle giants - hold the key to finding out why his own life is such a mess. Setting out to discover why Laura killed herself when he was six, Benedick travels to the US. As he grows more obsessed with what happened to his mother, Benedick enters into a dark wood - one that is both hilariously real and terrifyingly psychological. Dark humorous and inventive, In a Dark Wood casts light on the nature of depression, genius and of the healing power of storytelling.

Amanda Craig

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