Lex Croucher

Dickinson meets Booksmart with a dash of Little Women in this Regency-era romantic comedy with a deliciously feminist twist, from the author of Reputation, Lex Croucher's Infamous. Twenty-two-year-old aspiring writer Edith (“Eddie”) Miller and her best friend Rose have always done everything together—from climbing trees and sneaking bottles of wine, to extensive kissing practice. But Rose has started talking about marriage, and Eddie is horrified. Why can’t they continue as they always have? Then Eddie meets charming, renowned poet Nash Nicholson––a rival of Lord Byron, if he does say so himself––and he welcomes her into his world of eccentric artists and boundary-breaking visionaries. When Eddie receives an invitation to Nash's crumbling Gothic estate in the countryside, promising inspiration (and time to finish her novel, a long-held dream), she eagerly agrees. But the pure hedonism and debauchery that ensues isn’t exactly what she had in mind, and Eddie soon finds herself torn between her complicated feelings for Rose and her equally complicated dynamic with Nash, whose increasingly bad behavior doesn’t match up to her vision for her literary hero. Will Eddie be forced to choose between her friendship with Rose and her literary dreams––or will she be able to write her own happily ever after?

A Novel

Infamous

Rose’s monologue here just made me think about growing up and changing with my own friends, and how far I’ve come since my early 20s.

Rachael Bahr

‘Eddie,’ Rose said, exasperated. ‘I am not the same person I was when I was a child. I want different things. I am not pretending to enjoy people and parties and dancing - I actually do enjoy them. You always knew who you were who you were going to be. A writer. God, you dragged me and your family into bookshops enough times, to show exactly where your name would be on the shelf. That's how certain you were about your future. You could quite literally point to it. I didn't know what I wanted, it took me a long time to realise, and then I... Well.’ She made an abortive movement with her hands and then paused for a second before continuing, more in control of her tone. ‘There are many things I can't have, but I can build a place where I feel at home. Where people like ... people like Albert and I ... can feel truly welcome. This is me being realistic about my prospects. The sort of life I might hope to lead. And, on balance ... I think a life with a nice gentleman like Albert and a home that's a haven will be quite enough for me. I would love for you to be part of that life. But not if you're going to be dreadful to me every day because you're angry that I've grown up, and you want to be eight and covered in mud and holding hands im treehouse forever.’

Amrei 

'People don't understand,' he said,  face softening. 'Those of us who live to create, who throw ourselves upon the altar of art and bleed and bleed for it ... how could we ever really inhabit the same world as those who simply dress for the day and read the paper and never dream that they could be the god of something new?'

'None of us are true originals, Eddie. We piece an approximation of a person together from what we like and what we hate, and some- where in that muddle we find ourselves.'

Infamous quotes

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