Sorrow and Bliss

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION '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 'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book' The Times 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 forty - 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 seventeen, 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 PHENOMENAL SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Just read it. It's unforgettable' India Knight, Sunday Times 'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year' Elizabeth Day 'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved.