When his estranged daughter Katherine appears on his doorstep, ex-Detective Frank Elder knows that something is wrong. Katherine has long been troubled, and Elder has always felt powerless to help her. But now she has begun to self-destruct. The breakdown of her affair with a controversial artist has sent her into a tailspin that culminates in murder. And as Elder struggles to protect his daughter and prove her innocence, the terrors of the past threaten them both once more...
*'Probably the best novel I'll read this year. It's about work and love and characters who ring true. By the time I was 50 pages in I couldn't put it down. Can't stop thinking about it' Stephen King* For generations, Rich Gundersen's family has made a living felling giant redwoods on California's rugged coast. It's treacherous work, and though his son, Chub, wants nothing more than to step into his father's boots, Rich longs for a bigger future for him. Colleen just wants a brother or sister for Chub, but she's losing hope. There is so much that she and Rich don't talk about these days - including her suspicions that there is something very wrong at the heart of the forest on which their community is built. When Rich is offered the opportunity to buy a plot of timber which borders Damnation Grove, he leaps at the chance - without telling Colleen. Soon the Gundersens find themselves on opposite sides of a battle that threatens to rip their town apart. Can they find a way to emerge from this together?
'There are two things that you should know about me immediately: the first is that I am beautiful, the second is that yesterday I killed a man. Both things were accidents . ..' When Midlands housewife Coventry Dakin kills her neighbour with an Action Man - in a wild bid to prevent him from strangling his wife - she goes on the run. Finding herself alone and friendless in London, she tries to lose herself in the city's maze of streets. There, she meets a bewildering cast of eccentric characters. From Professor Willoughby D'Eresby, his perpetually naked wife Letitia, to Dodo, a care-in the-community inhabitant of Cardboard City, they all contrive to change Coventry in ways she could never have foreseen . . .
Co je příčinou Eviny krize, která ji přiměla schovávat se pod peřinou? Možná pověstných stokrát nic… Počínaje matčinými a učitelčinými drobnými, „dobře míněnými“ radami a poznámkami v době dospívání, schopnými navždy podkopat tolik potřebné sebevědomí. Přes manželovo samozřejmé přijímání vzorné péče o chod domu a domácnosti. Konče čím? Nevděkem vlastních dětí? Nedostatkem „času na sebe“? Nedostatkem lásky? Nedostatkem obyčejné lidskosti?
Román britské autorky, proslavené především humornou ságou o nesnadném dospívání Adriana Molea, není vůbec lacině feministický. Ani v příběhu ženy, která odmítala vstát z postele, nechybí břitká ironie, tentokrát je ovšem zaměřena méně politicky. O to více se týká „obyčejných“ lidských vztahů.
