Synopses & Reviews
Nina and Isabel are the closest of sisters, bound together since childhood by the devastating, sudden death of their baby brother. Against the backdrop of the hottest summer for a century, a drama of suspicion and betrayal unfolds. Bonds of love and shared history are stretched to the breaking point as Nina begins an illicit affair. Each sister claims to possess knowledge that could destroy the other. But who is lying, and who is telling the truth? As the past becomes alive and dangerous, it forces Isabel to commit a shocking, transforming act.
Review
"[W]e experience an extra shudder of delight as we realize the lifelike nature of what we have read: a tale told by an uncertain narrator, whose only absolute is death." The New York Times
Review
"The story...combines the suspense of a Hitchcock thriller with a captivating family drama.....Sophisticated, sensual, frightening, and remarkably visual: a first-rate debut." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"Dunmore's style is coolly beautiful, with many a memorable phrase....the elusive sense of horror builds slowly into a thunderous finale, and the devil is revealed." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
About the Author
Helen Dunmore (1952-2017) was a poet, novelist, short story and children's writer. Her poetry books received a Poetry Book Society Choice and Recommendations, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, and the Signal Poetry Award. Bestiary was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1997. Inside the Wave won the 2017 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year. She won first prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 1990 with her poem "Sisters leaving the dance,"and first prize in the National Poetry Competition in 2010 with "The Malarkey." After making her debut with The Apple Fall in 1983, she published all her poetry with Bloodaxe. Her earlier work was collected in Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), which was followed by Glad of These Times (2007), The Malarkey (2012), and Inside the Wave (2017), her tenth and final collection. She published twelve novels and three books of short stories with Penguin, including A Spell of Winter (1995), winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Talking to the Dead (1996), The Siege (2001), Mourning Ruby (2003), House of Orphans (2006) and The Betrayal (2010), as well as The Greatcoat (2012) with Hammer, and The Lie (2014), Exposure (2016) and Birdcage Walk (2017) with Hutchinson. A posthumous story collection, Girl, Balancing and Other Stories, followed from Hutchinson in 2018. Born in Beverley, Yorkshire, she studied English at York University, and after graduating in 1973 spent two years teaching in Finland before settling in Bristol.