It is based on the true story of Edith Thompson, a book-keeper in the City who had married during the war but soon found her suburban life – and husband – stifling, dreaming instead of the kind of romantic and glamorous world she found in novels and in the new cinemas springing up around her.
Attractive, confident and financially independent, Edie was excited by the new freedoms open to women and enjoyed flouting convention. When she met Freddy Bywaters, seven years her junior, dark, sexy and impetuous, an affair seemed inevitable. Never in her wildest dreams could Edie have foreseen the devastation to four young lives that was to follow.
Drawing on newspaper reports of the period as well as letters from Edie to Freddy, Jill Dawson creates an intimate, tantalising voice for Edie as the story unfolds of how she came to be on trial for her life at the Old Bailey during the snowy December of 1922. Was Edie simply ahead of her time or did she collude in her own fate? Teasing out answers to this compelling mystery, this is a novel of entrancing imagination, sensitivity and grace.
Jane Smiley
Rosina Lippi
Ali Smith
Jill Dawson
Kate Grenville
Trezza Azzopardi
Jeanette Winterson
Ali Smith
Jane Smiley
Danzy Senna
Jayne Anne Philips
Rosina Lippi
Sena Jeter Naslund
Josephine Humphreys
Laurie Graham
Esther Freud
Leslie Forbes
Helen Dewitt
Meaghan Delahunt
Jill Dawson
Kate Grenville
Barbara Kingsolver
Ruth Ozeki
Susanna Clarke
Maggie O'Farrell
Tayari Jones
Kamila Shamsie
Naomi Alderman
Lisa McInerney
Ali Smith
Eimear McBride
A.M. Homes
Madeline Miller
Téa Obreht
Barbara Kingsolver
Marilynne Robinson
Rose Tremain
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lionel Shriver
Andrea Levy
Valerie Martin
Ann Patchett
Kate Grenville
Linda Grant
Suzanne Berne
Carol Shields
Anne Michaels
Helen Dunmore
Tune into host Vick Hope and a line-up of incredible guests on our weekly podcast full of unmissable book recommendations.
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