Search results for ""Author Stella Duffy""

'FAULTLESS STORYTELLING' Observer'A PORTRAIT OF SISTERHOOD ... POWERFUL, WISE, CELEBRATORY' Daily MailA compelling novel about family secrets and the legacy of trauma, set against the changing fortunes of an English seaside town, from award-winning writer Stella Duffy. When Lucy discovers the body of her great aunt Kitty, with a puzzling note and empty pill bottles by her bed, she can't believe that the formidable woman who held her family together is gone - or understand why she has taken her own life. Lucy is determined to decipher Kitty's final message. What she finds will overturn everything she thought she knew about her family. Lullaby Beach takes the reader on a journey through three generations of a complicated, close-knit family whose joys and misfortunes track many of the most pressing conflicts and concerns of post-war Britain, from the promise and hypocrisies of 1950s London to the political divides and risky freedoms of the present day. 'Whether it's down to the sure rhythm of Duffy's faultless storytelling or the faded backdrop of the south coast of England, her latest novel is a comforting tale despite some gritty subject matter ... Wise, generous and atmospheric' OBSERVER'Duffy is a fearless writer ... A portrait of sisterhood in the wider sense - one that's as powerful and gritty as it is wise and celebratory' DAILY MAIL'Lullaby Beach explores familial legacy, generational secrets and the effects of long-lasting trauma with a distinct tenderness' NEW STATESMAN'A writer who never lets you down' ALI SMITH

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'Faultless storytelling . . . Wise, generous, atmospheric' ObserverGrowing up after the war in Westmere, an English seaside town, Kitty has been sheltered by her parents, but meeting Danny changes all of that. She decides to leave everyone and everything she knows to follow Danny to London, in pursuit of glamour and opportunity, and this sets in motion a series of events that will echo down the generations. Over fifty years later, when Kitty's body is found in her beach hut with a suicide note by her side, her great-niece will help to unravel all the secrets which the family has kept hidden over the decades.'Explores familial legacy, generational secrets and the effects of long-lasting trauma with a distinct tenderness' New Statesman'A portrait of sisterhood . . . powerful' Daily Mail'A writer who never lets you down' Ali Smith

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Once, Theodora was little more than a slave, the daughter of a bear-keeper, running barefoot through the streets of Constantinople. Now she is Theoudoron, 'the Gift of God', Empress of Byzantine Rome and the most powerful woman in the world. 'Hard-nosed, cruel, imaginative, kind, frustrated, generous, ruthless: Theodora is, in Duffy's hands, a richly paradoxical character from whom the light of life shines brightly' GUARDIANIn Stella Duffy's compelling new novel, the beguiling and extraordinary Empress Theodora emerges from the shadow of history into brilliant light. Clever, courageous and ruthless when betrayed, Theodora rules alongside her husband, the Emperor Justinian - a true love match in a world of political marriages. But while wars rage on the borders of the Empire, Theodora discovers that the greatest danger to her reign - and her life - lies much closer to home. 'Highly enjoyable' SUNDAY TIMES'A writer who never lets you down' ALI SMITH

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Under his railway arch in Loughborough Junction, South London, Robert Sutton is taking leave of a lifetime of hard work. His dry-cleaning shop lies at the heart of a lively community, a fixed point in a changing world. And, as he explains to his successor, young East Londoner Akeel, it is also the resting place for the contents of his customers' pockets - and for their secrets and lies. As he helps Akeel to make a new life out of his old one, Robert also hands on all he knows of his world: the dirty dip of the Thames; the parks, rare green oases in a desert of high-rises and decaying mansion blocks; and the varied lives that converge at the junction. Humming with life, packed tight with detail, The Room of Lost Things is a hymn of love to a great and overflowing city, and a profoundly human story that holds us in its grip from the first sentence until the last.

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Based on a true story, London Lies Beneath is a compelling historical novel from the award-winning writer Stella Duffy.'As gloriously alive as the turn of the century south London streets it portrays' REDIn August 1912, three friends set out on an adventure. Two of them come home. Tom, Jimmy and Itzhak have grown up together in the crowded slums of Walworth. All three boys are expected to follow their father's trades and stay close to home. But Tom has wider dreams. So when he hears of a scouting trip, sailing from Waterloo to Sheppey and the mouth of the Thames - he is determined to go. And Itzhak and Jimmy go with him.Inspired by real events, this is the story of three friends, and a tragedy that will change them for ever. It is also a song of south London, of working class families with hidden histories, of a bright and complex world long neglected. London Lies Beneath is a powerful and compelling novel, rich with life and full of wisdom.'Vivid and full of heart, Duffy's new novel is a fitting hymn to the city that inspired it' FINANCIAL TIMES'A paean not just to South London, but to a vanished way of working-class life . . . Duffy's narrative is as fluid as a costermonger's patter, carrying the reader along' DAILY MAIL

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What secrets is she keeping in the hidden room...?Life is good for Laurie and Martha. They have a beautiful home in the fens, three great kids. Laurie's career as an architect has suddenly taken off. But when a stranger arrives in town, things begin to go wrong. Martha feels resentful of Laurie's success. Teenage daughter Hope becomes withdrawn and obsessive. And Laurie can do nothing. Because this isn't a stranger. She knows this man all too well - and what he's capable of. He's come back for her. And if she tells anyone the truth - she will lose everything.

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Roderick Alleyn is back in this unique crime novel begun by Ngaio Marsh during the Second World War and now completed by Stella Duffy in a way that has delighted reviewers and critics alike. Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award 2018. It’s business as usual for Mr Glossop as he does his regular round delivering wages to government buildings scattered across New Zealand’s lonely Canterbury plains. But when his car breaks down he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital, with the telephone lines down, a storm on its way and the nearby river about to burst its banks. Trapped with him at Mount Seager are a group of quarantined soldiers with a serious case of cabin fever, three young employees embroiled in a tense love triangle, a dying elderly man, an elusive patient whose origins remain a mystery … and a potential killer. When the payroll disappears from a locked safe and the hospital’s death toll starts to rise faster than normal, can the appearance of an English detective working in counterespionage be just a lucky coincidence – or is something more sinister afoot?

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CHALLENGE was Vita Sackville-West's second novel. It was ready to go to print in 1920, but the author suddenly changed her mind. This was not because she lacked confidence in her work, but because of the scandal it would have caused. CHALLENGE remained unpublished for over fifty years.Vita's love affair with Violet Trefusis had reached its peak, and, eloping to France, they decided to abandon everything and everyone - children and husbands included - to spend the rest of their lives together. Although they returned to their families eventually, CHALLENGE remains a testament of their love, and was written during that period. The hero, Julian, might be a Byronic young Englishman, and Eve the woman he adores; it may be an adventure tale about a revolt on a Greek island. But really, this is a love story, written in the presence of the beloved, and inspired by her. And, as its title implies, the novel is a challenge to the society that condemned Vita and her lover.

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Its Dark in London features the work of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, David McKean, Ilya, Carol Swain, Dix, Melinda Gebbie, in tandem with the stories of London writers like Iain Sinclair, Graeme Gordon, Christopher Petit and Stella Duffy. This fusion produces a portrait of London that captures the city's fundamental essence as an exquisite mixture of lofty towers and gutter sleaze, of suburban gentility and urban depravity, of private vices and public philanthropy.

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