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. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud'
Guardian

'I wanted to send it to everyone I know'
Ann Patchett

'One of those "read it in one sitting and tell all your friends" kind of books'
Evening Standard

'A sharply observed, darkly hilarious and merciless portrait of a thoroughly messed-up family'
Clare Chambers

'Compulsively readable, Sorrow and Bliss is one of the funniest books I've read'
i Paper

'Funny and as endearing as a good friend'
Barbara Kingsolver

'Fiercely intelligent and absolutely sublime'
Irish Independent

An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping