A Complicated Matter

Set against the Blitz in London, a young womans extraordinary journey of self-discovery and an intimate meditation on what it takes to find our place in the world.

A March Best Book in Red

NOTE PERFECTEast Riding Magazine
AN EXTRAORDINARY NEW WRITER Nina Stibbe

I used to believe the world had been created for me; every stone and grain of sand. As I grew older, I began to think of myself as something tacked on to the edge.

1939, London: From McPhails Passage to Kensingtons Grand Palace Hotel, Rose Dunbar is evacuated from her humble home on the Rock of Gibraltar and dropped into a chaotic city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being flagrantly foreign to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

It is only when she is shifted to the countryside to become secretary to the plain-speaking and sightless Major Inchbold that Roses dizzying journey to womanhood will become more surreal than ever, as she drinks tea at the vicarage and stands up for the lower orders. But Roses greatest dilemma is yet to come, as she must decide where her home - and her heart - really lies.

In Anne Youngsons wry and sublimely understated prose, this unique and beautiful story of love, class and belonging is also a profound and intimate meditation on what it takes to find our place in the world.

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Praise for ANNE YOUNGSON:

Tender, wise and moving, Meet Me at the Museum is a novel to cherish.JOHN BOYNE
Insightful, emotionally acute and absorbingDAILY EXPRESS
Beautiful and affectingNINA STIBBE

Readers love Anne Youngsons novels:
I was utterly gripped and felt bereft when Id finished it *****
I could not put this book down. An inspired approach to writing about life and love *****
One of my top ten best reads of the year*****