Sorrow and Bliss

THE PHENOMENAL SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND UNIVERSALLY BELOVED WORD-OF-MOUTH SENSATION

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.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

Just read it. Its 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 Ive 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