Captivating and astonishing… from cover to cover ‘Devotion’ prods, pokes and provokes. This is quite simply a book to make you think (possibly until your thoughts combust). The contents page alone sets a uniqueness alert buzzing and quivering. Dr Finlay Logan, a criminal psychologist is about to assess a girl who could be classed as a religious terrorist, he however, is a damaged, broken man himself. Ros Barber has the most touching and expressive way with words, they somehow flow together to create a beautiful yet penetrating structure, which shifts and reconstructs itself as you read. Italics are used to denote speech, creating a feeling of hearing a conversation in your head, it’s almost as though you are trespassing on inner most private thoughts, that you shouldn't be privy to. At times this is an uncomfortable, difficult and startling read, it is also lyrical and haunting and fascinating. Staggeringly original, the storyline blends with science and conjecture, creating a penetrating read that is not to be missed.
April is angry.Only nineteen, she is an elective mute, accused of a religiously motivated atrocity. Dr Finlay Logan is broken. A borderline-suicidal psychologist still reeling from his daughter's death, he must assess April's sanity in a world where - ten years after the death of Richard Dawkins - moves have been made to classify religious belief as a form of mental illness. Both April and Finlay struggle to understand what has happened to them, sharing secrets, silence and an inability to deal with the world around them. Gently unpicking the lives of these two broken characters, Barber offers a psychologically acute and deeply moving exploration of grief. An extraordinary novel from one of the brightest rising stars in fiction.
'Barber's sensational premise delivers an unexpectedly piercing exploration of loss and different kinds of faith.' Kirkus
Author
About Ros Barber
Dr Ros Barber is the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning The Marlowe Papers. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, lecturer in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Director of Research at the Shakespearean Authorship Trust. She has been visiting lecturer at Brunel, Kent, and Notts Trent Universities. She lives in Brighton.
