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Sarah Broadhurst's view...
January 2010 Debut of the Month.
A startling story of betrayal and grief, of love and infidelity that has a quite unexpected ending. Told from two points of view, it traces a tale of a lost love, a lost friendship and a lost daughter through to a point where everyone is hiding something from everyone else. Written in a sharp, hypnotic style, its menace grows fast and keeps you compulsively turning the pages as a complicated story unfolds, a very accomplished debut.
Comparison: Josephine Hart, Jane Fallon, Kim Edwards.
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Synopsis
The Art of Losing by Rebecca Connell
An exceptionally mature and tautly written first novel reminiscent of Josephine Hart's 'Damage'. Haunted by childhood loss, 23-year-old Louise takes on her late mother's name and sets out to find Nicholas, the man she has always held responsible for her mother's death. Now a middle-aged lecturer, husband and father, Nicholas has nevertheless been unable to shake off the events of his past, when he and Louise's mother, Lydia, had a clandestine, destructive and ultimately tragic affair. As Louise infiltrates his life and the lives of his family, she forms close and intimate relationships with both his son and his wife, but her true identity remains unknown to Nicholas himself. Tensions grow and outward appearances begin to crack, as Louise and Nicholas both discover painful truths about their own lives, each other and the woman they both loved.
Reviews
'Connell gets under the skin with this part thriller, part heartfelt examination of betrayal and grief.'
Catherine Taylor, Guardian
'A first novelist who stakes out a compact patch and cultivates it with style hints at greater promise than one who aims higher, but goes messily astray. Connell switches between aggrieved Louise's voice and that of the seducer, Nicholas. This counterpoint adds perspective and sharpens a finely-crafted mood of curdled sensuality and gathering menace. The truth, of course, is not quite what it seems.'
Boyd Tonkin, Independent
'This confident debut is both a thriller and an emotional portrait of the long-term repercussions of infidelity.'
Melissa McClements, Financial Times
The Art of Losing is a taut, convincing exploration of the pressures of love and the price of infidelity, and like the passion it so vividly describes it grips from the first and refuses to let go. For sheer readability, Rebecca Connell
's debut novel takes some beating.
Rupert Thomson
About the Author
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Rebecca Connell lives in South London. She graduated from Oxford University, where she read English, in 2001. After working in television for several years, devising and researching factual entertainment programming, she moved to market research in 2005. She currently works as a researcher and writer of articles and reports dealing with aspects of youth culture and lifestyle. Her first novel, 'The Art of Losing', was published in 2009; 'Told in Silence' is her second.
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Book Info
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Categories
Categories
Literary / Contemporary
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