One of our Debuts of the Year 2011.

March 2011 Debut of the Month.

A panoramic debut about love and loss, THE BREAKING OF EGGS announces a major new talent and is an incredibly moving story of a man whose whole life is turned around as he finds everything he had always believed in crumbling around him. Funny, sad and thoroughly absorbing.

Why I Wrote The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell...

"First novels are often said to be autobiographies in disguise. This one isn’t. In fact, I went to great lengths to create a central character who was as unlike me as possible. Feliks Zhukovski is a lapsed Communist. I am not." Click here to read more...

Comparison: Paul Torday, Marina Lewycka
For more see our Author 'Like for Like' recommendation system
 

Synopsis

Change is in the air in a shabby apartment in the 19th arrondissment in Paris. One unremarkable day Madame Lefevre invites Feliks to call her Sandrine. As his indomitable landlady's manners have been as unvarying as her dresses for the last 36 years, this feels significant to Feliks. And it is. As the face of Europe transforms beyond recognition Feliks's own life teeters on the edge of change. All it takes is one uncharacteristic decision and suddenly an unstoppable chain of life-changing events is set in motion. Feliks does not embrace change - in fact, it makes him most uncomfortable. But as he's reunited with a brother that he hasn't seen since his childhood and comes face-to-face with the love he let slip through his fingers, Feliks has to face up to the possibility that the convictions he has based his life upon were nothing but smoke and mirrors. Soon his carefully constructed world is tumbling round his ears and Feliks wonders: is there such a thing as a second chance for someone like him?

About the Author

Jim Powell was born in London in 1949 and was educated at Cambridge. His first career was in advertising, becoming Managing Director of a major London agency. He then started a pottery, producing hand-painted tableware for leading stores. He was previously active in politics, contesting the 1987 Election and collaborating with former Foreign Secretary Francis Pym on his book The Politics of Consent. He lives in Northamptonshire. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation