Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 30 October 2008.

A sex scandal rocks the sheltered world of a private Vermont school, affecting students, parents and teachers alike. The story moves quickly as Shreve switches the narrative from one character to the next allowing the reader to see how each person involved views the situation. As the events unfold it becomes clear that blame and guilt are equally split amongst these characters and how this affects all of them makes for a dramatic and moving novel. This previous Lovereading author of the month has delivered a great story yet again.

Synopsis

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape.

A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voice -- those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal -- that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve's Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

Reviews

'Anita Shreve is back on cracking form with TESTIMONY. What is so fresh and resonant about this novel is the clever way in which the author unpacks the events with a series of separate narratives. Each voice contributes an additional layer of impasto to the picture; each layer, in turn, has to be mined carefully for its information and character and situation. Poised and absolutely steady-handed, this is a gripping piece of deconstruction Elizabeth Buchan, SUNDAY TIMES

'Anita Shreve's latest novel, TESTIMONY is one of her best. With her acute eye for behaviour and an exquisite ear for dialogue, Shreve explores the actions and reaction that will destroy a community through their all-too-human desires' EXPRESS

'Anita Shreve is a phenomenon. As ever - and even though the novel is written from different points of view - the power of Shreve's writing lies in it relentless passivity. The prose is undemonstrative, yet insidiously accomplished.' NEW STATESMAN

'A perfectly pitched account of human fallibility and the snares of temptation'
DAILY MAIL

About the Author

Anita Shreve is the author of fifteen best-selling novels which have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Lists. The Weight of Water was short listed for the Orange Prize and The Pilot’s Wife was selected by Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Book club’ series.  Shreve started her writing career as a journalist and her award-winning short stories and non-fiction have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Esquire.  Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13.  She has two children and three stepchildren and lives in Massachusetts.   Anita Shreve was our Author of the Month in February 2012.   Author photo © Deborah Feingold More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation