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A House for Alice

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE INTIMATE AND COMPELLING NOVEL FROM THE PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR OF ORDINARY PEOPLE

After fifty years in the wilderness of London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. Her children are divided on whether she stays or goes, and in the wake of their father's death, the imagined stability of the family begins to fray.

Meanwhile youngest daughter Melissa has never let go of a love she lost, and Michael in return, even within the sturdy walls of his marriage to the sparkling Nicole, is haunted by the failed perfection of the past. As Alice's final decision draws closer, all that is hidden between Melissa and her sisters, Michael and Nicole, rises to the surface . . .

Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans's ordinary people confront fundamental questions. How should we raise our children? How to do right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, can we satisfy ourselves?

'A gorgeous novel from one of our most outstanding writers' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'A wise, tender novel' MONICA ALI
'A lyrical and glorious writer' NAOMI ALDERMAN
'Evans is always, always on the finest of forms' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS
'A writer at the top of her game' LEONE ROSS
'I adored A House for Alice. Her writing is exquisite: every sentence a jewel' ELIZABETH DAY

©2023 Diana Evans (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Evans's writing is...subtle but grounded, lyrical yet accessible. Her characters feel real, their interactions - particularly that tense space where the political and domestic meet - nuanced
Sunday Times
[An] ambitious tale of a family in contemporary London... [Evans's] wide cast of women are deftly drawn. There's heart and humour in abundance
The Times
The sheer vitality of Evans's dynamic prose... renders almost hypnotic her constant toggling between the prosaic and the metaphysical. There are some deft set pieces too, dramatising intimacy's most finely nuanced dynamics
Guardian
A warm but devastating narrative, dealing with the fallout of the Grenfell tragedy... Like any Evans novel, it is unputdownable
Harper's Bazaar, *Books to Look Out For 2023*
One of our most outstanding writers . . . A House for Alice [is] a stunning multi-generational kaleidoscope of London . . . Evans writes with exceptional profundity and is exemplary at exploring the inner workings of her fictional characters through a prose style so poetic you want to languish in her sentences.
Bernardine Evaristo, Vogue
A wise, tender novel about family and love that explores the tension between duty and desire and the question of what 'home' really means
Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane and Love Marriage
I adored it. Her writing is exquisite: every sentence a jewel; every paragraph containing some insight that makes you draw breath with its rightness
Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail and Magpie
At every point, whether sad or funny, A House for Alice is compassionate and sharp
Telegraph
Ambitious in scope ... The story is engrossing and moving
Independent
Diana Evans is fast proving herself a novelist to rank alongside Anne Tyler, so adept is she at parsing life's longings and upheavals... highly enjoyable, tenderly wrought
Daily Mail
Author Diana Evans
Narrator Natalie Simpson
Duration 11 hours and 54 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529191356
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Social issues
Availability AU, GB, IE

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