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Female, Nude

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What to expect

The story of a group holiday from which no one emerges unchanged, Female, Nude is the perfect summer escape: propulsive, thought-provoking, sexy and relatable.



'Sharp and incisive with a sinewy, sultry quality that makes it really moreish' Pandora Sykes

'Energetic and ambitious...thoroughly enjoyable' Guardian

'I was engrossed...it's stylish and sexy and I loved the setting and all the food' Amy Liptrot

'What a gorgeous, hot-blooded novel about art, the senses, and the multitudes of the female body' Charlotte Runcie

'Magnetically written' Stylist

'Beautifully human...Romantic and heady and violent and sexy' Kirsty Capes

'Sultry and immediate' Sophie Mackintosh

Sophie, a painter, is holidaying with friends in a stunning villa in Greece - her best friend Helena is shortly to be married, and this is the last time she and her friends will be together as single women. But life has treated them so differently since their university days, that Sophie is questioning everything about their friendship. Meanwhile her partner, Greg, is desperate for them to try for a baby, but she wants to devote herself to her art - and there are other, deeper forces, pulling the two of them in opposite directions.

In the course of the holiday, Sophie paints a nude portrait of her friend Alessia, and becomes involved in an intense affair with Ky, who lives and works on the island. Both the painting, and the affair, will challenge everything Sophie thinks she knows, about art, about motherhood, about sex - and about how and with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life.

Critics Review

An energetic and ambitious novel. Cosslett is excellent at the sensual detail of light and food and physical pleasure; she immediately engages us with a seductive drama of friendship between women in an exotic and glamorous White Lotus-like location, while at the same time offering a serious-minded interrogation of art... a thoroughly enjoyable read
Guardian
This smart and sexy read . . . has lots to say about female artists and domesticity, women's bodies and the male gaze
Good Housekeeping
A grown-up book that's magnetically written
Stylist
This book is as sharp and incisive as her non-fiction, but with a sinewy, sultry quality that makes it really moreish. I was surprised by the ending - it was neater and sweeter than I expected, the perfect palate cleanser to the bitterness and recrimination that had been building - but I loved it'
Pandora Sykes
I was engrossed... It's stylish and sexy and I loved the setting and all the food
Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and The Instant
A beautifully human story, romantic and heady and violent and sexy and gorgeously realised. It is honestly the best thing I have read this year
Kirsty Capes, author of The Girls and Careless
An intelligently nuanced and provocative exploration of female desire, motherhood and creativity. A very sexy, deceptively readable novel, which delves into deep questions with an alluring lightness of touch. You need to preorder this right now!
Crib Notes
What a gorgeous, hot-blooded novel about art, the senses, and the multitudes of the female body
Charlotte Runcie, author of Bring the House Down
Such a thought-provoking, sexy, immersive read... a sun-soaked love letter to complicated women and female artists
Cesca Major, author of Maybe Next Time and If I Were You
A gorgeous, sultry novel about the push and pull of desire, and an artist living in a world that asks too much of a woman
Szilvia Molnar, author of The Nursery
Emotionally precise and devastating, hopeful and singular
Lucia Osborne-Crowley, author of The Lasting Harm
Clever, tense, erotic, with a deftness of touch that packs a feminist punch
Jessica Cornwell, author of Birth Notes
Positively thrums with tension. Erotic, sensuous and eviscerating
Lori Inglis Hall, author of The Shock of the Light
A deeply enjoyable, compelling, and moving meditation on womanhood, desire, and the impulse to create. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's glistening prose is a delight
Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
What a sharp, beautiful meditation on the female body. This is a quietly stunning novel that I think will have an enduring impact on its readers
Emily Howes, author of The Painter's Daughters
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett masterfully weaves themes of friendship, art and desire into a taut, tense novel about four women holidaying together on a Greek island. Bold and beguiling - as well as utterly transportive - Female, Nude explores the nuances of feminine power and identity, and seduces in the very best way. This is summer reading that leaves you feeling a little smarter, a little changed
Hannah Richell, author of The Search Party and The River Home
This is a sex-on-the-beach cocktail garnished with a polemic on the female gaze. Cosslett writes wonderfully
Irish Times
A literary novel that has all the propulsion of a thriller. Smart, sharp and sexy
Georgina Moore, author of The Garnett Girls
Author Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Narrator Freya Frank
Duration 7 hours and 20 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781035413836
Format Audiobook
Publisher Headline
Genre Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships
Availability AU, GB, IE

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