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Late in the Day

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What to expect

The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in this Sunday Times bestselling novel.

Alex and Christine and Zach and Lydia have been inseparable since their twenties. From student house-shares and grubby pubs to proper homes and grown-up careers, the two couples' lives have been interlinked for decades. Then one evening, Alex and Christine receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead.

Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of their loss bringing them closer, the three of them find that love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness as old entanglements and resentments rise from the past.

'Unflinching, intelligent and fascinating' Marian Keyes

'A fine-grained novel of friendship, loss and jealousy' Sunday Times, *100 Great 21-Century Novels*

(c) 2019, Tessa Hadley (P) 2019 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Tessa Hadley is one of our finest writers. The sensitivity of her psychological insight and understanding is unmatched by anyone writing today... [in Late in the Day], Hadley comes into her own. It’s glorious stuff: moving, beautiful and so enjoyable. All hail Queen Tessa!
The Times *Books of the Year*
Hadley’s wonderful tale [Late in the Day –] measured, ironic, disarmingly perceptive – picks up on all the contradictions of human existence. With Hadley, you know there’s an adult in the room.
Observer
The quintessential domestic novel in the most elevated sense… excellently insightful on family dynamics and the intricacies of close friendship.
The High Low podcast
With each new book by Tessa Hadley, I grow more convinced that she’s one of the greatest stylists alive… her quietly elegant style and muted wit are triumphs… the everyday tragedies and betrayals of domestic life [are] rendered by Hadley’s prose into something extraordinary… The tone of Late in the Day is perhaps Hadley’s most delicate accomplishment.
Washington Post
You know you are in safe hands with Tessa Hadley who, on a sheer sentence-by-sentence level, delivers more enjoyment than almost any other living writer... you'll be hanging on to every word.
Daily Mail *The Best Holiday Reading*
There may be no historical newness to women’s disenchantment with male authority, but it feels new to write about it with this much raw honesty… It’s to her great credit that Hadley manages to be old-fashioned and modernist and brilliantly postmodern all at once… Unlocking age-old mysteries in ways both revelatory and inevitable. We’ve seen this before, and we’ve never seen this before, and it’s spectacular.
New York Times
My favourite novel of 2019 by a long way was Tessa Hadley's Late in the Day… Hadley is a beautifully descriptive writer and a penetrating observer of human nature.
Sunday Times *Books of the Year*
Like all Hadley’s novels, Late in the Day enthrals.
Tatler
Tessa Hadley picks apart the stitches of marriage, friendship and self with an almost forensic curiosity [in Late in the Day], cementing her place as one of Britain's finest writers of contemporary fiction.
Vogue
Hadley examines profound areas of life – friendship, marriage, parenthood, grief, love – with a delightful precision, hitting different nails on the head over and over again… Her novel is full of these piercing little moments of revelation… [because of] the crispness of Hadley’s narrative, and the wisdom of her observations: you trust her… [Late in the Day has] a touch of genius.
Mail on Sunday
Author Tessa Hadley
Narrator Abigail Thaw
Duration 7 hours and 48 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473568808
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Interior life
Availability AU, GB, IE

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