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Trouble Was

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What to expect

'I've read no better novel in years' Samantha Harvey
‘A transporting piece of 1970s gothic with a viscous sensory pull’ The Times
'Evocative, resonant, and quite simply, brilliant' Claire Fuller
‘Like the building of a thunderstorm through a sultry day … the novel’s engines thrum from the first page’ Sarah Moss, Guardian
'Disturbing and heartbreaking in equal measure' Hari Kunzru

A powerfully evocative and tenderly realised debut novel about family secrets, the power of imagination - and coming of age in the dying dreams of the 1970s

1976. Nine-year-old Frank Dart dreams of his absent dad, away at sea; while making sure his mum’s got all the cigarettes she needs for the long drive in their battered Citroën down to their new home in North Devon.

Here in Aunt Perry’s house, Frank and his little sister Odette must make sense of their cousins’ hostility – while their mum seems to drift further and further away. The house is haunted by secrets, past and present; and as spring turns to a suffocatingly hot summer, the past threatens to boil over and scald everything in its wake.

Trouble Was is a raw and tender story of growing up too soon, betrayal and resilience, love and survival – and a dazzling exploration of toxic family politics, buried secrets and the power of the imagination.

Critics Review

Taut, atmospheric … This is a transporting piece of 1970s gothic with a viscous sensory pull, its observations of class, behaviour, dress and coded language resonant. As the heatwave summer blooms, then rots, Edwardes ramps up the sense of incipient dread … After such a striking, assured start, it is intriguing to wonder what she could do next
The Times
A haunting debut … the novel’s engines thrum from the first page … Like the building of a thunderstorm through a sultry day … The joy here is that of good writing
Guardian, Book of the Day
I've read no better novel in years. It's intimate and enormous, of its time and timeless, in the way great novels are. I think it has the makings of a classic
Samantha Harvey, author of the Booker Prize-winning Orbital
The drama is in the detail, and it’s here that the book comes alive, Frank’s child’s-eye narration perfectly suited to capturing the specificity of every tiny detail ... A terrific debut
Spectator
A gulpable coming-of-age novel about growing up too soon
i paper, Best books of the summer
Perfectly captures the long hot summer of 1976 from a child's eye view. Evocative, resonant, and quite simply, brilliant
Claire Fuller
An evocation of a seventies English childhood that’s so intense, so immediate, that you can almost taste the sticky orange squash on your tongue. Trouble Was is disturbing and heartbreaking in equal measure
Hari Kunzru
Vivid, involving, full of feeling and acutely observed moments
Edward Docx
Gripping ... An unforgettable account of a child struggling to understand the dysfunctionality of the grown ups around him, trying to make sense of an impenetrably complex adult world. Edwardes’ clear, sharp writing transports you to the past so powerfully that you can smell the 1970s. I loved it
Amelia Gentleman
Trouble Was gives us childhood with breath-taking precision - the shifting loyalties and life-altering betrayals (big and small), the fog of an adult world illuminated by a child’s uncanny insight, the unbearably steadfast love children have for their often unlovable parents. One of the most beautiful, and heart-rending, books I've read in a long time
Krystelle Bamford
A child's-eye view of a fraught and often treacherous adult world: rarely has a novel succeeded in such a tense and tender capturing ... The masterly evocation of a hot and troubling 1970s summer meshes with a growing tension in the telling. Searingly written and tautly paced: you feel for the children in this novel, and you fear for them
Jenny McCartney
Author Charlotte Edwardes
Narrator Harley Viveash
Duration 6 hours and 31 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781037201615
Format Audiobook
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre Family life fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Narrative theme: Coming of age
Availability AU, GB, IE

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