New Releases by Helen Dunmore

Celebrated for its creativity, communal spirit, and culture of resistance, Bristol is a city with a loud voice and progressive reputation. But it’s also a city that has experienced division and inequality. In this anthology, ten acclaimed and emerging writers portray a city full of secrets, scars, and stark contrasts. From the elusive angel who turns up at a stagnant café along the Malago River, to the jilted lover caught in the crosshairs of the police, the stories gathered here lean into the turbulent magic of Bristol and will leave readers with a renewed sense of the city’s complexity.

Haunting, uplifting, beautiful- the final work from Helen Dunmore Helen Dunmorepassed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their lives- A girl alone, stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems. Two womenfrom very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship. A young manpicks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life. A womanimprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way. This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore''s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her readers.

Revolutionary turmoil in France threatens to cross the English border—and tear apart an increasingly tense marriage—in this “brilliant” gothic thriller (Publishers Weekly, starred review). It is 1792, and Europe is seized by political unrest. In England, Lizzie Fawkes has grown up among Radicals who’ve followed the French Revolution with eager optimism. But Lizzie has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a developer who is heavily invested in Bristol’s housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. As the strain of financial setbacks and the secrets of his past converge upon him, his grip on what he considers his rightful property—including Lizzie—only grows tighter...From an Orange Prize winner and Whitbread Award finalist, this is a novel with a “charged radiance” (The New York Times) that explores romanticism and disillusionment, terror and love, and the dangerous lines between them. “Dunmore knows how to let a narrative move like an arrow in flight...A man rows from Bristol to a glade where he has left his dead wife overnight. He must bury her fast, where no one will find her. From the start, Birdcage Walk has the command of a thriller as we keep company with John Diner Tredevant, an 18th-century property developer building a magnificent terrace in Clifton, high above the Avon Gorge. Lizzie, his second wife, does not know the details of what happened to his first. Nor do we know as much as we might suppose...The novel’s cast is marvelous and vivid.”—The Guardian “Explores the impact of the French Revolution on 1790s England within the context of a gothic romance set in Bristol...[a] magnificently complex villain.”—Kirkus Reviews

Brusquement et sans signes avant-coureurs, Volkov tape du poing sur la table : ''Vous pensez que je ne me rends pas compte que mon fils est très sérieusement malade ? Vous, les médecins, vous nous prenez tous pour des imbéciles! Vous savez qui je suis?'' Andreï pose ses mains à plat sur ses genoux. D’une part, il ne sait pas quoi répondre. De l’autre, il devine que tout ce qu’il pourra dire sera pris pour de la provocation. Il est fort naturel qu’un père ait besoin d’exprimer ses émotions. Et il faut surtout que Volkov ait le sentiment d’être un parent et rien d’autre, ici, dans cet hôpital. Mais Volkov est un des chefs de la terrible police secrète. On est à Leningrad, en 1952. Andreï, jeune et brillant pédiatre, a vu arriver dans son service un petit garçon souffrant d’un très grave cancer des os – le fils unique de Volkov. Or celui-ci n’accepte pas le diagnostic, ni le verdict : amputation d’une jambe. Quoi qu’il arrive, Andreï sera coupable et donc puni. Alors que faire, quand l’étau se referme sur lui et sa famille ? Partir dans une autre ville ? On le retrouvera. Se cacher ? C’est impossible. Lâché par ses collègues et amis, tous contaminés par la terreur ambiante et prêts à le trahir, il risque de payer le prix fort.

Per quale ragione «L’ho sposato, lettore mio» è una delle frasi più celebri e citate della letteratura inglese? La risposta, tutt’altro che ovvia, risiede nel capolavoro da cui è tratta: Jane Eyre (1847), la storia di un’orfana che, grazie alla sola intelligenza e caparbietà, riesce a convolare a nozze con il nobile signor Rochester. Per affermare il suo successo, e il cambiamento della propria condizione sociale, invece di dichiarare «mi ha sposata, lettore mio» – com’era da aspettarsi nella maschilista società vittoriana – Jane dice: «l’ho sposato, lettore mio». Una sfumatura nella forma verbale che ha lo scopo di rimarcare la coscienza femminile della protagonista, e quella dell’autrice Charlotte Brontë, e che si ergerà a manifesto, ispirazione e stimolo per tutte le scrittrici a venire. Quando Tracy Chevalier ha chiesto alle migliori autrici in lingua inglese di raccontare una storia ispirata a quella celebre battuta, non l’ha fatto solo per festeggiare i duecento anni della nascita di Charlotte Brontë, ma anche per ridare significato a quelle parole, per renderle di nuovo vive e attuali nella società odierna. «In alcuni racconti sono le nozze stesse a essere drammatiche, a causa di una dolorosa scheggia di vetro in Coppia mista di Linda Grant, o di un mutamento improvviso in Il matrimonio di mia madre di Tessa Hadley, o di un rapporto clandestino durante una cerimonia in Zambia, in Uomini doppi di Namwali Serpell, o di un incontro gotico nel fango della brughiera in Tenersi per mano di Joanna Briscoe», dice Chevalier. In altri, come La prima volta che vidi il tuo viso di Emma Donoghue, la frase di Jane Eyre diventa il trampolino di lancio per viaggiare indietro nel tempo, fino alla Germania di fine Ottocento, dove Miss Hall e Mary Benson, la moglie dell’arcivescovo di Canterbury, si macchiano del peccato di un amore saffico. Se in Lo scambio Audrey Niffenegger colloca Jane nel mondo contemporaneo, in un paese dilaniato dalla guerra, la penna originale ed eccentrica di Helen Dunmore si diverte a raccontare Jane Eyre dal punto di vista della governante ingelosita, mentre Tracy Chevalier – con la maestria che l’ha resa una delle scrittrici più lette e amate d’Italia, «in grado di donare il soffio della vita al romanzo storico» (Independent) – dipinge la relazione sentimentale di una coppia male assortita, «come margherite e gladioli, come pizzo e cuoio». Il risultato è una collezione di ventuno storie d’amore, diversissime per sensibilità, scrittura e intenzioni, che ruotano attorno a una medesima eroina dai mille volti: una donna determinata e coraggiosa, che combatte per vincere i pregiudizi e gli ostacoli della società. E che non ha paura di affermare la propria identità dicendo, a testa alta, con un sorriso affaticato ma fiero: io «l’ho sposato, lettore mio». Ventuno storie per celebrare Charlotte Brontë e Jane Eyre Racconti di: Tracy Chevalier, Tessa Hadley, Sarah Hall, Helen Dunmore, Kirsty Gunn, Joanna Briscoe, Jane Gardam, Emma Donoghue, Susan Hill, Francine Prose, Elif Shafak, Evie Wyld, Patricia Park, Salley Vickers, Nadifa Mohamed, Esther Freud, Linda Grant, Lionel Shriver, Audrey Niffenegger, Namwali Serpell, Elizabeth McCracken

Per festeggiare i 200 anni della nascita di Charlotte Brontë, Tracy Chevalier ha chiesto alle migliori autrici in lingua inglese di scrivere una storia ispirata alla celebre battuta di Jane Eyre: «L’ho sposato, lettore mio». Questo racconto fa parte della raccolta dedicata a Charlotte Brontë: L’ho sposato, lettore mio a cura di TRACY CHEVALIER

“An unconventional thriller [and] a page turner . . . As much a surprising love story as it is a tale of spies” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1960 London, the Cold War is at its height, and a spy may be a friend or neighbor, colleague or lover. Two colleagues, Giles Holloway and Simon Callington, face a terrible dilemma over a missing top-secret file. At the end of a suburban garden, in the pouring rain, Simon’s wife, Lily, buries a briefcase containing the file deep in the earth. She believes that in doing so she is protecting her family. What she will learn is that no one is immune from betrayal or the devastating consequences of exposure. “Dunmore’s strategy, placing a triangle of past and present loves within a spy novel, yields an unexpected dividend. Even the most ordinary elements of life—the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her children, meeting someone special, what remains unsaid within a marriage—become viscerally exciting.” —The New Yorker “Exposure is many things at once—an espionage thriller, a forbidden-love story, an immigrant’s tale . . . A novel you won’t be able to shake.” —Entertainment Weekly “One of those books that you read with your heart in your mouth, your mind fully engaged, and with a sense of desolation as you note the dwindling number of pages left before it comes to an end.” —Chicago Tribune

A British World War I veteran returns to Cornwall in this “enthralling novel of love and devastating loss” from an Orange Prize winner (Good Housekeeping). Cornwall, 1920: Infantry officer Daniel Branwell has returned to his coastal hometown after the war. Unmoored and alone, Daniel spends his days in solitude, quietly working the land. However, all is not as it seems in the peaceful idylls of the countryside; and although he has left the trenches, Daniel cannot escape his dreadful past. As former friendships reignite, Daniel is drawn deeper and deeper into the tangled traumas of his youth and the memories of his best friend and his first love. Old wounds reopen, and old troubles resurface—though none so great as the lie that threatens to ruin Daniel’s life, the lie from which he cannot run. Told with breathtaking poise and exacting suspense, The Lie is a haunting journey through the mind of a tormented man as he tries to fit the pieces of his shattered past together. “Devastating and triumphant . . . wholly satisfying. Endings are often the hardest beast for an author to tame, but Dunmore does it, with elegance, vigor and clarity.” —The Denver Post

Callum and Amy discover a sea dragon in a cave along the beach. The sea dragon is lost and cannot find his friends and relatives. They buy the sea dragon ice cream, chips with curry sauce and a balloon to play with. As the summer ends it''s time for the sea dragon to find other sea dragons.

Året er 1952, og Leningrad er fortsatt en merket by etter nazistenes brutale beleiring ti år tidligere. Andrej, en ung sykehuslege, og hans kjæreste Anna, som underviser på et barnehjem, forsøker å bygge et liv sammen. Krigen er riktignok over, men Stalins regime vedvarer og holder folk i et jerngrep. Ingen er trygge for spionenes blikk, heller ikke legene, som blir beskyldt for å planlegge et attentat mot partilederne. Dunmore har skrevet et inntagende og skremmende portrett av livet i etterkrigs-Sovjet, som viser oss helt vanlige menneskers kamp mot vold og terror. Sviket er en selvstendig oppfølger til Dunmores bok Beleiringen, som ble nominert til Whitbread Novel Award og Orange Prize for Fiction da den utkom.

''Tonight it is the concert. Two Prodigies of Nature are coming to play in my lady''s ball-room. As soon as the concert begins I understand why the whole world comes to stare and listen.'' Scipio is eleven years old and a lady''s page. He plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. But what was appealing and remarkable in a small child is no longer so in a ''hobbledehoy''. And after he meets the two child prodigies, Wolfi and Nannerl, at a concert, Scipio''s fate will change forever.

The love affair between a neglected wife and a mysterious soldier is “a perfect ghost story” from the acclaimed author of The Siege and The Betrayal (The Independent). In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey moves to the East Riding of Yorkshire with her new husband, Philip, a doctor. While he spends long hours on call, Isabel finds herself lonely and vulnerable, trying to adjust to the realities of being a country housewife. One evening, Isabel is woken by intense cold. Hunting for extra blankets, she discovers an old Royal Air Force greatcoat hidden in the back of a cupboard. Sleeping under the coat for warmth, she starts to dream and is soon startled by a knock at her window—where a young RAF pilot stands outside, wearing that same coat. His powerful presence both disturbs and excites Isabel. And soon, their unexpected connection sparks an affair that will change them both irreparably. “Written in crisp, enthralling prose,” The Greatcoat is an atmospheric tale of love and war that blurs the line between the real and the imaginary (The New Yorker). “Dunmore’s gift, familiar from The Siege and The Betrayal, is to use a finely drawn domestic setting to show the great events of European history on a human scale. She doesn’t need ‘horror’ to spook her readers; our past is bad enough.” —The Guardian “The most elegant flesh-creeper since The Woman in Black.” —The Times (London) “The sense of déjà vu surrounding the story makes it all the more chilling . . . Tense and engaging.” —The New Yorker

Helen Dunmore Leningrad, September 1941. Hitler beordrer tyske styrker til å innlede beleiringen av byen, med sikte på total utslettelse. Det blir begynnelsen på en av historiens kaldeste, mest desperate og dødbringende vintere. Hvordan komme gjennom et slikt inferno? For Anna og Andreij – og Annas aldrende far og hans venninne Marina – blir beleiringen en kamp for overlevelse. Men også en kamp for å forbli menneskelige, gjennom det utenkelige. Beleiringen ble nominert til Whitbread Novel Award og Orange Prize for Fiction da den utkom. Den frittstående fortsettelsen av Beleiringen, The Betrayal, ble i 2010 nominert til Booker-prisen.

As they search for their missing father near their Cornwall home, Sapphy and her brother Conor learn about their family''s connection to the domains of air and of water.

The ways in which the present longs for the past, questions it, tries to get in touch with it, and stretches the power of memory to its limits, are central to this new collection by Helen Dunmore. These are poems and stories of loss and extraordinary rediscovery.

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a chilling tale by Helen Dunmore. ''It was nothing, she tells herself, but her body knows better.'' Florence lives in the country, lapped by miles and miles of darkness. She feels safe there - until a noise wakes her in the middle of the night. Protection is a short story by bestselling author Helen Dunmore that will cause your skin to prickle and make you ask yourself how far you would go to protect your family.

A sequel to the Whitbread Novel Award-nominated The Siege is set in the precarious world of Stalin''s 1952 Leningrad and follows a young doctor''s desperate effort to protect his family, which has been threatened if he fails to save the life of a secret police officer''s seriously ill son. Reprint.

On the sixth day there was only one day left. Tomorrow was Saturday, and Robbie was going home on the train with all his family. ''I wish I didn''t have to go," said Robbie.

The crossing of Ingo is an ancient and dangerous coming-of-age ritual: a journey to the bottom of the world. Sapphy and Conor have been called to take part, the first of human blood ever to make an attempt. But Ervys and his followers are determined to stop them: dead or alive. Helen Dunmore builds her classic, much-loved series up to a breathtaking finale.

Sapphire lives in two worlds. On land she walks the rocky shores of the Cornwall coast—but under the sea she can swim like a seal by the side of her Mer friend Faro. Now both of Sapphy''s worlds are threatened. In the profound depths of the ocean, where the Mer cannot go, a monster called the Kraken is stirring. He has the power to sweep Ingo away and shake the land from its foundation. Because of her mixed blood, Sapphire can enter the Deep. With a great whale as her guide, she will journey to a place so far from the sun, no light can find it—and confront an evil that''s even darker.

In a seaside town of sandy beaches and ocean breezes, Sapphy has never felt so far from the sea. The crowded shore at St. Pirans is nothing like the cove at Sapphy''s old home, where she first found her way into the underwater world of Ingo. But Ingo''s pull is strong, and it always finds a way. Soon Sapphy and her brother, Conor, are swimming beneath the waves again, riding the currents and teasing their Mer friend Faro. As Sapphy goes deeper into Ingo, she learns to feel more at home in the sea—even as she begins to be aware of its dangers. There''s the danger of going in too deep, and breaking the delicate balance between Sapphy''s life on land and her life in Ingo. There''s the mysterious disappearance of Sapphy''s father, an experienced sailor who should never have drowned. And then there''s Ingo itself—a restless power as old as the world, as strong as the tides, and more dangerous than anything Sapphy has ever known.

Nadine, a sixteen-year-old runaway new to London, is set up in a decaying Georgian house by her Finnish lover, Kai. Slowly, she begins to suspect that Kai�s plans for her have little to do with love. �Be careful,� warns Enid, the elderly sitting tenant in the house, who knows all about survival and secrets. And when Nadine discovers Kai�s true intentions, Enid�s warning takes on a terrible and prophetic quality.

In the heat of Rome''s long summer, the poet Catullus and his older married lover, Clodia Metelli, meet in secret. Living at the heart of sophisticated, brittle and brutal Roman society at the time of Pompey, Crassus and Julius Caesar, Catullus is obsessed with Clodia, the Lesbia of his most passionate poems. He is jealous of her husband, of her maid, even of her pet sparrow. And Clodia? Catullus is ''her dear poet'', but possibly not her only interest . . . Catallus'' relationship with Clodia is one of the most intense, passionate, tormented and candid in history. In love and in hate, their story exposes the beauty and terrors of Roman life in the late Republic.

A spellbinding story of love and loneliness in a country torn between reform and revolution as it emerges into independence. Finland 1901. Eeva, the young orphaned daughter of a revolutionary, is sent from the orphanage to work as housekeeper for Thomas, a widowed country doctor. Eeva is challenging, independent and enigmatic; their relationship will shatter the certainties of Thomas''s life. But Eeva is drawn back to Helsinki, to her childhood comrades, and a world of danger. Finland is in political ferment. As the power of the Russian Empire over its subject peoples grows more oppressive, resistance to the Tsar''s rule rises, both in Finland and Russia itself. Some call such resistance terrorism, others a fight for freedom . . .

Tara begins her visit with Gran unhappy and bored, but when the man in the apartment downstairs allows others in the building to use his garden, she not only has a place to play, she learns what it was like to be a child during World War II. Includes facts about evacuees and victory gardens.

In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company''s 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality of the Penguin list and will hark back to Penguin founder Allen Lane''s vision of good books for all''. adults and she has received widespread acclaim for work. All ten books of her adult fiction have been published by Penguin, and in Rose 1944, we present several short stories that reveal the range, intricacy and depth found in one of modern fiction''s great lyrical voices.