Belladonna

Belladonna
Anbara Salam
RRP:
NZ$ 24.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 19.20
Paperback
h200 x 130mm - 352pg
29 Jul 2021 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780241986745
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
It is summer, 1954, when fifteen-year-old Bridget first meets Isabella. In their conservative Connecticut town, Isabella is a breath of fresh air. She is worldly, alluring and brazen- an enigma. When they receive an offer to study at the Academy in Italy, Bridget is thrilled. This is her ticket to Europe and - better still - a chance to spend nine whole months with her glamorous and unpredictable best friend. There, lodged in a convent of nuns who have taken a vow of silence, the two girls move toward a passionate but fragile intimacy. As the year rolls on, Bridget grows increasingly fearful that she will lose Isabella' s affections - and the more desperate she gets, the greater the lengths she will go to keep her. Belladonna is a hypnotizing coming-of age story set against the stunning and evocative backdrop of rural Northern Italy. Anbara Salam tells a story of friendship and obsession, desire and betrayal, and the lies we tell in order to belong.
Eleanor Catton' s The Rehearsal meets Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicidesmeets Patricia Highsmith' s The Talented Mr Ripley, this unputdownable and lush novel had me entranced and totally absorbed in the woozy, covertly sensual world of a 1950s Italian convent. Anbara Salam has a gimlet-eyed, ferocious talent for capturing the obsessive urgency and convolutions of power and desire in adolescent experience * Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti * I was completely captivated. Thrillingly ambitious, moving, painful and insightful. Bridget broke my heart, she' s an alarmingly relatable anti heroine, and I think this book has captured something unique about the experience of jealousy, betrayal and the muddied waters that lie between friendship and obsessive love. It reminded me of The Talented Mr Ripley, but told with acute sensitivity and emotional intelligence * Daisy Buchanan * The tender, exquisite prosebrilliantly captures the feelings and fault lines in the girls' friendship. This is a discerning look at secret infatuation and racial prejudice * Publishers Weekly * A moving tale about identity, love, and loss. Anbara Salam unspools a compelling narrative about a young woman struggling to find herself amid family secrets and her own hidden truths. It' s the kind of emotionally rich story that stays with you * Anissa Gray, author of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls * Lyrical, suspenseful, darkly comic * Observer, on Things Bright and Beautiful * A claustrophobic compelling read that' ll suck you into its heart of darkness * Independent, on Things Bright and Beautiful * Excellent, blackly funny * Daily Mail, on Things Bright and Beautiful * Dark, mysterious, beguiling, and beautifully written. It transported me to a different world * Dolly Alderton, on Things Bright and Beautiful * What a hot and sticky, feverishly Lord Of The Flies-style debut! Excels in rich detail, suspense and tension. A masterclass * The Pool, on Things Bright and Beautiful *
Anbara Salam is half-Palestinian and half-Scottish, and grew up in London. She has a PhD in Theology and now lives and works in Oxford. Her first novel, Things Bright and Beautiful, is published by Penguin.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780241986745
Published: 29 Jul 2021
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
Height: 200mm
Width: 130mm
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 247g
Pages: 352

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