Sorrow and Bliss

Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave? Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain. Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself. `One of the many triumphs of Meg Mason`s novel is that it is both fantastically dark and almost unbearably funny... Just read it. It`s unforgettable` - India Knight, The Sunday Times `A devastating and sharply funny love story` - Observer `Summer`s must-read novel... At the centre of it all is a love story that recalls Sally Rooney`s Normal People, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie`s Americanah and One Day by David Nicholls... We can`t recommend Sorrow And Bliss highly enough` - Stylist `I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know` - Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House `Jaw-droppingly funny, this is the kind of novel you will want to press into the hands of everyone you know. A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love: as soon as I finished it, I started again` - Jessie Burton, author of The Confession `Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant` - Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures `A thing of beauty... By turns devastating and restorative. I will be telling everyone I love to read this book` - Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton `Completely brilliant, I loved it. I think every girl and woman should read it` - Gillian Anderson `It will shatter your heart, before mending it with infinite love. I will be pressing it into the hands of every reader I know` - Pandora Sykes