Amy and Lan: The enchanting new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Outcast

Description

How did the Simple Life get so complicated? A child's-eye view of family and rural life in the compelling new novel from Sadie Jones. *Picked by the Guardian and Evening Standard as a Summer 2022 read* ''I loved Amy and Lan... I've long been a Sadie Jones fan but this may be her best yet. Poignant, compelling and brilliant' Mary Lawson, author of A Town Called Solace ' 'Fabulous- vivid and funny, sometimes heart-rendingly sad' Guardian 'This is a book to escape with' Spectator 'No one conjures the magic of place like Sadie Jones... A beautiful, haunting novel about the limits of love and the loss of innocence' Clare Clark ____________________ This is the story of how we came to Frith. And we're never, ever, ever leaving.' Amy Connell and Lan Honey are having the best childhood, growing up on a West Country farm - three families, a couple of lodgers, goats, dogs and an orphaned calf called Gabriella Christmas. The parents are best friends too. Originally from the city, they're learning about farming- growing their own vegetables, milking the goats, slaughtering chickens and scything the hay-- 'Mind your eyes! Don't break your neck! Careful!' The adults are far too busy to keep an eye on Amy and Lan, and Amy and Lan would never tell them about climbing on the high barn roof, or what happened with the axe that time, any more than their parents would tell them the things they get up to - adult things, like betrayal - that threaten to bring the whole fragile idyll tumbling down... 'A gently episodic and humorous tale whose sharp-eyed, effervescent child narrators entertain... Beguilingly readable' Daily Mail 'Jones's evocation of childhood is spot-on- its fierce passions, disaffections, loyalties and suffering' Financial Times 'Mesmerising' Good Housekeeping, *The 10 best books to read this month*

Sadie Jones is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The Outcast, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Her second novel, Small Wars, was published in 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her third, in 2012, was The Uninvited Guests, followed by Fallout in 2014 andThe Snakes in 2019, all published to critical acclaim.

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds -- Elizabeth Day, *Day's Delights* Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the pure sugar-rush of childhood; the sense of a life so exhilarating and ecstatic that it is almost too much to bear -- Xan Brooks * Guardian * I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and hope -- Esther Freud, author of I COULDN'T LOVE YOU MORE Achingly poignant... This is a novel of quiet beauty, vividly evoking the magnitude of childhood loss and the capacity for hope -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer * A bright, bittersweet novel * Evening Standard, *Summer Reads of 2022* * I loved Amy and Lan: the way parents mess up their children's lives is heartbreaking yet beautifully conveyed. I've long been a Sadie Jones fan but this may be her best yet. Poignant, compelling and brilliant -- Mary Lawson, author of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE Alive with the wonders of seasonal changes and the thrum of farm life, Amy and Lan will make you cry. Complex, beautifully written and true. I loved this book -- Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH Compelling... [Jones] doesn't disappoint with this intermittently joyous but affecting portrait of childhood * i * Jones brilliantly ventriloquises Amy and her best friend Lan... She conveys their passionate attachment to the freedom of their unconventional upbringing and deep connection to nature * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2022* * Sadie Jones is a consummate novelist of the modern family, in all its mess, cruelties, loyalties, treacheries and tragedies. This child's eye perspective on the 21st century attempt at the Good Life is topical, comical and horrifying. I read it heart in mouth -- Amanda Craig, author of THE GOLDEN RULE An enthralling, original novel: utterly convincing -- Richard Mabey A send-up of rural nostalgia and a comedy of manners combined with a thoughtful, genuine desire to understand the motives behind this 'better' way of life... By capturing specific moments in each season as the years pass, Jones beautifully conveys the sensual, almost bacchanalian glory of hay-making; the excitement of deep snow drifts in winter -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times * A gentle but engaging read, Jones captures the beautiful simplicity and enduring hardships of farm life, painting a timely portrait of agriculture in a capitalist society... Beautifully written * Yorkshire Post * The novel unfolds over five years as a series of evocative vignettes, with a pulse of jeopardy in the pair's uneasy sense of adult tensions -- Anthony Cummins * Irish Mail, 'The Best New Fiction' * Enchanting, funny and layered in pathos... Sadie Jones' unusual take on the rural dream is a gift of a book -- Sarah Langford, author of IN YOUR DEFENCE