When the Lights Go Out

Description

The new novel from Carys Bray, author of the Costa-shortlisted A Song for Issy Bradley 'A powerful and truthful story about hope and how to find it' The Times 'A gem of a book' Emily Maitlis Emma's husband Chris is fretting about starvation and societal collapse. He's turned off the heating and is stockpiling off-label medicines and tins of baked beans. Chris, certain that society will soon spiral to its doom, finds Emma's optimism exasperating. Emma finds Chris's obsession with disaster relentless. She's beginning to wonder whether relationships, like mortgages, should be conducted in five-year increments. But when Chris's mother turns up for a visit, the cracks begin to show. Will Emma and Chris be able to find their way back to each other?

Carys Bray was awarded the Scott Prize for her debut short-story collection, Sweet Home. Her first novel, A Song for Issy Bradley, was chosen for Radio 4's Book at Bedtime and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2015. She lives in Southport with her husband and four children.

One of the best things you'll read: warm, witty and wise. * ipaper * Carys Bray writes with a quiet formidable brilliance. Her observations on relationships are acute, painful and extremely funny. This is a gem of a book. -- Emily Maitlis Bray is brilliant in her explorations of the delicate ecosystem of a long marriage. * Financial Times * Bray has a knack of dealing with weighty themes with the lightest of touches. -- Best New Fiction * Mail on Sunday * It's a fresh, topical perspective, told expertly by Bray ... When the Lights Go Out ultimately asks a pertinent question: what does it mean to be good, or happy, or prepared, and which of these is most important? In the end, Bray's characters are forced to accept that they don't know - which, in this age of social media-heightened political division that seems to encourage dogmatism, is a welcome tonic. * Sunday Times *