Daughters of Jerusalem: the stunning multi prize-winning second novel from the author of The Exhibitionist

(Paperback)

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Beautifully written and bitingly funny, Charlotte Mendelson's prize-winning Daughters of Jerusalem is a gripping novel of hidden love and hate, of the desire to belong, and the need for escape. Amidst the crumbling yellow stone of Oxford and its prestigious university, secrets are stirring within the Lux family home . . . Jean, the constrained and guilt-ridden wife of an academic, is waiting for excitement - and it will come from an unexpected source. Eve, Jean's intelligent eldest daughter, luxuriates in wounded murderous jealousy of her younger sister and is on the brink of snapping. Raymond, the loathed rival of Jean's husband, begins to show interest in Eve. And Helena, Jean's best friend, has a confession, the revelation of which may just alter everyone's lives forever. 'Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelson's second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart's hidden desires' - Daily Mail 'Superb . . . funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptive' - Guardian

Reviews

This deliciously waspish actually, hilarious story of a destructive Oxford academic family has stayed with me longer than many did. Pure, very wicked joy -- Andrew Holgate * The Sunday Times *
A superb, hilarious farce of dysfunctional academic family life . . . Funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptive * The Guardian *
Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelsons second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the hearts hidden desires * Daily Mail *
Brilliant . . . exhilarating . . . Exciting and memorably written, this is one of those rare reads that has you galloping to the end, but feeling bereft at having to say goodbye so soon * Independent *
An engaging combination of campus satire and domestic drama . . . In Daughters of Jerusalem Mendelson has created a blue-stocking thriller * The Daily Telegraph *
Miss Marple meets Rosamond Lehmann . . . luscious prose and droll comedy . . . suffused with longing, studded with recherch words and clotted with gastronomic metaphors that make you feel that you should be reading on a chaise longe, stuffing yourself with violet creams * The Observer *
Savagely funny and hilariously cruel, it . . . convinces through the sheer power of the writing * The Sunday Times *
A delicious tale of intrigue and betrayal * The Big Issue *
Bold . . . engaging . . . an undoubted talent for comic observation * The Times *
A witty and absorbing work of fiction . . . wonderful . . . surprising and satisfying * The Times Literary Supplement *
Written with great sharpness and has thrilling detail -- Julia Darling

Author Bio

Charlotte Mendelson's novels include Daughters of Jerusalem, When We Were Bad, Almost English, and The Exhibitionist. She has won both the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, has been longlisted for the Man Booker, and has been longlisted and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of one work of non-fiction, Rhapsody in Green, and is the gardening correspondent for The New Yorker. She lives in London.