Raking The Ashes

(Paperback)

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Description

A coruscating comedy about the ties that bind more savagely than any other - those of families. Lovers, colleagues, family - Tilly has always been brilliant at pushing people in and out of her life exactly as it suits her. Then along comes Geoffrey, gentle, compassionate, generous to a fault, with his miserable little children and his manipulative ex-wife.Tilly's own expertise in the arts of deception and avoidance should be enough to make sure she's always one step ahead of Geoffrey's disastrous, crumbling family. But time and again she finds herself staying, brought down by their cowardly backsliding and their barefaced lies.How has she managed to stay so long in a relationship she knows perfectly well has to be doomed More importantly, how can Tilly plan her permanent escape

Reviews

'So savage and sharp in its insights that it cuts, this is a brilliantly compulsive, forensic dissection of a relationship built on ironies and evasions' * The Times *
'A fearless novelist . . . also a constantly amusing writer. The result is an unsettling, sometimes angry but always engrossing story' * Independent *
'Deftly plotted' * Daily Mail *
'A very admirable and compelling novel' * Daily Mirror *
'[A] remarkable novel...there is something terrifyingly recognisable in each of the characters that will have readers looking deep inside their souls' * The Observer *

Author Bio

Raking the Ashes is Anne Fine's sixth novel for adults. Her first was the critically acclaimed The Killjoy. Taking the Devil's Advice and Telling Liddy have both been adapted for the radio. She is also a distinguished writer for young people, and has won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Whitbread Children's Award twice, the Guardian Children's Literature Award and a Smarties Prize. An adaptation of her novel Goggle-Eyes has been shown by the BBC, and Twentieth-Century Fox filmed her novel Madame Doubtfire as Mrs Doubtfire, starring Robin Williams. Her books have been translated into twenty-six languages. Between 2001 and 2003 she was the second Children's Laureate. Anne Fine has two grown-up daughters and lives in County Durham.