This gripping and moving story is an honest chronicle of what happens to relationships over time, and a sharp observation of one woman's emotional life' The Times 'A perceptive and delicately written study of human relations and motivations, painful, funny and fresh, which Cobbold has structured quite ingeniously, building the story layer upon layer, rather like a painting.' Observer By the time Grace is eighteen, she has been orphaned, moved countries and lost touch with her only brother. Talented, awkward and a little fierce, she can't help thinking that she's managed to lose anything she's ever loved. So she decides to revisit her past in America, and she's brought her camera - she's going to catch these memories and pin them down to keep. What she isn't expecting that summer in New Hampshire is to meet the love of her life. Some years later, now divorced and flourishing as a controversial photographer, Grace lives alone - she likes the fact that everything will be exactly where she left it. Until Grace finds that she is, quite literally, being haunted by the past...
A romance between a Swedish architect, building an opera house in England, and an English woman journalist opposing it because old people will be displaced. The two meet on the project, although they have known of each other for years, their mothers being school friends.
Pride and Prejudice, Scandinavian style' Sunday Express _____ 'My name is Esther Fisher and I'm about to walk out on the only man I've ever loved...' Esther has been angry all her life - angry with her impossible parents, and at a world that just won't play by the rules. Now working as a tabloid journalist, she takes up the fight once more - this time on behalf of a couple who are being evicted from their home to make room for an opera house. The architect on the project is Swedish-born Linus, a successful, yet dreamy man who is also trying to put his childhood anxieties behind him. When Esther's professional integrity comes head to head with her growing friendship with Linus she begins to wonder if ultimately this is a fight with no winners... _____ 'A warm, funny novel' Daily Mail 'Deliciously descriptive ... beneath its charm lie serious truths' She 'Dreamy yet dextrous' Observer
At thirty-nine, Liberty Turner, mother of an illegitimate and nearly grown-up son, and daughter of a flamboyant father who had never grown up, realised that she had no talent. Once, in more prosperous times, her books had been published. Now, as relentless rejections pulverised her every effort, she faced up to the whimsical truth that while she was absolutely bursting with the creative urge, the talent just wasn't there. But as she began to observe her friends and neighbours in the village of Tollymead (not quite the idyllic community that everyone wished it was) she noticed that there were different kinds of creations. Evelyn Brooke, her eccentric and idealistic neighbour, chained herself to condemned oak trees and fought against polluters of the countryside. The vicar, resenting his congregation of middle-class - apparently - well adjusted parishioners, sought longingly for a real social problem to deal with. Even Nancy Sanderson, magistrate and secretary of the Women's League, was eventually to revolt against her life style and create something of her own. As Liberty stoically continued her progress through harvest lunches and creative writing classes, she waited for a rival creation of her own to emerge, and when Oscar Brooke moved into the village, she thought perhaps she might have found it.
Clementine Hope lives in fear of everything. Then in a moment of real crisis, she sees the destructive quality of fear and resolves to change. To do so she must slay her personal dragon, and rescue Prince Charming in the process.
A mystery and an elegy for the death of old-fashioned journalism, it's a book that will warm your heart" The Observer "On Hampstead Heath is a deliciously romantic comedy of misunderstandings and misbehaviour - I loved it" Clare Chambers, author of SMALL PLEASURES Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half- finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband. When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the midweek supplement, reporting heart-warming stories for their new segment, The Bright Side, a job to which she is spectacularly unsuited. On a final warning and with no heart-warming news in sight, a desperate Thorn fabricates a good-news story of her own. The story, centred on an angelic apparition on Hampstead Heath, goes viral. Caught between her principles and her ambitions, Thorn goes in search of the truth behind her creation, only to find the answers locked away in the unconscious mind of a stranger. Marika Cobbold returns with her eighth novel, On Hampstead Heath. Sharp, poignant, and infused with dark humour, On Hampstead Heath is an homage to storytelling and to truth; to the tales we tell ourselves, and the stories that save us. "Splendid . . . Funny, poignant, perceptive and plenty of sharp elbows along the way" Val McDermid
It is winter in London. Eliza Cummings, a ceramics restorer at the V&A Museum, is leaving work when she receives an unexpected phone call. Standing in the haze of the Christmas lights she hears a voice which draws her back twenty-five years - to the tragic death of her best friend. But why does Rose's father want her to visit him? Why now? And why is he killing her with kindness when they both know that he blames her for what happened to his daughter? Grief and guilt cast terrible shadows, but as this beautifully wrought story unfolds and the scene shifts from London to the fairy tale landscape of the Swedish countryside - and back in time to Eliza's school days - we learn that generosity, humour and friendship can smooth over and restore even the most broken lives, and that some secrets just can't be kept hidden...
Pride and Prejudice, Scandinavian style' Sunday Express _____ 'My name is Esther Fisher and I'm about to walk out on the only man I've ever loved...' Esther has been angry all her life - angry with her impossible parents, and at a world that just won't play by the rules. Now working as a tabloid journalist, she takes up the fight once more - this time on behalf of a couple who are being evicted from their home to make room for an opera house. The architect on the project is Swedish-born Linus, a successful, yet dreamy man who is also trying to put his childhood anxieties behind him. When Esther's professional integrity comes head to head with her growing friendship with Linus she begins to wonder if ultimately this is a fight with no winners... _____ 'A warm, funny novel' Daily Mail 'Deliciously descriptive ... beneath its charm lie serious truths' She 'Dreamy yet dextrous' Observer
A mystery and an elegy for the death of old-fashioned journalism, it's a book that will warm your heart" The Observer "On Hampstead Heath is a deliciously romantic comedy of misunderstandings and misbehaviour - I loved it" Clare Chambers, author of SMALL PLEASURES Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half- finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband. When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the midweek supplement, reporting heart-warming stories for their new segment, The Bright Side, a job to which she is spectacularly unsuited. On a final warning and with no heart-warming news in sight, a desperate Thorn fabricates a good-news story of her own. The story, centred on an angelic apparition on Hampstead Heath, goes viral. Caught between her principles and her ambitions, Thorn goes in search of the truth behind her creation, only to find the answers locked away in the unconscious mind of a stranger. Marika Cobbold returns with her eighth novel, On Hampstead Heath. Sharp, poignant, and infused with dark humour, On Hampstead Heath is an homage to storytelling and to truth; to the tales we tell ourselves, and the stories that save us. "Splendid . . . Funny, poignant, perceptive and plenty of sharp elbows along the way" Val McDermid
This gripping and moving story is an honest chronicle of what happens to relationships over time, and a sharp observation of one woman's emotional life' The Times 'A perceptive and delicately written study of human relations and motivations, painful, funny and fresh, which Cobbold has structured quite ingeniously, building the story layer upon layer, rather like a painting.' Observer By the time Grace is eighteen, she has been orphaned, moved countries and lost touch with her only brother. Talented, awkward and a little fierce, she can't help thinking that she's managed to lose anything she's ever loved. So she decides to revisit her past in America, and she's brought her camera - she's going to catch these memories and pin them down to keep. What she isn't expecting that summer in New Hampshire is to meet the love of her life. Some years later, now divorced and flourishing as a controversial photographer, Grace lives alone - she likes the fact that everything will be exactly where she left it. Until Grace finds that she is, quite literally, being haunted by the past...
A bright, funny novel about a woman's life on the brink of destruction and how she pulls it back together, by the author of Shooting Butterflies Amelia Lindsey is an exceptional young woman. She shares her days between a grandmother whom she loves, a mother whom she tolerates with patient fortitude, and Gerald. They had fallen in love with Amelia two years earlier, when he was in his artistic phase, and had begged her to move in with him. Now (no longer in his artistic phase) he is showing signs of irritation. And suddenly Selma, the talented and much-beloved grandmother, has become old. As life - and Gerald - begins to collapse all round Amelia, she is determined that the one person who will not fade is Selma. Fighting a one-woman battle against Cherryfield retirement home, Gerald's defection and her mother's obsession with germs, Amelia finds herself capable of plots, diversions, and friendships she has never imagined before.
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