Human Croquet
The brilliant and profound second novel from the three-times Costa prizewinner and number one bestseller Kate Atkinson.
'Vivid, richly imaginative, hilarious and frightening by turns' Observer
Once it had been the great forest of Lythe. And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor.
But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees. The Fairfaxes have dwindled too; now they live in 'Arden' at the end of Hawthorne Close and are hardly a family at all.
But Isobel Fairfax, who drops into pockets of time and out again, knows about the past. She is sixteen and waiting for the return of her mother - the thin, dangerous Eliza with her scent of nicotine, Arpège and sex, whose disappearance is part of the mystery that still remains at the heart of the forest.
Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Human Croquet was her second novel. Her three critically lauded and prizewinning novels set around World War II are Life After Life, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award), and Transcription. She has also written five bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, the latest of which is Big Sky.
Kate Atkinson was appointed MBE for services to literature in 2011.