Every marriage has its seasons...It’s autumn when we meet Tess, but her relationship with Richard is in a deep, cold winter. A winter so harsh, their union may never see the bright light of spring.
Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her.
As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging. Tess yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was, instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen where cooking Caribbean food becomes her sole comfort. And Richard obsesses over getting his crops planted rather than deal with the conversation he cannot bear to have.
In Fiona Williams’ quartet of unforgettable, alternating perspectives, secrets and vines clamber over the house’s broken red bricks, and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, Sonny knows that something is stirring. . . . As the seasons change and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her.
As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging. Tess yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was, instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen where cooking Caribbean food becomes her sole comfort. And Richard obsesses over getting his crops planted rather than deal with the conversation he cannot bear to have.
In Fiona Williams’ quartet of unforgettable, alternating perspectives, secrets and vines clamber over the house’s broken red bricks, and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, Sonny knows that something is stirring. . . . As the seasons change and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"The House of Broken Bricks is a truly sensory experience. I could feel, taste and see everything. The storytelling is incredibly tense and poignant and unexpected, and the subject so brave and subtle." - Emma Healey
"Shocking and powerful, it took me into a new experience. . . This is the best kind of story telling - characters I genuinely care about, and a narrative that demands to be followed." - Victoria Hislop
"I've lost count of the number of pitch perfect sentences in The House of Broken Bricks that I wanted to steal - a wonderful debut that is brave in its deep truths about loss and love in us and the promise of sunshine on even the darkest days." - Ingrid Persaud
"The House of Broken Bricks reads like an almanac for the heart and charts the seasons of one family's relationships with each other and themselves. Rich and earthy, it's one of those books that demands a quiet space for reflection, to savour the tangled nature that lives inside all of us." - Evie Woods
"A clever, heartbreaking, heartwarming depiction of family love, grief and the possibility of hope." - Jo Browning Wroe
"Shocking and powerful, it took me into a new experience. . . This is the best kind of story telling - characters I genuinely care about, and a narrative that demands to be followed." - Victoria Hislop
"I've lost count of the number of pitch perfect sentences in The House of Broken Bricks that I wanted to steal - a wonderful debut that is brave in its deep truths about loss and love in us and the promise of sunshine on even the darkest days." - Ingrid Persaud
"The House of Broken Bricks reads like an almanac for the heart and charts the seasons of one family's relationships with each other and themselves. Rich and earthy, it's one of those books that demands a quiet space for reflection, to savour the tangled nature that lives inside all of us." - Evie Woods
"A clever, heartbreaking, heartwarming depiction of family love, grief and the possibility of hope." - Jo Browning Wroe
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