Bøger af Clare Morrall

Peter Straker lives in a converted lighthouse on the Devon coast with a fine view of the sea, two cats, and no neighbors. That's just the way he likes it. He speaks to no one except in his dreams, where he converses with some of the seventy-eight people he believes he killed nearly a quarter-century earlier -- though he can't quite remember how it happened. But Straker's carefully preserved solitude is about to be invaded by Imogen Doody, a prickly and unapproachable school caretaker with a painful history herself. Against his will -- and hers -- Straker soon finds himself helping Imogen repair the run-down cottage she's inherited. There are forces gathering, however, as the twenty-fifth anniversary of Straker's crime approaches, and they're intent upon disturbing his precarious peace.

Taking its title from a description of Peter Pan's Neverland, Astonishing Splashes of Colour follows the life of Kitty, a woman who, in a sense, has never grown up. As her moods swing dramatically from high to low, they are illuminated by an unusual ability to interpret people and emotions through colour.Kitty struggles to come to terms with her life, including the loss of her mother, a miscarriage, and an unconventional marriage to her husband, who lives in the apartment next door. And when her father and brothers reveal a family secret long hidden, it overwhelms Kitty's tenuous hold on reality and propels her on an impetuous journey to the brink of madness.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The intriguing story of two eccentric brothers and a troubled young postwoman - three outsiders whose pasts resurface in a captivating novel about guilt and forgiveness.

In a world prone to violent flooding, Britain, ravaged 20 years earlier by a deadly virus, has been largely cut off from the rest of the world. Survivors are few and far between, most of them infertile. Children, the only hope for the future, are a rare commodity. For 22-year-old Roza Polanski, life with her family in their isolated tower block is relatively comfortable. She's safe, happy enough. But when a stranger called Aashay Kent arrives, everything changes. At first he's a welcome addition, his magnetism drawing the Polanskis out of their shells, promising an alternative to a lonely existence. But Roza can't shake the feeling that there's more to Aashay than he's letting on. Is there more to life beyond their isolated bubble? Is it true that children are being kidnapped? And what will it cost to find out? Clare Morrall, author of the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Astonishing Splashes of Colour, creates a startling vision of the future in a world not so very far from our own, and a thrilling story of suspense.

Alma Braithwaite was a teenager in Exeter when her boarding school was bombed in 1942. Twenty-one years later, she remains alone in the house where she grew up, teaching music at her old school, unable to move on from the tragic events of the war. It takes the arrival of an innovative new headmistress and a new pupil - the daughter of a man Alma hasn't seen since 1942 - to bring back the painful yet exhilarating summer that followed the air-raids and jolt her out of the past.

Kitty Wellington the narrator of Clare Morrall's absorbing sure-footed first novel has been brought up in a large family by her painter father. Surrounded by older brothers she has no real recollection of either her mother who was killed in a car crash or her sister who ran away from home. The great strength of the novel is Kitty herself. Morrall has provided her with a compelling narrative voice - wry confiding perceptive. Echoes from JM Barrie's disturbing masterpiece are quietly sounded with particular emphasis on missing mothers and "e;lost boys"e;.

Who is the Roundabout Man?He doesn't look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a nearby motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children's books, but he's nearer retirement than childhood.What he hopes no one will discover is that he's the real Quinn, immortalised as a child by his mother in her entrancing tales about a little boy's adventures with his triplet sisters. It is this inheritance he has successfully run away from - until now. When Quinn's reclusive existence is invaded, he has to turn and face his past, and all the uncomfortable truths it contains about himself, his sisters and, most of all, his mother.

What would you do if, out of the blue, your husband disappeared and you found out he was a suspected criminal?When reliable, respectable Felix Kendall vanishes, his wife Kate is left reeling. As she and their children cope with the shocking impact on their comfortable lives, Kate realises that, if Felix is guilty, she never truly knew the man she loved. But as she faces the possibility that he might not return, she also discovers strengths she never knew she had.

The world is a puzzling, sometimes frightening place for Jessica Fontaine. As a child she only finds contentment in playing the piano and wandering alone in the empty spaces of Audlands Hall, the dilapidated country house where she grows up.Twenty-five years later, divorced, with her son still living at home, Jessica remains preoccupied by the desire to create space around her. Then her volatile ex-husband reappears, the first of several surprises that both transform Jessica s present and give her a startling new perspective on the past.The Language of Others tells the absorbing story of a woman who spends much of her life feeling that she is out of step with the real world, until she discovers why. Related with humour and compassion, it offers a fresh, illuminating insight into what it means to be normal .