Sweet Sorrow

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'That most rare and coveted of literary feats: a popular novel of serious merit, a bestseller that will also endure.' Observer

'Triumph ... the sense of nostalgia is visceral and intense, almost time-bending.' The Sunday Times

'Pitch perfect ... Exquisite ... Terrific ... Very funny ... Though Sweet Sorrow is certainly pulse-quickening enough to absorb readers through this summer's airport delays and rained-off beach days, it's no escapist fantasy. The tale of Charlie and Fran will linger long beyond your tan.' Telegraph

Everyone has that one summer.

In 1997, Charlie Lewis is the kind of boy you don't remember in the school photograph. His exams have not gone well. At home he is looking after his father, when surely it should be the other way round, and if he thinks about the future at all, it is with a kind of dread.

Then Fran Fisher bursts into his life and despite himself, Charlie begins to hope.

But if Charlie wants to be with Fran, he must take on a challenge that could lose him the respect of his friends and require him to become a different person. He must join the Company. And if the Company sounds like a cult, the truth is even more appalling.

The price of hope, it seems, is Shakespeare.

Poignant, funny, enchanting, devastating, Sweet Sorrow is a tragicomedy about the rocky path to adulthood and the confusion of family life, a celebration of the reviving power of friendship and that brief, searing explosion of first love that can only be looked at directly after it has burned out.

'A compassionate, intelligent look at the raw pain and loneliness of a teenage boy, the everyday miracle of first love and the perennial power of Shakespeare's language.' Spectator

'A superbly written, beautifully observed account of teenage life, love, family dysfunction and friendship, which builds to a stunningly poignant ending.' Heat

'The author of Us and of course One Day has never written with more tenderness and insight than in this bittersweet story ... perfectly captures the dizzying highs and lows of first love.' Daily Express

'Such a beautiful book. Captures perfectly a moment in time we've all experienced.' Graham Norton