Sorrow and Bliss

'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know'Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House'Jaw-droppingly funny, this is the kind of novel you will want to press into the hands of everyone you know. A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love: as soon as I finished it, I started again'Jessie Burton, author of The Confession'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant'Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures'Completely brilliant, I loved it. I think every girl and woman should read it'Gillian Anderson'Consistently funny and sharp and dark: it's wonderful'Charlotte Mendelson, author of Almost English'It will shatter your heart, before mending it with infinite love. I will be pressing it into the hands of every reader I know'Pandora Sykes'An incredibly funny and devastating debut'Guardian'I've never read a novel about the impact of mental illness on the life of a woman, and those around her, like this. It is simply brilliant' Bookseller, Editor's Choice'Hilarious and heartbreaking'Cosmopolitan'I devoured this book, with all its humour and pain and cock-eyed hope'Julie Cohen, author of Together'Brutal, tender, funny. I am changed by this book'Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes'Nina Stibbe meets Fleabag'Daily Express Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets.So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.