How It Was: the immersive, compelling new novel from the author of The Butcher's Hook

by Janet Ellis

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Book cover for How It Was

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AS FEATURED ON EMMA KENNEDY'S BOOKSHELF
'IMMERSIVE, AMAZING, REMARKABLE' MARIAN KEYES
'JANET ELLIS WRITES WITH TENDERNESS AND WISDOM' ERIN KELLY
'AN ATMOSPHERIC, CLEVER NOVEL THAT WILL GET UNDER YOUR SKIN' RED

Marion Deacon sits by the hospital bed of her dying husband, Michael. Outwardly she is, as she says, an unremarkable old woman. She has long concealed her history - and her feelings - from the casual observer. But as she sits by Michael's bed, she's haunted by memories from almost forty years ago . . .

Marion Deacon is a wife and mother, and not particularly good at being either. It's the 1970s and in her small village the Swinging 60s, the wave of feminism, the prospect of an exciting life, have all swerved past her. Reading her teenage daughter's diary, it seems that Sarah is on the threshold of getting everything her mother Marion was denied, and Marion cannot bear it - what she does next has terrible and heart-breaking consequences for the whole family.

Janet Ellis writes of the exquisite pain of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the complexity of family and a mother-daughter relationship that is as memorable as it is utterly believable.

'ELLIS WRITES BEAUTIFULLY' DAILY MAIL
'AN EMOTIONAL EPIC' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
'AFFECTING, ENGAGING AND READABLE' OBSERVER
'A TALE OF SILENCES, SECRETS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'ENGROSSING' MIRROR

  • ISBN10 1473625211
  • ISBN13 9781473625211
  • Publish Date 2 April 2020 (first published 8 August 2019)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher John Murray Press
  • Imprint Two Roads
  • Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
  • Pages 448
  • Language English