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An Echo of Scandal
An Echo of Scandal
Oct 2, 2024 4:44 PM

Author:Laura Madeleine,Julia Franklin

An Echo of Scandal

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the dead of night, with blood on her hands, she made her escape.

Accused of murder, Alejandra flees her home, escaping to the southern edge of Spain, where she faces a life of poverty and destitution.

Seduced by the power of the rich and the anonymity that waits across the water in Tangier, Ale makes a bid for a new start. But it will come at a cost: a life of deception. Because Ale's new friends want to know what she is running from, they want to know who she is and whether they can trust her.

Fifty years later, a young American writer wanders the streets of Tangier, searching for inspiration. When he stumbles across a trace of Ale's life, he finds himself tangled in a story of scandal, love and danger that has not yet reached its end.

Reviews

A riotous reimagining with an energy and passion all of its own that reanimates Frankenstein as a cautionary tale for a contemporary moment dominated by debates about Brexit, gender, artificial intelligence and medical experimentation… While the story has a gripping momentum of its own, it also fizzes with ideas.

—— Daisy Hay , Financial Times

Here, hard science and dreamy Romanticism exist in both tension and harmonyFrankissstein abounds with invention… this is a work of both pleasure and profundity, robustly and skilfully structured, and suffused with all Winterson’s usual preoccupations – gender, language, sexuality, the limits of individual liberty and the life of ideas.

—— Sam Byers , Guardian, *Book of the Week*

A modern take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it’s a fascinating and engrossing look at AI, science, gender fluidity and, ultimately, what it really means to be human.

—— Nicola Sturgeon , New Statesman, *Books of the Year*

Yes, the book we have all been waiting for. Yes, everything Winterson has always done so well. Yes, above and beyond anything that is yet to be written.

—— Daisy Johnson

Astonishing. Bold. Teeming with wit and intellectual prowess. Winterson is a literary giant. She remains one of my favourite writers.

—— Irenosen Okojie

Winterson has had a surge of inventivenessFrankissstein gamely links arms with the zeitgeist. {it} is a book that seeks to shift our perspective on humanity and the purpose of being human in the most darkly entertaining way… gloriously well observed .. I found myself vibrating with laughter.

—— Johanna Thomas-Corr , Observer, Book of the Day

Winterson reboots Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for the 21st Century, launching us into a hold-on-to-your hat modern-day horror story about very modern-day neuroses and issues.

—— Rebecca Thomas , BBC News

Intelligent and inventive… Frankisstein is very funny. There has always been a fine line between horror and high camp, and this is a boundary that Winterson gleefully exploits.

—— Robert Douglas-Fairhurst , The Times

Refreshingly, Jeanette Winterson’s Frankisstein… is a wildly inventive reimagining of one of science fiction’s most beloved stories… lyrical, gloriously raunchy, pulpy and absurd.

—— Helen Marshall , New Scientist

A clever comic romp that teases at the nature — and future — of life, death and what it is to be human, without ever being ponderous… [Frankissstein is] first-rate.

—— Daily Mail

Winterson writes in many forms then, but always with complete verve and disarming self-confidence… readers are in deft hands with Winterson. It helps that it’s a lighter read than you might expect: the schlocky history of Frankenstein and its many film spin-offs have given her permission to have some fun. And the sex robot business is truly hilarious.

—— AN Devers , Prospect

Funny and philosophical… This is a love story about life itself from a gifted writer.

—— Psychologies

A surprisingly funny novel… [and] characters…[are] well-rounded, with unexpected layers.

—— Rhian Drinkwater , SFX

Highly satisfying.

—— Claire Allfree , Daily Telegraph

Winterson’s witty and imaginatively plotted novel is a dizzying tour of future possibilities… Timely and thought-provoking, Frankisstein raises questions about the role of out bodies, the future of relationships, and, ultimately what it means to be human.

—— Anna Matthews , Diva

Shot through with references from Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare and TS Eliot, Winterson’s latest offering has a flavour of classical legend. She makes the world afresh, whole emphasising the human need for super-human figure and god-like intelligence is eternal.

—— Daily Express

An essential read for now.

—— Marta Bausells , ELLE

Winterson always pushes boundaries with her writing and this novel is no different.

—— Joanne Finney , Good Housekeeping

Winterson’s bold novel asks old questions about the body’s possibilities in a provocative new way.

—— Sharmaine Lovegrove , Sunday Times

Playfully allusive and relentlessly readable, it’s a book so wild and fizzing with ideas you feel it might actually pop.

—— Anthony Cummins , Metro

Playful and inventive… There is a merged ocean of thought with [Frankisstein]; ideas slip between characters and time frames. Frankisstein reincarnates as it evolves, each part deepening the part before it.

—— Rozalind Dineen , Times Literary Supplement

A weird and engaging and extremely funny take on Shelley’s classic… The book seeks to shift our perspective on humanity, I think, and the purpose of being… Technology today is allowing us to shape our notions of sex and gender; tomorrow, it will shape our end.

—— Judie Bindel , UnHerd

I'm awestruck, as always, by Jeanette Winterson…. Frankissstein…is a dazzlingly bonkers reworking of Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein, featuring artificial intelligence, sex robots and sci-fi experiments.

—— Laura Bailey , Vogue

Frankisstein leaps from the Peterloo Massacre to contemporary bioethical speculation to nineteenth-century Bedlam to early computers, its eager, passionately clever narrator always plunging enthusiastically ahead, like the mysterious giant figure Mary Shelley glimpsed racing across that icy glacier.

—— Michèle Roberts , Tablet, *Book of the Week*

An oft-moving, oft-hilarious retelling of Shelley’s much-retold classic.

—— Maria Crawford , Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2019*

Winterson teases away at…boundaries – between genders, life and death, fact and fiction, human and machine – to great, and hugely entertaining effect.

—— Daily Mail, *Summer reads of 2019*

Jeanette Winterson’s latest book is a shape-shifting, time-hopping gem of a novel… Reading one of Winterson’s books is like going on a magic carpet ride through her subconscious… her stories are creative, overflowing with ideas, and shot through with her wicked sense of humour.

—— James Lloyd , Science Focus

Rich, thoughtful, and entertaining… [a] heady combination of literary history, futurology, and romance.

—— Dougal Jeffries , BJGP

An utterly brilliant book from one of the most talented writers of the moment

—— Handbook

Frankissstein not only draws on the stories of real contemporary research around artificial intelligence and cryogenics, but also features historical figures and their compelling stories of scientific insight and discovery… I've read much of Winterson's work over the years and it seems to me she re-awakened the literary playfulness of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry with this offering.

—— Chemistry World

Top Holiday Reads - BEST FOR SALVING THE SOUL

—— The Herald

Gentle, moving, joyous

—— Guardian

Full of insight and sympathy. It is also highly absorbing — partly because of Tyler’s evocative style (when Micah considers his past, he is “visited by a kind of translucent scarf of a memory floating down upon him”), but mostly because of the intimacy with which she depicts the workings of Micah’s heart and mind...a quiet revelation

—— Matthew Adams , Financial Times

In wonderful prose, Tyler drills deep into a very ordinary life, familiar struggles, and a quiet heroism

—— David Hoyle , Church Times

Anne Tyler's masterful new novel asks what it might take for an unhappy man to change his life... her longevity means that her work has become a record of a certain kind of America, especially of "the dailiness of women's lives", for the past half century.

—— Benjamin Markovits , Prospect

A quiet and beautiful story about human relationships, written with intent observation, empathy and humour

—— Citizen Femme

A timely reminder of what matters: kindness and love

—— Cressida Connolly , Spectator Books of the Year

This gloriously warm novel felt heaven-sent when it appeared in deepest lockdown

—— Anthony Cummins , Metro, *Christmas Gift Guide 2020*

A new book from this wonderful writer is always a joy... Tyler packs feeling and insight into every single sentence

—— Joanne Finney , Good Housekeeping, *Books of the Year*

I adored Redhead by the Side of the Road... It is so subtle, and so brilliant as are all Tyler's novels... Witty and warm, its only fault was that I wanted it to be twice as long!

—— Victoria Hislop , Daily Express, *Books of the Year*

Tender and beautifully paced

—— Heather Martin , Daily Express, *Books of the Year*

Compassionate and alert to the complexities in even the most ordinary lives, the book reminds us why, at 79, Tyler is held in such high regard

—— Claire Allfree , Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

The qualities that have long won Tyler admiration and affection - wry humour, shrewd perception, characters who leap off the page with authenticity - are in generous supply

—— Julia Durman , Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*

You can't go wrong with Anne Tyler. She makes it look easy creating characters that feel so believable, so three-dimensional

—— Robbie Millen , The Times, *Books of the Year*

Tyler engrosses with the 'and-thenand-then' of domestic detail

—— Rose Tremain , i

I do think the world would probably be a better place if everyone read Anne Tyler . . . She's such a brilliantly empathetic writer - there's no 'them' and 'us' in Tyler's world - and she often writes from the perspective of the kind of people who you would walk past and barely notice in the street . . . Reading Tyler helps people to become better people, and I really fully believe that

—— Hadley Freeman , Good Housekeeping

Tyler's irresistibly readable 23rd novel follows Micah, a socially inept, OCD-ish IT man whose orderly life is turned upside down by the arrival of a son

—— Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

Tyler's affectionate and quietly observant novel reveals her deep empathy for the hidden struggles of everyday lives

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

Another shrewd yet kindly novel about the mysterious business of family life by one of the world's great writers

—— Reader's Digest

A charmingly offbeat love story

—— Mail on Sunday, *Summer Reads of 2021*

The narration here is a joy: you will be leaning towards the speaker to catch every nuance of Tyler's gently comediccharacterstudy of the Baltimore bachelor and fix-it man Micah Mortimer

—— Patricia Nicol , Sunday Times
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