'Real, heartbreaking - I loved it'

'My heart is smashed and repaired for reading this wonderfully romantic and strong piece of fiction.'

A glorious tangle of cold feet and mixed messages, Unexpected Lessons in Love is a heartwarming romantic comedy that tells us to be brave and to listen to our hearts. Suffused with Lucy's trademark warmth and gentle humour (with a splendid canine supporting cast), it's sure to win your heart. Irresistible!

'Such a great ‘what would you do?’ book about love, truth, friendship and of course dogs. Kept me guessing all the way.'

A wonderful read

Praise for other titles by Lucy Dillon

Lucy Dillon's books never fail to make me happy.

Touching narrative . . . We loved it.

Where the Light Gets In is full of love, truth, art and dogs. I absolutely loved it.

Dillon has delivered another blinder . . . A bittersweet, moving examination of letting go and trusting one's own instincts in the face of self-doubt.

I always know I’m in safe hands with a new Lucy Dillon novel and I also know that I’ll be having a big, ugly, snotty cry before I reach the final page. A perfect Sunday afternoon treat of a book.

Prepare for your heartstrings to be tugged! Moving and ultimately satisfying.

Praise for Lucy Dillon

Bittersweet, lovely and ultimately redemptive; the kind of book that makes you want to live your own life better

Lucy Dillon's books make the world a better place.

Satisfying and clever and deeply moving

No one tugs at the heartstrings quite like Lucy Dillon

Entertaining

Darkly humorous

Dramatic, mysterious and compelling

Accelerates with intensity and sheer originality with every page

Will grab readers and refuse to let go. An author to watch

It kept me guessing to the end

A darkly droll page-turner

Hammad taps into the satisfying slow-burn style of classic literature with a storyline that captures both the heart and the mind…This is an immensely rewarding novel that readers will sink into and savor.

An assured debut novel that sets the life of one man against the tumultuous backdrop of Palestine in the waning years of British occupation… Closely observed and elegantly written.

Undeniably beautiful.

An engrossing, sweeping novel.

The are moments of such lyric beauty in The Parisian, Isabella Hammad’s debut novel, that you want what they describe to be permanently closed, hers to be the final word… [The Parisian] also has a close grasp of history, and the high quality of its writing never fades.

The Parisian by Isabella Hammad has already won advance praise from Zadie Smith, and deservedly so: this tale of a Palestinian immigrant... is beautiful historical fiction.

Hammad traces her protagonist’s emotional journey with great sensitivity, against a backdrop of historical events… a vivid, capacious historical novel.

The Parisian is a graceful and balanced book, animated throughout by an immense social intelligence… a pleasure to read.

A sweeping historical novel that opens in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire… The Parisian calls to mind a 19th-century novel.

Complex, subtle and challenging… [The Parisian is] excelling––with a powerful ending that is moving in the way it knits together the themes of self-betrayal and social and political treachery.

Reconciling oneself with the pain and pleasure of the ties that bind one to certain people and places is something that lies at the heart of Hammad’s novel… the world Hammad paints is a rich one.

Hammad… convincingly weaves the conversations and arguments around the Palestinian table, inviting the reader to join the friends and family who are full of complexity and humanity, and refuse to be defined by the tragedy that is befalling them… To read The Parisian is to gradually get to know a friend, like drinking tea with a favourite uncle and hearing about family stories, gossip and politics.

A timely reminder of what matters: kindness and love

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

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

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!

Tender and beautifully paced

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A charmingly offbeat love story

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