Description
By (author) Stevens Nell
Short /annotation:
When George Sand and Frédéric Chopin arrive at a monastery in Mallorca, the resident ghost, Blanca, falls head-over-heels in love with George – this striking woman in a man’s clothing. But the rest of the village is suspicious, and as winter sets in, their stay looks likely to end in disaster. For fans of How to Be Both by Ali Smith.
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Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize
”Wildly seductive” – Sarah Waters
”Exquisite” – New York Times
”Deeply enjoyable” – Daily Telegraph
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is a story about breaking convention, and about love –secret, forbidden, unrequited.
Blanca has been dead for a few centuries when she falls in love – instantly and devotedly – with celebrated novelist George Sand. George is unlike anyone Blanca has encountered in hundreds of years of haunting: a woman dressed in men’s clothes, a ferocious writer, a passionate lover of men and women alike and an ambivalent mother.
It is 1838, and George has come to the island of Mallorca with her ailing lover, Frédéric Chopin. As the weather and the locals turn against this strange couple, can the love of a teenage ghost keep them from disaster?
”Dazzling” – Melissa Broder, author of The Pisces and Milk Fed
‘A luscious, multi-sensory bewitchment of a book’ – Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
‘A shining work of art’ – Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory
”Electrifyingly beautiful, exhilaratingly clever . . . sensual,
original, intelligent and brimming with love” – Imogen Hermes Gowar, author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
‘Hugely accomplished’ – The Guardian
‘A playful, otherworldly debut’ – Stylist
Review quote:
A
luscious, multi-sensory bewitchment of a book – Stevens’ writing
rings with wit and surprise
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I found myself floored by the
astonishing freshness of this historical novel . . .
A shining work of art, but
so deftfully, gracefully done, that it was a struggle to stop myself from turning the pages. Nell Stevens is
an original, whose touch is as deft as it is masterful
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Stevens is
brilliant at describing desire
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Deeply enjoyable, guileful
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A voluptuous delight . . . Like the best historical fiction it is playfully disingenuous . . . the whole book is
radiant with life
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Truly original . . . brilliant
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Nell Stevens’s
hugely accomplished debut novel evokes a sense both of place and time with a confidence that augurs well for her future career . . . The book is attuned to both contemporary and timeless concerns and
grips throughout
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A teenage ghost falls in love with a writer who doesn’t know she exists in
this playful, otherworldly debut novel
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Electrifyingly beautiful, exhilaratingly clever . . . categorically
the most gorgeous first novel I”ve read in years. It”s rare that I come across historical fiction
so sensual, so original, so intelligent, and so brimming with love
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A
gorgeous,
wildly seductive novel,
shimmering with intelligence, humour and joy. I adored this book.
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A
haunting, dazzling tale of all the good stuff:
love, sex, music, literature, death, and what happens after. Nell Stevens is a
beautiful writer.
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A hea
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