Mother Country : a story of love and lies
Shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024
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'A riveting story of love, loss and wartime secrets.’
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Monique Charlesworth’s Mother Country is, as the subtitle states, ‘A Story of Love and Lies’, in which Charlesworth patiently follows leads and unpicks a hugely complicated family history in order to come to an understanding of her relationship with her mother.
Judges’ citation, shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024
Mother Country
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Beautifully written and very skilfully structured, the book springs a number of carefully placed surprises on the reader. This is both a compelling detective story and an unusual and highly original book about the repercussions of the Holocaust.
Judges’ citation, shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024
Mother Country
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'a hugely entertaining and poignant story of love, secrets, and the enduring power of the relationship between mothers and daughters'
Camilla Cavendish, author of Extra Time: Ten Lessons for Living Longer Better
Mother Country : a story of love and lies
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'This is a story which will draw you in and leave you a little wiser about your own family relationships. I couldn't put it down’
Camilla Cavendish
Mother Country: a story of love and lies
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‘I loved Mother Country. Books rarely feel as necessary as this’
Julian Evans, author of Semi-Invisible Man, the life of Norman Lewis and Transit of Venus
Mother Country : a story of love and lies
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‘Mother Country is a beautifully and artfully written memoir and there’s a fierce but compassionate intelligence at work which is impossible not to be moved by’
Martin Fletcher
Mother Country: a story of love and lies
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‘Breathlessly suspenseful . . . Charlesworth moves her story through fast, terrifying intricacies of plot. Engrossing’
Polly Shulman, New York Times Books Review
The Children’s War
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‘Vividly detailed, historically informed and emotionally restrained, The Children’s War breathes a well-earned authenticity.’
Eva Hoffman, author of Lost in Translation
The Children’s War
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‘Richly satisfying and utterly absorbing … Fascinating and original’
Robert MacNeil, Washington Post Book World
The Children’s War
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‘Charlesworth travels the morally ambiguous alleyways of war to create a deeply satisfying read full of richly complicated characters’
Kirkus Reviews (starred)
The Children’s War
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'An impressive debut. Monique Charlesworth combines a sharp wit with a rich sense of time and place in a very distinctive blend’
Graham Swift
The Glass House
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‘The Glass House introduces a writer of significant accomplishments’
Jonathan Keates, The Observer
The Glass House
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‘the deft plotting … the sharp intelligence of the writing recall Muriel Spark’
Savkar Altinel, TLS
The Glass House
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‘A gift for describing her characters as if they themselves had taught her how to place them perfectly in context’
Jonathan Keates, The Observer
The Glass House
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‘Life Class makes it clear that she is a novelist of very considerable talent. It has that rare quality: authority’
Allan Massie, The Scotsman
Life Class
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‘Somebody – God, perhaps – is grooming Monique Charlesworth as the next Muriel Spark’
Patrick Gale, Daily Telegraph
Life Class
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‘This is a book to read again and savour’
Christopher Wordsworth, The Guardian
Life Class
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‘Miss Charlesworth succeeds in reaching the heart while being brutally funny; no mean gift’
Patrick Gale, Daily Telegraph
Life Class
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‘Monique Charlesworth’s sharply observed novel … hovers tantalisingly between farce and tragedy’
Daily Express
Foreign Exchange
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'Beneath a soufflé-light storyline Monique Charlesworth tucks away great wisdom on the subject of marital boredom and fantasy’
She
Foreign Exchange
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'an affectionate, daughterly memoir that has as many twists and turns as a fast-paced thriller'
Liz Hodgkinson, The Lady
Mother Country: a story of love and lies
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'Her mother, the ultimate performer, might well have been thrilled to be the star of the book'
Jennifer Lipman, The Jewish Chronicle
Mother Country: a story of love and lies
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'Mother Country is Charlesworth's moving attempt to come to terms with her own dysfunctional childhood: her obedient yet deeply ambivalent relationship with Inge, who was generous and loving yet unempathetic and self-centred'
Natasha Lehrer, TLS, ‘Monster sacré’
Mother Country: a story of love and lies
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'with this fine memoir Charlesworth ensures that her family's past will not be forgotten'
Natasha Lehrer, TLS, ‘Monster sacré’
Mother Country: a story of love and lies