Lyrical and poetic, Lloyd-Barlow's exquisite debut revolves around the ordered and reserved Sunday Forrester and her daughter Dolly as two disarming strangers enter their lives with sinister intent.
For readers who loved Sorrow and Bliss or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - an unforgettable story of a mother and daughter whose lives are upended when a charming new couple move in next door.
Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly - her clever, headstrong, teenaged daughter.
Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday's book. Soon they are in and out of each others' homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For beneath Vita's charm lies a desperation and a certain entitled ambition - to have a daughter just like Dolly, all to herself.
Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
ISBN: 9781472288042
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 220 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 26 mm
A novel both delicate and strong, illuminating the disturbing and the extraordinary to be found in the every day. Sunday is a beguiling and beguiled narrator, and her story an examination of the disjunction between humans' private and public selves. I loved it - Maggie O'Farrell
Lloyd Barlow makes her wary, vigilant, poetic voice the star in a mesmerising debut - Guardian
Lloyd-Barlow's prose sings... a beautiful, bittersweet debut - Daily Telegraph
What a glorious, unforgettable character Vita is. And I loved Sunday's voice too, so unique, right from the off. It showed me things about autism that will stay with me. A genuinely valuable book, but more importantly I enjoyed being inside its world - Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley
A memorably authentic, at times painfully affecting, portrait of a singular woman navigating life's challenges and still finding her way to happiness on her own terms - Daily Mail
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow's is a distinct and poetic new voice. This novel about the complex desires behind our closest relationships is undercut with the darkness of Sicilian folklore: the fisherman who promises away his child; the lover who is a wolf; a caged magpie; burning fields - Clare Pollard, poet and author of Delphi
Funny, lyrical, deft and devastating. Full of longing and love - Amy Sackville, author of Painter to the King
At once sharply perceptive and lyrically written, All The Little Bird-Hearts is an emotional and though-provoking exploration of autism - CultureFly
Moving, funny and lyrical - iPaper
Expect to be moved - Sainsburys Magazine
Scintillating... a tense and subtly nuanced look at an intense friendship between two women - Elizabeth Morris, Crib Notes
A mesmerising story, impeccably written: I couldn't put it down - Anstey Harris, author of WHEN I FIRST HELD YOU
If you would like your heart smashed into tiny pieces in the most beautiful way possible, then here you go - Jen Campbell
What an unusual voice Sunday( main character) has. Her acute and gentle observations are so brilliant, I found myself thinking" Oh my goodness of course!" on so many
occasions. One I did not want to end,...
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4.5*
This novel is set in the Lake District, but with a Sicilian – or South Italian – slant. Sunny is the character at the heart, living with her 16 year old daughter Dolly, and Vita and her husband Rols move into...
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Thank you to the publishers for this review copy. This book was not on my radar before it was longlisted for the booker, I had no idea about it at all.
The book is an exceptional read which I now urge everyone to...
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