Instructions for a Heatwave (Paperback)
Maggie O'Farrell (author)Published: 29/08/2013
A story of a dysfunctional but deeply loveable family reunited, set during the legendary summer of 1976, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE by Maggie O'Farrell was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller (2013).
It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780755358793
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 243 g
Dimensions: 196 x 130 x 23 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
The Riordans will stay in your mind long after you finish this book. They're funny, infuriating and impossible not to love. They feel like family * Irish Times *
My favourite kind of novel: big-hearted, psychologically complex and utterly gripping -- Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Unputdownable -- Joanna Briscoe, Guardian
Instantly appealing...magical * Daily Telegraph *
Masterful...holds you on an exquisite knife-edge * Marie Claire *
An author at the top of her game * Sunday Express *
O'Farrell's language is lissom, airborne, mostly seamless, her characters flawed, contradictory, aggravating and instantly knowable. This is a deceptively easy, effortlessly true-feeling novel; a total delight * Metro *
A quite wonderful novel...at once enthralling, page turning and atmospheric * Irish Examiner *
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“An Enjoyable Summer Read”
Set during the heatwave of July 1976 and over just three days, this story is about a dysfunctional family. All living their separate lives, in their separate ways, they are brought together when their father goes out... More
“A little disappointing”
I struggled to get into this book, was a little slow for me. Then everbodys taste is different.
“Charmed by characterisation”
When Gretta's husband fails to return from buying a newspaper, his grown-up children gather to try to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Each of the children has their own secrets; their own complicated... More
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