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'Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet' - Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us
Even the longest marriages have their secrets . . .
Jack Chalmers is a man of few words, married to a woman of many. He and Bet have been together for seventy years - almost a lifetime - and happily so, for the most part.
All Jack and Bet want is to enjoy the time they have left together, in the flat they have tried to make their home. Their son Tommy has other ideas: he wants them to live somewhere with round-the-clock care, hot meals, activities. Bet thinks they can manage just fine.
When they strike up an unlikely friendship with Marinela, a young Romanian woman, Bet thinks she has found the perfect solution - one that could change Marinela's life as well as theirs. But this means revisiting an old love affair, and confronting a long-buried secret she has kept hidden from everyone, even Jack, for many years.
Tender, moving and beautifully told, Sarah Butler's Jack & Bet is an unforgettable novel about love and loss, the joys and regrets of a long marriage, and the struggle to find a place to call home.
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781509898152
Number of pages: 272
Weight: 384 g
Dimensions: 223 x 142 x 33 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Jack & Bet is a tender and deeply affecting novel about everyday people living everyday lives. I marvelled at how Sarah got under the skin of her characters as well as her unflinching exploration of the meaning of home, all done in such a natural and sensitive way. Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet -- Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us
I look forward to Sarah Butler's books which are always honest and tender. Jack & Bet is a moving yet unsentimental story about family and love and the secrets we live with -- Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son
Sarah Butler hooks you with the controlled power of her writing, her eye for detail and her feel for the secrets hidden within everyday lives. Jack & Bet is at once a portrait of a marriage and a corner of London in transition. With mounting tension, it demonstrates why it's never too late to have your world turned upside down -- Oliver Harris, author of A Shadow of Intelligence
Seductive and assured, Jack & Bet is a warm, wise and wonderfully defiant exploration of a long marriage and a short-lived experiment in social housing. Butler holds up a mirror to British society, reflecting its brilliance, illuminating its darkness and pulling it all off with a deceptively light touch -- Emma Claire Sweeney, author of Owl Song at Dawn
I read Jack & Bet with enjoyment and heartbreak . . . wins its place in the burgeoning writing that shines a spotlight on the lives of over seventies in Britain -- Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of The First Woman
I loved Jack & Bet. Butler writes from Jack, Bet and Marinela's perspectives with such compassion and understanding -- Susan Barker, author of The Incarnations
A fantastic novel - totally absorbing and full of heart -- Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them
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“Beautifully written but unsentimental”
Jack and Bet by Sarah Butler.
I didn’t really know what to expect from this book but it was utterly delightful. It tells the story of Jack and Bet, a working class couple from the Elephant & Castle area of...
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“Beautifully written with wonderful characters”
Jack and Bet is a beautiful read about three wonderful characters who really touched me with their stories. Jack and Bet have been married for seventy years, they have overcome problems along the way, a secret love... More
“Gorgeous Read!”
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