Description
Discover the heartwarming, witty, and poignant new historical novel about changing (sometimes reluctantly) with the times in the aftermath of WW2, perfect for fans of Maggie O’Farrell and Rachel Joyce.
‘A future classic’ Woman&Home
‘Generous, touching and romantic’ Clare Chambers
‘One of our finest writers of literary entertainment’ Spectator
‘Brilliantly written, gloriously funny… a heart-warming read about learning to live again’ Sun
‘Perfectly pitched, funny tale, sprinkled with peppery observations and speckled with a poignant bitter-sweetness’ Daily Mail
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It’s 1945, and Corporal Valentine Vere-Thissett, aged 23, is on his way home.
But ‘home’ is Dimperley, built in the 1500s, vast and dilapidated, up to its eaves in debt and half-full of fly-blown taxidermy and dependent relatives, the latter clinging to a way of life that has gone forever.
And worst of all – following the death of his heroic older brother – Valentine is now Sir Valentine, and is responsible for the whole bloody place. To Valentine, it’s a millstone; to Zena Baxter, who has never really had a home before being evacuated there with her small daughter, it’s a place of wonder and sentiment, somewhere that she can’t bear to leave.
But Zena has been living with a secret, and the end of the war means she has to face a reckoning of her own?
Funny, sharp and touching, Small Bomb at Dimperley is both a love story and a bittersweet portrait of an era of profound loss, and renewal.
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More praise for Small Bomb at Dimperley
‘Sharp, witty and warm. Press it on friends’ Lev Parikian
‘This is Lissa Evans at the peak of her mighty powers’ India Knight
‘A wonderfully entertaining read’ Red
‘Tightly plotted and extremely moving’ Platinum Magazine
‘A funny and insightful microcosm during World War II’ Irish Independent
‘Incredibly assured and affecting… the perfect novel to be read in such dark times’ Graham Norton
‘Wodehouse meets Barbara Pym? Funny, poignant, perfect’ Daisy Goodwin
