Held

**Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction**<BR><BR>'This is a novel to lose yourself in' The Times<BR>'Essential reading' Spectator<BR>'Extraordinarily magical' New York Times<BR>'The most important book I have read for forty years' Observer<BR>_________________<BR>Athos and I stood together on deck and looked across the water at the bright city. From this distance no one would guess the turmoil that had torn apart Greece . The sea began to darken, and Athens, glowing in the distance, seemed to float on the horizon like a bright ship.<BR><BR>Jakob Beer is seven years old when he is rescued from the ruins of a buried village in Nazi-occupied Poland. He is the only one of his family to have survived the invasion. Adopted by his saviour, the Greek geologist Athos, Jakob must steel himself to excavate the horrors of his own history.<BR><BR> A novel of astounding beauty and wisdom, Fugitive Pieces is a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and love's ability to restore even the most damaged of hearts.

A breathtaking, ineffable new novel from the author of the international best sellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault—a story of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate<BR><BR>1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.<BR><BR>1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.<BR><BR>So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.<BR><BR>Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.

Es gibt Abenteuer, die haben genau die richtige Größe, um in einen einzigen, zauberhaften Tag zu passen. Das ist die Sorte Abenteuer, die Miss Petitfour erlebt. Und zwar vor allem dann, wenn sie mit ihren sechzehn Katzen - Minky, Nebel, Toffee, Schnurrapura, Pirat, Senf, Dijon, Hemdela, Perle, Gregorowitsch, Clasby, Käpt'n Käpt'n, Käpt'n Kettcar, Käpt'n Kitty, Ihre Furchtsamkeit und Knister - in die Lüfte abhebt. Dabei kann es vorkommen, dass eine einzige Briefmarke eines Tages eine windige Verfolgungsjagd verursacht und ein einfacher Trödelmarkt plötzlich zu einem turbulenten Tohuwabohu wird. Und zufälligerweise nimmt jedes Abenteuer irgendwann - wie es sich für Miss Petitfour gehört - bei Tee und Kuchen ein erfreuliches ENDE.

WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE 2024<BR>SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024<BR><BR>**The international bestseller**<BR>**A Guardian Book of the Year**<BR>**Chosen as a book of the year by the independent.co.uk**<BR><BR>'Her prose is a thing of wonder' TELEGRAPH<BR>'Michaels's writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction' OBSERVER<BR>'Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity' MARGARET ATWOOD<BR>'Michaels is exceptionally open to beauty' GUARDIAN <BR><BR>The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change<BR><BR>_________________________________________________<BR><BR>1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory - a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast - as the snow falls. <BR><BR>1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river - alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand. <BR><BR>So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. <BR><BR>Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.<BR><BR>'I am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking of this book ... It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent everything I know about the novel' RACHEL JOYCE