Esther Freud Libri

It is 1914, and Thomas Maggs, the son of the local publican, lives with his parents and sister in a village on the Suffolk coast. Life is quiet - shaped by the seasons, fishing and farming, the summer visitors, and the girls who come down from the Highlands every year to gut and pack the herring. Then one day a mysterious Scotsman arrives. To Thomas he looks like a detective, in his black cape and hat of felted wool, and the way he puffs on his pipe as if he's Sherlock Holmes. Mac is what the locals call him when they whisper about him in the Inn. And whisper they do, for he sets off on his walks at unlikely hours, and stops to examine the humblest flowers. He is seen on the beach, staring out across the waves as if he's searching for clues. But Mac isn't a detective, he's the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Based on a true story, this is an inspiring and heart-warming debut play by best-selling novelist Esther Freud

An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself.Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story.Tove Janssoncaptured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. This new edition, with a Foreword by Esther Freud, sees the return of a European literary gem - fresh, authentic and deeply humane.

'This book ranks alongside PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA as one of the very few great contemporary novels about childhood' William Sutcliffe, Independent on Sunday 'Everything was going to be different this year' - Tess is nine years old and wants her new family to work out, even though her brother Jake is not so sure. THE WILD is a brilliant, clear-eyed evocation of the collision of families and step families, adult and childhood worlds.

Sarah, an actress and single mother, learns that her family's former estate, Gaglow, has been returned. As she and her estranged father explore the house, memories surface, revealing a complex family history filled with intimacy and tragedy. Esther Freud intricately depicts their connections to the past.

“Unexpected and satisfying.” — New York Newsday The architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann’s death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Pouring over Klaus’s letters to Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives together and apart. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home. The Sea House is the story of the village of Steerborough and the marshes and the sea beyond. It is the story of one generation living in the footprints of another; of a landscape shaped by lives, and lives shaped by landscape. With characteristic skill and a new depth and range, Esther Freud explores the twisting paths that people take—and the places where those paths meet.

Rosaleen is young, beautiful and still a schoolgirl when, in the early Sixties, she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lehmann. Felix is Jewish, bohemian; Rosaleen, the tearaway middle daughter of Irish publicans. So their affair running away to France to gorge on oysters, boozing and eating cakes in Soho surrounded by Felix's fellow artists, Rosaleen modelling for him in his London studio has to be kept a secret from her parents. But everything changes when Rosaleen finds herself pregnant. Evicted from her flat and dismissed from her job, she travels to Ireland to a convent that promises to house her until her baby is safely delivered. The reality that meets her there, however, is far from what she has been promised. Kate lives in present day London with her young daughter, her promise and energy as an artist stifled by the unhappiness of her marriage. But something is stirring in Kate; the courage to face a mystery in her past that might just be to do with the visions of a tree that have begun to haunt her work and dreams. Close to breaking point, she heads to Ireland, not yet fully knowing what she hopes to find. Aoife sits at her husband Cashell's bedside as he lies dying, and tells him the story of their lifetime together- of their courtship in wartime London, their three daughters, their return from exile. But there is a crucial part of the story missing, and, with time running out, Aoife needs Cashell to tell her- what became of Rosaleen? Captivating and gorgeously written, I Couldn't Love Your More is an unforgettable novel about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal and how only the truth can set us free

A captivating new novel about the world of acting from the acclaimed author of Hideous Kinky and Love Falls

1914. In the village of Dunwich on the Suffolk coast young Thomas Maggs befriends mysterious Scotsman and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh whom the locals call Mac. Just as Thomas and Mac's friendship begins to bloom, war with Germany is declared and as the war weighs increasingly heavily on the community, the villagers on the home front become increasingly suspicious of Mac and his curious behavior

After Klaus Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Poring over Klaus' letters to his wife Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.