'Gorgeous' Observer * 'Profoundly moving' Financial Times * 'Electrifying' Daily Mail

How do you find the courage to make your own life? An unputdownable novel about first love set in 1960s London from Sunday Times bestselling Rose Tremain

Marianne is fifteen when she falls helplessly and absolutely in love with Simon. Simon owns a Morris Minor, is in his final year at school and has a dazzling future ahead of him. Desperate to escape the stifling 1950s suburbs she has been raised in, Marianne feels sure she will be able to find true happiness with him.

However a twist of fate sees Simon's glittering future dashed, and with it, Marianne's dreams. He flees the country and Marianne, realising she will now have to make a life of her own, moves to London determined to reinvent herself. But Marianne cannot let go of that first all-encompassing love and all the while Simon is in Paris, nursing a secret that will alter everything.

'A perfect Tremain novel... English, dark and yearning... Remarkable... Tremain shows us the things that make every human life extraordinary' The Times

'A complex tale of becoming that's moving, evocative and mesmerising in its acuity' Mail on Sunday


*A Sunday Times Book of the Year*
* Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction *

READERS LOVE ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER:

'Heartrending, funny, unputdownable' 5*****

'An undoubted modern classic' 5*****

'Marianne will remain with me as a friend' 5*****

'A masterclass in character and world building ... the writing is just sublime' 5*****

About the Author
Rose Tremain's novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence) the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina in France (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). Her most recent novel is Lily, a Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER:
'Stunningly beautiful and deeply moving'

* Simon Schama *
A perfect Tremain novel... English, dark and yearning... remarkable... [Tremain shows] us the things that make every human life extraordinary * The Times *
Funny, piercing and singular... this gorgeous, pitch-perfect novel is a world unto itself... it's powerful, too... I can't fathom the reason why you wouldn't rush straight out to buy it * Observer *
A slim, funny, elegantly breezy coming-of-age story * Sunday Times *
A complex tale of becoming that's moving, evocative and mesmerising in its acuity * Mail on Sunday *



Book Information
ISBN 9781529922509
Author Rose Tremain
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 142g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 12mm