Beautifully written and very funny, Daughters of Jerusalem is a gripping tale of hidden love and hate, of the desire to belong and the need for escape.

'Exciting and memorably written, this is one of those rare reads that has you galloping to the end, but feeling bereft at having to say goodbye so soon' - Independent

Behind a crumbling facade of seeming normality, secrets begin to stir within the Lux family home. Jean Lux, constrained academic wife and guilty mother, is waiting for excitement - and it will come from an unexpected source. Meanwhile Eve, her intelligent elder daughter, luxuriates in wounded jealousy, until her loathing for her only sister verges on the murderous.

Into this climate of static repression and bitterness enters Raymond Snow, the deadly rival of Jean's husband, who begins to show interest in the vulnerable Eve. Meanwhile, Jean's best friend, Helena, has something she is yearning to tell: a confession that may alter everyone's life forever.

Daughters of Jerusalem won both the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award.

'Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelson's second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart's hidden desires' - Daily Mail

From the Orange shortlisted author of When We Were Bad

About the Author
Charlotte Mendelson's novel, When We Were Bad, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and was chosen as a book of the year in the Observer, Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Spectator. She is also the author of Love in Idleness and Daughters of Jerusalem, which won both the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

Reviews
Brilliant . . . exhilarating . . . Exciting and memorably written, this is one of those rare reads that has you galloping to the end, but feeling bereft at having to say goodbye so soon * Independent *
Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelson's second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart's hidden desires * Daily Mail *
This deliciously waspish - actually, hilarious - story of a destructive Oxford academic family has stayed with me longer than many that did. Pure, very wicked joy -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times *
A superb, hilarious farce of dysfunctional academic family life . . . Funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptive * Guardian *
A witty and absorbing work of fiction... wonderful... surprising and satisfying * Times Literary Supplement *
Savagely funny and hilariously cruel, it . . . convinces through the sheer power of the writing * Sunday Times *
Miss Marple meets Rosamond Lehmann... luscious prose and droll comedy... suffused with longing, studded with recherche words and clotted with gastronomic metaphors which make you feel that you should be reading on a chaise longe, stuffing yourself with violet creams * Observer *
An engaging combination of campus satire and domestic drama . . . In Daughters of Jerusalem Mendelson has created a blue-stocking thriller * Daily Telegraph *
A delicious tale of intrigue and betrayal * Big Issue *
Bold . . . engaging . . . an undoubted talent for comic observation * The Times *
Written with great sharpness and has thrilling detail -- Julia Darling


Awards
Winner of Somerset Maugham Award 2004 (UK) and John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2003 (UK). Short-listed for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2003 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9780330452762
Author Charlotte Mendelson
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Picador
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Weight(grams) 232g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 130mm * 21mm