'The book I wish I'd written . . . Witty, chilling, every word in place' Hilary Mantel, Guardian

Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and jobs in munitions factories. Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naive and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, a GI, at a neighbour's party she falls in love as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. But Nellie and Margo are not so blind...

* This wonderful novel showing Beryl Bainbridge at her darkly comic best - out for the first time as an Abacus paperback

About the Author
Beryl Bainbridge wrote seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, she won literary awards including the Whitbread Prize and Author of the Year at the British Book Awards. She died in July 2010.

Reviews
An impressive, haunting book...Like the better Hitchcock films, Beryl Bainbridge suggests a claustrophobic horror * Sunday Times *
A chilly story written by a master hand * The Times *
A little triumph of economy, with pent thoughts and cramped emotions that whisper frantically on when the book is shut * Guardian *
A magnificent book * New York Review of Books *



Book Information
ISBN 9780349123707
Author Beryl Bainbridge
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Abacus
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 160g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 126mm * 18mm