'Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else.' – Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet That evening the baker's wife ran down the village street in a tattered pink nightgown. She screamed as she ran. Strange things are afoot in the English village where the Willoweed family live. First, the river floods in June. The family wakes to find ducks sailing around the drawing room and dead peacocks bobbing in the garden. But the flood is only the beginning of their troubles. All of a sudden the mil...

'The morning I left home Mother was recovering from being poorly and she'd been sick in the vegetable basket.' Sisters Victoria and Blanche grow up in their grandfather's house in Warwickshire. It's a secluded existence: their mother is a war widow with a thirst for port and sherry and their last governess leaves never to be replaced. When their grandfather dies, their mother replaces drink with housework and the girls plan their escape. Blanche heads off to train as a model at a dubious i...

A mysterious epidemic strikes an English village in this surreal, irresistible, and darkly funny Barbara Comyns classic, hailed as an “overlooked small masterpiece” (The Rumpus).“So funny, so exact, so twisted.” —PBSThis is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “Wh...

'A small Gothic masterpiece . . . I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities' SARAH WATERS'A wonderful and original novel' ALAN HOLLINGHURST'The strange off-beat talent of Barbara Comyns [whose] innocent eye observes with child-like simplicity the most fantastic or the most ominous occurrence' GRAHAM GREENE'Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else' MAGGIE...

A feminist reimagining of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about a single mother and an enchanted friendship—from one of most bewitching British writers of the 20th century.“Comyns’s world is weird and wonderful . . . Tragic , comic and completely bonkers all in one, I’d go as far as to call her something of a neglected genius.” —The ObserverBella Winter has hit a low. Homeless and jobless, she is the mother of a toddler by a man whos...

I defy anyone to read the opening pages and not to be drawn in, as I was . . . Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else' Maggie O'FarrellPretty, unworldly Sophia is twenty-one and hastily married to a young painter called Charles. An artist's model with an eccentric collection of pets, she is ill-equipped to cope with the bohemian London of the 1930s, where poverty, babies (however much loved) and husband conspire to torment her. Hoping to add some spice to her life, Sophia tak...

A young female artist faces poverty, sexism, and a marriage gone awry in this “tragic, comic, and completely bonkers” novel set in Depression-era London (The Observer).“I defy anyone to read the opening pages and not to be drawn in, as I was . . . Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else.” —Maggie O'Farrell, bestselling author of Hamnet“I told Helen my story and she went home and cried.” So begins Our Spoons Came f...

'Tragic, comic and completely bonkers all in one, I'd go as far as to call her something of a neglected genius' LUCY SCHOLES, GUARDIAN'It is hard not to believe that Barbara Comyns's own adventures are entangled in her fiction' JANE GARDAM, SPECTATOR'All of her books read as if she wrote them effortlessly' URSULA HOLDENOn the banks of the River Avon, five sisters are born. The seasons come and go, ...

'A small Gothic masterpiece… I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities - its darkness, its strangeness, its humour, its sadness, its startling images and twists of phrase' - Sarah Waters.Growing up in Edwardian south London, Alice Rowlands longs for romance and excitement, for a release from a life that is dreary and lonely. Her father, a vet, is harsh and oppressive; his new girlfriend, brash and lascivious.Alice seeks refuge in...

Strange things are afoot in the English village where the Willoweed family live.Unnatural floods usher in dead peacocks and ducks, soon followed by an ominous wave of self-inflicted deaths and a peculiar illness.From their humble Willoweed cottage, sisters Emma and Hattie are helpless spectators to this unfolding chaos, their childhood idyll disintegrating as fear infects their once-familiar world.But as the virus spreads and hysteria grips everyone around them, the...

´I defy anyone to read the opening pages and not to be drawn in, as I was... Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else.´ - Maggie O'Farrell, author of "Hamnet".Pretty, unworldly Sophia is twenty-one years old and hastily married to a young painter called Charles. An artist's model with an eccentric collection of pets, she is ill-equipped to cope with the bohemian London of the 1930s, where poverty, babies (however much loved) and her husband conspire to torment her.Hopin...

The gaudy years of the Restoration are long gone. Robert Merivel, physician and courtier to Charles II, loved for his ability to turn sorrow into laughter, now faces the agitations and anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the King's friend or the King's slave?In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court. But Versailles - all glitter in front and squalor behind - leaves Merivel in despair, until a cha...