Love in Idleness — Charlotte Mendelson

`I loved it. The evocation of ennui and loneliness rings very true . . . great unexpected observations . . . very funny' Lesley Glaister Anna Raine is desperate: to escape Somerset, to evade her mother, and above all to find a model of adulthood on whom to base her future self. When Stella, her mother's reckless younger sister, offers her London flat, Anna's buried curiosity about Stella quickly becomes fascination: dark secrets, she is certain, lie within her reach. While by day Anna feigns efficient adulthood, by night she sinks into an increasingly heated world of discovery. As secrets rise to the surface she tries to focus on London - on anything other than her aunt. But the truth has its own momentum, and when Stella returns from Paris, something, or everything, is going to give . . . `With her gift for light humour, Mendelson seems to be skipping across the surface. Then she'll suddenly dive into a world of obsession' Independent on Sunday `A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book' Ali Smith, Glasgow Herald