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Extracts

A tribute to Helen Dunmore, from the pen of her son Patrick

The Greatcoat

A chilling and atmospheric ghost story by the author of Birdcage Walk, Exposure and The Lie

You won't find plastic fangs or Dulux blood in Helen Dunmore's perfect little ghost story ... Dunmore conveys a shivery menace and concealed tragedy; this is the most elegant literary flesh-creeper since Susan Hill's The Woman in Black.

This is a haunting and exquisitely crafted tale where the line between the real and the imaginary becomes blurred.

The Greatcoat is a well-written ghost story that observes the traditions of the genre without subsiding into pastiche ... Dunmore uses motifs and themes as a kind of Greek chorus ... these are subtly deployed, and enhance the atmosphere in this disturbing, thoughtful novel.

An atmospheric and accomplished ghost story.

A taut, elegantly written ghost story… Wielding her skill at bringing history to life in the small, dismal details of the post-war period, and showing off her talents as a poet in her mesmerising depiction of possession, Dunmore is on fine form here.

The art of the ghost story requires delicate balance. The supernatural itself does not have to be convincing. It is enough that characters in the fiction are convinced by it. This was Scott's way in, to give only one example, The Bride of Lammermoor and also Buchan's in that remarkable and uncanny novel, The Dancing Floor and in his short stories about the supernatural. It is Dunmore's here too, in this beautifully written tale, and because she achieves this delicate balance, it comes off splendidly.

the best kind of ghostly tale - one that has you pondering its implications - and checking the back of dark cupboards - long after the final page

Helen Dunmore's exquisitely written ghost story works its way with spooky subtlety into your imagination.

A powerful evocation of period, and the tricks the mind can play on itself, its unadorned prose builds a chilling effect reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw.

Her latest work is not a new departure but a development of familiar strengths: drawing us in to a compelling fictional world, populated by characters who live and love with vivid self-awareness. Dunmore has a sharp eye, and a fine-pen, for the hairline cracks in a new marriage ... Dunmore's gift, familiar from The Siege and The Betrayal, is to use a finely drawn domestic setting to show the great events of European history on a human scale.

An unnerving breathlessly told love affair

I love ghost stories and this one is hugely atmospheric.

I really enjoyed the authentic wartime detail in this book.

The ideal ghost story for Halloween ... Full of suspense ... If you loved Woman in Black, you'll love this atmospheric tale.

This book is spooky, erotic and evocative. We loved it.

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children’s author and poet who will be remembered for the depth and breadth of her fiction. Rich and intricate, yet narrated with a deceptive simplicity that made all of her work accessible and heartfelt, her writing stood out for the fluidity and lyricism of her prose, and her extraordinary ability to capture the presence of the past. 
 
Her first novel, Zennor in Darkness, explored the events which led D. H. Lawrence to be expelled from Cornwall on suspicion of spying, and won the McKitterick Prize. Her third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and she went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller with The Siege, which was described by Antony Beevor as a ‘world-class novel’ and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange Prize. Published in 2010, her eleventh novel, The Betrayal, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Lie in 2014 was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the 2015 RSL Ondaatje Prize. 
 
Her final novel, Birdcage Walk, deals with legacy and recognition – what writers, especially women writers, can expect to leave behind them – and was described by the Observer as ‘the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written’. She died in June 2017, and in January 2018, she was posthumously awarded the Costa Prize for her volume of poetry, Inside the Wave.

In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey moves to the East Riding of Yorkshire with her husband Philip, a GP. With Philip spending long hours on call, Isabel finds herself isolated and lonely as she strives to adjust to the realities of married life. 
 
Woken by intense cold one night, she discovers an old RAF greatcoat hidden in the back of a cupboard. Sleeping under it for warmth, she starts to dream. And not long afterwards, while her husband is out, she is startled by a knock at her window. 
 
Outside is a young RAF pilot, waiting to come in. 
 
His name is Alec, and his powerful presence both disturbs and excites her. Her initial alarm soon fades, and they begin an intense affair. But nothing has prepared her for the truth about Alec's life, nor the impact it will have on hers ...

A Spell of Winter

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 
 
'Tense, dark and intensely gripping . . . written so seductively that passages sing out from the page ' Sunday Times 
 
Cathy and her brother, Rob, don't know why they have been abandoned by their parents. Alone in their grandfather's decaying country house, they roam the wild grounds freely with minds attuned to the rural wilderness. Lost in their own private world, they seek and find new lines to cross. 
 
But as the First World War draws closer, crimes both big and small threaten the delicate refuge they have built. Cathy will do anything to protect their dark Eden from anyone, or anything, that threatens to destroy it. 
 
'An electrifying and original talent, a writer whose style is characterized by a lyrical, dreamy intensity' Guardian 
 
'Stops you in your tracks with the beauty of its writing' Observer 
 
'Has a strong and sensuous magic' The Times 
 
'Her spellbinding, lyrical prose is close to poetry' Daily Mail

A marvellous novel about forbidden passions and the terrible consequences of thwarted love. Dunmore is one of the finest English writers

A hugely involving story which often stops you in your tracks with the beauty of its writing

An electrifying and original talent, a writer whose style is characterized by a lyrical, dreamy intensity

Tense, dark and intensely gripping . . . written so seductively that passages sing out from the page

Her prose is poetic in its emotional range and intensity

Unsettling love and stifled horror create and then destroy the claustrophobic world of this lush, literary Gothic set in turn-of-the-century England. In true Gothic fashion, terror, violence and eroticism collect beneath every dark surface. . . . A finely crafted, if disturbing, literary page-turner

It bears the distinctive lyrical beauty of its predecessors . . . Helen Dunmore is an unusually fine writer. There is a strong and sensuous magic to A Spell of Winter

Immensely sad, quite beautiful, and deserves to be read by all lovers of good novel

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children's author and poet. She published twelve novels including Zennor in Darkness, which won the McKitterick Prize; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, which won the inaugural Orange Prize in 1996; Talking to the Dead; Your Blue-Eyed Boy; With Your Crooked Heart; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002; Mourning Ruby and House of Orphans. She was posthumously awarded the Costa 2017 prize for her poetry collection Inside the Wave.

Cathy and her brother, Rob, don't know why they have been abandoned by their parents. Alone in their grandfather's decaying country house, they roam the wild grounds freely with minds attuned to the rural wilderness. Lost in their own private world, they seek and find new lines to cross. But as the First World War draws closer, crimes both big and small threaten the delicate refuge they have built. Cathy will do anything to protect their dark Eden from anyone, or anything, that threatens to destroy it.

Girl, Balancing

A powerful, moving and exquisite short story collection, published posthumously, from the bestselling and prize-winning author Helen Dunmore

This posthumous collection from the much-loved author, focusing on motherhood, war and women under threat, is an act of tender commemoration…  there are new departures on the themes that preoccupied Dunmore: childhood, motherhood, war, friendship, forgotten lives.

Wisdom and wit shine out from Helen Dunmore’s last stories…The simplicity of the writing is deceptive; Dunmore manages to say a lot about families, about the mystery of creativity, and the shock of seeing someone you thought you knew in a new light.

Dunmore’s gift for period detail combines with the respect she has for her characters’ inner lives to produce an effect that is oddly moving.

Dunmore’s love of history glints and gleams in this elegant, posthumous collection

Whether musing on a portrait of John Donne or a friendship between two widows, the late, much missed Dunmore always has something worth saying

These stories are mostly tasters, amuses-gueules to tempt new readers, and remind old ones of the future works that have now been lost.

I couldn’t recommend these stories more.

It was her emotional concision that made her so exceptional, a quality on ample display in these posthumous short stories, more than 30 of them, some absolute gems.

Dunmore’s skill as an observer and chronicler of human behaviour shines throughout this final collection of her fiction

A mix of historical and contemporary, they’re outstanding and showcase her amazing talent

Dunmore’s writing ranges over a multitude of subjects, from teenagers to centenarians , and all ages in between. With sensitivity and compassion she wrote about passion, family, friendship, happiness, loneliness and grief. She brought an elegant economy of words to her stories, communication her meaning with clarity and finesse. Her family and friend have created a superb memorial to her unique talent and an excellent primer for anyone who has not explored her work before.

There was no story that didn’t hold my attention from its first sentences.

The best of them showcase Dunmore’s knack for shining a light into the hidden corners of women’s experience

We too imagine ourselves in the room with her characters, imagine they are talking, like friends, to us

Lyrical and full of human situations acutely observed.

[A] remarkable collection of short stories exploring fragile ties between passion, love, family.

This collection is the finest swan song of a writer full of sensitivity, talent and an immense grasp of the complexity of human nature.

A reminder of what a tender and perceptive writer she was.

They are stories full of humanity and compassion which witness her interest in women under stress or duress, in the horrors of war, in motherhood and in moments of joy at unexpected times. I’m very happy to have had a chance to read them.

Haunting, uplifting, beautiful: the final work from Helen Dunmore 
 
Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their lives: 
 
A girl alone, stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems. 
 
Two women from very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship. 
 
A young man picks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life. 
 
A woman imprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way. 
 
 This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore’s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her readers.

Girl, Balancing & Other Stories

This book is the grace note to a lifetime of wonderful writing.

Dunmore’s is a compassionate voice throughout.

A lasting testament to Dunmore’s wisdom, heart and elegant way with words.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Girl, Balancing &amp; Other Stories, by Helen Dunmore, read by Emilia Fox, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Juliet Stevenson. 
 
Haunting, uplifting, beautiful: the final work from Helen Dunmore 
 
Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their lives: 
 
A girl alone, stretching her meagre budget to feed herself, becomes aware that the young man who has come to see her may not be as friendly as he seems. 
 
Two women from very different backgrounds enjoy an unusual night out, finding solace in laughter and an unexpected friendship. 
 
A young man picks up his infant son and goes outside into a starlit night as he makes a decision that will inform the rest of his life. 
 
A woman imprisoned for her religion examines her faith in a seemingly literal and quietly original way. 
 
 This brilliant collection of Helen Dunmore’s short fiction, replete with her penetrating insight into the human condition, is certain to delight and move all her listeners.

A dazzling historical thriller

Birdcage Walk

From the bestselling author of The Lie, and Exposure

This is the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written ... From the start, Birdcage Walk has the command of a thriller … The novel’s cast is marvellous and vivid … A novel that deserves to be cherished and to last.

This powerful novel is a fine final flourish from a gifted writer … The power Dunmore gives to lowly female lives is inescapably moving, their stories taking us on a remarkable journey into the visceral heart of the female experience in Georgian Britain … [Dunmore is] one of the bravest and most versatile writers of her generation … This fine, fiery novel will surely be remembered as one of her best.

Like many of Dunmore’s novels, Birdcage Walk defies categorisation ... a blend of beauty and horror evoked with such breath-taking poetry that it haunts me still ... she has an extraordinary gift for taking the ordinary and familiar and rendering them new. When Tredevant’s growing unpredictability once more tightens the narrative, forcing the story back into the ominous and unsettling territory where it first began, it is easy to see why [Dunmore] has earned a place among the finest writers of historical fiction working today.

Helen Dunmore’s quietly brilliant historical novels are among the best fiction of our time.

A finely wrought psychological thriller … But it’s ultimately a novel about the ways in which we remember and, as such, a fitting contribution to Dunmore’s extraordinary legacy.

Elegant prose and brilliantly researched historical detail … a devastatingly good novel.

Part psychological thriller, part poetic exhumation of the past, it’s a fiery, first-rate historical novel from an author who’ll be much missed

A firecracker of a historical murder mystery story with which to leave her many admirers

Dunmore is skilled at claiming the huge canvasses of history and painting upon them exquisitely detailed human tragedies … Every scene is saturated with vivid period detail but Dunmore’s touch is feather-light.

Dunmore just writes so effortlessly. Birdcage Walk is a joy to read.

Marvellous … Dunmore has the ability to evoke a sense of place and to write passages of thrilling and disturbing action … Dunmore is a remarkable novelist who sets herself very different challenges in each new novel. She meets this one triumphantly. It will surely be a great and thoroughly deserved success.

All Dunmore’s novels grip the reader through her imaginative power … compelling as ever.

[An] engrossing read … A thrilling novel of loyalty, betrayal and revolution, Dunmore once again fails to put a foot wrong.

In a tense plot exploring private and public violence, Helen Dunmore has proven why she is regarded as such a masterful storyteller.

[This] page-turner is classic Dunmore: a subtle exhumation of the past in which long-buried passions seem thrillingly immediate.

Intelligent, precise writing, a sure grip on a historical period; sensuous evocation of inner and outer worlds; delicate symbolism . . . subtle mixture of fiction and fact . . . I have rarely felt so anxious reading a novel that at the same time gave me so much pleasure.

This novel reminds us we all have something to pass down to the next generation

Dunmore’s deft skills in summoning up the ordinary life of a woman buffeted by extraordinary events are admirable.

A chilling drama enclosing a graceful and elegiac meditation on how to love well in turbulent political times

With her vivid prose, Dunmore is a writer who can make herself at home in any era … Birdcage Walk is a gripping read. And while it’s set in the past, this novel has a very contemporary message about the consequences of political turmoil.

Helen Dunmore’s delicate prose brings the atmosphere to life, and through Lizzie we see the glimmer of future feminism; Dunmore’s portrayal of grief is painfully honest and raw . . . This is a perfect example of how hidden stories of the past can be brought to life.

Part Gothic romance and part study of 1790s radical politics … There is a precision to Dunmore’s re-enactment of the past … but she also shows the devastating effects of historical events on ordinary people and how they shape them.

[A] fine novel … In all her fiction Dunmore shows an acute awareness of the interactions between the lives of ordinary individuals and the larger forces of history … It also presents a memorable portrait of a young woman confronting with courage the unforeseen consequences of her choices.

To read Dunmore is to live history rather than to study it ... It’s a wonderful book filled with experiences from [her] writing career

History from below in a commanding novel of revolution and romance

Helen Dunmore’s new novel concerns lives, consequential in their day, that pass away into utter oblivion… The result is a chilling work of domestic horror where no crust, candle nor cabbage goes uncounted

Birdcage Walk offers a persuasively grimy period evocation of contemporary domestic peril facing women, not least in an agonising childbirth scene that has traumatic consequences

A story of idealism and possessive love, with strong and memorable characters

Helen definitely has a deft touch when it comes to history but the vividness of Lizzie and Diner's relationship is what stands out in glorious literary 3D. Speaking as someone raised in Bristol, I'll never be able to gaze down into the Gorge again without seeing that rowing boat. Bleak can be hauntingly beautiful and between these covers Helen demonstrates how

She vividly brings to live the struggle of women’s lives in late 18th century Bristol, and I recommend the book for an insight into Bristol in another time

From the swish of a silk dress, to the whoosh of the guillotine, Dunmore uses words with economic precision to build up the detail and suspense of this novel. Which haunts the reader just as the characters in it are haunted by the dead.

Flawless final historical novel from the late, great Helen Dunmore

A lively and inventive voice … by all account as brilliant as her other books

Early feminism and a hint of Grand Designs: a great mix’

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Quietly brilliant ... among the best fiction of our time.' Daily Telegraph 
'The finest novel Dunmore has written.' Observer 
'Superb and poignant.' Guardian 
 
It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence. 
 
Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism. But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol's housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. 
 
Diner believes that Lizzie's independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants. 
 
But as Diner's passion for Lizzie darkens, she soon finds herself dangerously alone. 
______________ 
Nominated for the 2018 Independent Booksellers Week Award 
Longlisted for the 2018 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

A touching historical novel from the Women’s Prize-winning author of A Spell of Winter

The Betrayal

**FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017** 
 
'Scrupulous, pitch-perfect. With heart-pounding force, Dunmore builds up a double narrative of suspense' Sunday Times 
 
Leningrad, 1952. Andrei, a young hospital doctor and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together in the post-war, post-siege wreckage. But their happiness is precarious, like that of millions of Russians who must avoid the claws of Stalin's merciless Ministry for State security. So when Andrei is asked to treat the seriously ill child of a senior secret police officer, he and Anna are fearful. Trapped in an impossible, maybe unwinnable game, can they avoid the whispers and watchful eyes of those who will say or do anything to save themselves? 
 
The Betrayal is a powerful and touching novel of ordinary people in the grip of a terrible and sinister regime, and a moving portrait of a love that will not be extinguished. 
 
'Beautifully crafted, gripping, moving, enlightening. Sure to be one of the best historical novels of the year' Time Out 
 
'Magnificent, brave, tender...with a unique gift for immersing the reader in the taste, smell and fear of a story' Independent on Sunday 
 
Novelist and poet Helen Dunmore has achieved great critical acclaim since publishing her first adult novel, the McKitterick Prize winning, Zennor in Darkness. Her novels, Counting the Stars, Your Blue-Eyed Boy, With Your Crooked Heart, Burning Bright, House of Orphans, Mourning Ruby, A Spell of Winter, and Talking to the Dead, and her collection of short stories Love of Fat Men are all published by Penguin. Helen also writes for children, her titles include The Deep and Ingo.

Leningrad, 1952. Andrei, a young hospital doctor, and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together in the postwar, postsiege wreckage. But their happiness is precarious, like that of millions of Russians who must avoid the claws of Stalin's merciless Ministry of State Security. So when Andrei is asked to treat the seriously ill child of a senior secret police officer, he and Anna are fearful. Trapped in an impossible, maybe unwinnable game, can they avoid the whispers and watchful eyes of those who will say or do anything to save themselves? 
 
The Betrayal is a powerful and touching novel of ordinary people in the grip of a terrible and sinister regime, and a moving portrait of a love that will not be extinguished.

Helen Dunmore

Highly original and beautifully written

Electrifying . . . Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen

Deceit gives Helen Dunmore's novel a jagged edge. Secrets, unspoken words, lies that have the truth wrapped up in them somewhere make Dunmore's stories ripples with menace and suspense

We believe in Clare's intelligence, talent and passion. A triumph

It is spring 1917 in the Cornish coastal village of Zennor, and the young artist Clare Coyne is waking up to the world. Ignoring the whispers from her neighbours, she has struck a rare friendship with D.H. Lawrence and his German wife, who are hoping to escape the war-fever of London. In between painting and visits to her new friends she whiles away the warm days with her cousin John, who is on leave from the trenches, harbouring secrets she couldn't begin to understand. 
 
But as the heat picks up, so too do the fear and the gossip that haunt the village. And the freedom to love will come at a steep price.

Helen Dunmore

Praise for Zennor in Darkness

Highly original and beautifully written

Electrifying . . . Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen

Deceit gives Helen Dunmore's novel a jagged edge. Secrets, unspoken words, lies that have the truth wrapped up in them somewhere make Dunmore's stories ripples with menace and suspense

Highly original and beautifully written

Electrifying . . . Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen

Deceit gives Helen Dunmore's novel a jagged edge. Secrets, unspoken words, lies that have the truth wrapped up in them somewhere make Dunmore's stories ripples with menace and suspense

Highly original and beautifully written

Electrifying . . . Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen

Deceit gives Helen Dunmore's novel a jagged edge. Secrets, unspoken words, lies that have the truth wrapped up in them somewhere make Dunmore's stories ripples with menace and suspense

Books by Helen Dunmore

Articles featuring Helen Dunmore

A tribute to Helen Dunmore, from the pen of her son Patrick

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