Orion Books

Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2NAKdah 'The 21st century heir to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor. Small Pleasures is both gripping and a huge delight' Amanda Craig, author of The Lie of the Land 'The glorious literary equivalent of pulling the duvet over your head... If you admire Tessa Hadley or Anne Tyler (and there are shades of Barbara Pym too), then this is one for you' Bookseller, Book of the Month 1957, south-east suburbs of London. Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of forty - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a fri