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The Silken Net

On sale

14th April 2022

Price: £10.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780340553480

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A compelling story of passion, loyalty and the dangers of an obsessive relationship by the Booker Prize-longlisted and bestselling author Melvyn Bragg

Half-French and with an agile, inquiring mind, Rosemary Lewis cannot help being out of the ordinary in Thurston, the Cumbrian market town where she grows up between the wars. An early, bruising failure in love drives her inwards to the solace of books until she meets Edgar – vigorous, down to earth and determined to win her. Charting their life together, this powerful novel probes with exceptional acuity the heights and tortured depths of a bond that becomes a shackle.


‘Rosemary is an outstanding creation’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A vigorous but never crude study of female sexuality, it is distinguished by passages of prose which have precisely the sort of leaping life that Lawrence held up before himself as an ideal all through his career’ Guardian

Reviews

Sunday Telegraph
Rosemary is an outstanding creation.
Financial Times
Rosemary is drawn with great sympathy and warmth . . . Melvyn Bragg writes with a timelessness that suits his heroine and his theme, that is in tune with the whole story
Guardian
A vigorous but never crude study of female sexuality, it is distinguished by passages of prose which have precisely the sort of leaping life that Lawrence held up before himself as an ideal all through his career
New Statesman
Words could be used linking Melvyn Bragg with Hardy, Lawrence and Bennett in the Grand Chain: that he belongs there is indisputable
Sunday Times
Most attractive of all is this book's openness, its serious intention and a certain ingenuousness in the way it treats its themes.
Sunday Telegraph
A strong and solid novel, with a totally convincing figure, at once fallible and admirable, at its centre
Cosmopolitan
It is an extraordinary analysis of the battle between the sexes, and is compelling reading
Listener
Rosemary is utterly convincing throughout . . . a character real enough to behave out of character at times and shock the reader as much as she both dismays and excites her husband.