Delving into the lives of three generations of women, The Amendments is an extraordinary novel about love and freedom, belonging and rebellion - and about how our past is a vital presence which sits alongside us.
Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, it's the start of a new life. For Nell, it's the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist's office. Because she can't go into this without dealing with the truth: that she has been a mother before, and now she can hardly bring herself to speak to her own mother, let alone return home to Ireland.
Nell is running out of places to hide from her past. But to Ireland and the past is where she must go, and that is where The Amendments takes us: to the heat of Nell's teenage years in the early 2000s, as Ireland was unpicking itself from its faith and embracing the hedonism of the Celtic Tiger. To 1983, when Nell's mother Dolores was grappling with the tensions of the women's rights movement. And then to the farms and suburbs and towns that made and unmade the lives at the centre of this story, bound together by the terrible secret that Nell still cannot face.
'Extraordinary. I loved it' Jessie Burton
'Engrossing and moving... gives voice to so much thats unspoken about Ireland' Emma Donoghue
'Wonderfully compelling... haunting' Joseph O'Connor
A stunningly imagined, action-packed fantasy adventure for fans of Nevermoor, Neverwhere and Mortal Engines, from bestselling and award-winning author Patrice Lawrence.
Step into a London lit up by the Elemental spirits: the fiery Dragons, the airy Fumis, the watery Chads and the earthbound Magogs. Marisee and Robert - the Elemental Detectives - are back to solve another mystery on the streets of eighteenth century London. An orchestra explodes in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and suddenly the music of London disappears... and a terrifying monster stirs off the Greenwich peninsular, threatening to trample London underfoot. The detectives must track down the thief behind the music's disappearance - via the Whispering Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral, a Windmill-with-teeth on the Isle of Dogs and the dark streets of Soho... where a shadowy villain and his mechanical animal spies live.
Big, bold, future classic storytelling for a new generation. A London where magic sparks just beneath the surface - this book is set to ignite young imaginations. The second book in a major new series.
Great for Ages 9-12.