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  • Published: 15 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9780552777148
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $25.00

All Bones And Lies




Anne Fine's perspective on the tangled web of familial relationships is hugely enjoyable, worryingly true, and disturbingly acute.

Colin is in many ways an ideal citizen. He holds down a responsible job for the council. He visits his aged mother Nora, shops for her, cooks for her, and listens to her grumbles. He also keeps in touch with his sister Dilys, long estranged from her mother, in a vain attempt to maintain family ties. But neither Dilys, Norah nor Colin's colleagues know about his other - much more secret - life that involves a garden shed, a circus acrobat, a much adored three-year-old charmer, and a certain Mr Haksar's increasingly disquieting penchant for squabbling with his neighbours.

What Colin doesn't know is that, thanks to a house insurance policy incorrectly filled in by his mother, his two lives are set to collide, and there is nothing he can do to stop them. With her customary wit and perception, subtle yet razor sharp in her powers of observation, Anne Fine has produced another tour de force. Her portrait of the complex dynamics of family relationships is as lucid as it is uncomfortable, ending with a climax that in its wry irony and sheer unexpectedness is truly shocking.

  • Published: 15 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9780552777148
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $25.00

About the author

Anne Fine

Anne Fine is one of our most distinguished writers for children. She has written over fifty highly acclaimed books and has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and both the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and the Carnegie Medal twice over. Anne was appointed the Children’s Laureate from 2001-3, and her work has been translated into over forty languages. In 2003 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Anne lives in County Durham.

Anne Fine was born and educated in the Midlands, and now lives in County Durham. She has written numerous highly acclaimed and prize-winning books for children and adults.
Her novel The Tulip Touch won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award; Goggle-Eyes won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal, and was adapted for television by the BBC; Flour Babies won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award; Bill's New Frock won a Smarties Prize, and Madame Doubtfire has become a major feature film starring Robin Williams. Anne was the Children's Laureate 2001 - 2003 and won an OBE in 2003.

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Praise for All Bones And Lies

'A streamlined, ruthless stripped-down psychological family romance, with enough plot twists and character revelations to fuel a book three times as long.' Time Out

'Splendid... clever, cruel and funny... This is a heartwarming book'

Evening Standard

'A remarkably assured performance . . . Powerful and well written.' The New York Times

'A deep, thoughtful novel'

The Times