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  • Published: 1 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099540526
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $29.99

Small Wars




The devastating follow-up to the massive bestseller The Outcast. What happens when everything a man believes in - the army, his country, his marriage - begins to crumble...

Hal Treherne is a soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. Impatient to see action, his other commitment in life is to his beloved wife, Clara, and when Hal is transferred to Cyprus she and their twin daughters join him. But the island is in the heat of the emergency; the British are defending the colony against Cypriots - schoolboys and armed guerillas alike - battling for union with Greece.

Clara shares Hal's sense of duty and honour; she knows she must settle down, make the best of things, smile. But action changes Hal, and the atrocities he is drawn into take him not only further from Clara but himself, too; a betrayal that is only the first step down a dark path.

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

  • Published: 1 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099540526
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Sadie Jones

Sadie Jones is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The Outcast (‘Devastatingly good’, Daily Mail) won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Her second novel, Small Wars (‘Outstanding’, The Times; ‘One of the best books about the English at war ever’, Joel Morris), was published in 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her third, in 2012, was The Uninvited Guests (‘A shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class... a brilliant novel’, Ann Patchett) followed by Fallout in 2014 (‘Intoxicating and immersive’, The Sunday Times).

Also by Sadie Jones

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Praise for Small Wars

This is an unforgiving, far from comfortable read, but a very compelling one

Tina Jackson, Metro

Sadie Jones pulls no punches in her description of the savagely unsophisticated island war. An exceptional book that shudders with the weight of human responsibility

Kerry Fowler, Good Housekeeping

Jones writes brilliantly; you quickly inhabit Hal and Clara's world; from the dank, metallic smell of the interrogation room to the taste of White Ladies at the Limassol Club that linger long after you've reached the end

Claire Longrigg, Psychologies

Poignant and compelling, Sadie Jones's latest novel captures the claustrophobia of a passionate marriage that is overwhelmed by circumstance

Eithne Farry, Marie Claire

Here Jones's talent really shows... In an excellent encounter with a military psychiatrist, the dialogue breaks like dry twigs

Stephanie Cross, Times Literary Supplement

Heavy with menace and a dark streak of violence, it's as unforgiving as it is gripping

Metro

An absorbing story about emotional constraint and its dangers

Daily Telegraph

Small Wars is a gripping account of emotional disintegration against a backdrop of emotional repression... A well-paced novel possessing both literary and moral integrity

Sunday Telegraph

Elegant, powerful with a huge emotional punch

Woman and Home

Jones's first novel, The Outcast, winner if the Costa First Novel Award, was a very hard act to follow. Her second, however, is even better... Jones's research is impeccable, and her emotional intelligence outstanding

Kate Saunders, The Times

Meticulously researched and emotionally powerful, this is a second novel to be proud of.

Emma Lee Potter, Express

Her prose is direct, undecorated, irresistibly dynamic and immensely powerful... Small Wars is at least as good as The Outcast. In fact, it is probably better, and praise doesn't come much higher

Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday

Ambitious...uncannily good at the evocation of charged moments

Guardian

A timely read for the end of 2009

Katherine Whitbourn, Daily Mail

In this exciting novel that resonates with contemporary parallels, Jones is unusual among women writers in focusing as much on the thrills and terrors of frontline action as its psychological fall out...it's a movie waiting to happen

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

With her second novel, Sadie Jones...confirms her brilliance

Books Quarterly

Jones is fabulous at this, offering titbits of danger and discord while keeping a cool, matter of fact tone for the big horrors... This is, at heart, a moving love story

Sunday Times

Intelligent and moving novel

Woman and Home

This impassioned tale is a gripping read

James Smart, The Guardian

A novel that resonates with contemporary parallels

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

Sadie Jones again pulls no punches in this strong story.

Sally Cousins, Sunday Telegraph

Her second novel is a must-read; a devastating, brilliant account of what happens when everything a man believes in...begins to crumble

Cath Kidson Magazine

Jones is fabulous...offering titbits of danger and discord, yet keeping a cool matter-of-fact tone for the big horrors

Sunday Times

Full of danger and discord

Sunday Times Summer Reading