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  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780141010397
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $24.99

The Accidental




Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year award 2005, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2005 and the Saltire Award 2005.

The Smart family's lacklustre holiday in Norwich is turned upside down when a beguiling stranger called Amber appears, bringing with her love, joy, pain and upheaval. The Smarts try to make sense of their bewildering emotions as Amber tramples over family boundaries and forces them to think about their world and themselves in an entirely new way. The Accidental is at once a mysterious web of secret identities and a ruthlessly honest look at the silent cracks that can develop unnoticed in relationships over time.

  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780141010397
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Ali Smith

Ali Smith is the author of Free Love and Other Stories, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel World, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental, Girl Meets Boy, The First Person and Other Stories, There but for the, Artful, How to be both, Public library and other stories and Autumn. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Folio Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

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