Half Broken Things [Hardcover]

Winner of a prestigious Crime Writers' Association Dagger Award, Half Broken Things is quite the most impressive novel yet from a writer whose work (Funeral Music, Fearful Symmetry) has combined total narrative command with a laser-like psychological penetration.

The central themes of Half Broken Things are twofold: the fragility of the shell of reality that hides deeper truths, and the destructive hold of the past over the present. Jean Wade has made her living housesitting, when (in her 60s) she loses her job. But discovering the keys to the locked cupboards and secrets of her current home, the spacious Walden Manor, she is able to assume ownership. And then begins a strange transformation: Jean starts to alter things in the Manor, while acquiring a surrogate family: Michael and Steph have, like Jean, not made a success of their lives, and the sanctuary the trio create is built upon an extrapolated--and illusory--past. But the happiness they enjoy proves to be transitory, when dark secrets from the past begin to tear the thread of their day-to-day existence. And the grim resolution of their liaison all too quickly comes upon them, as their past actions come destructively back.

The level of insight into the hidden recesses of the human mind is as assured here as in any "literary" novel, and such masters of this kind of narrative (in the non-crime field) as William Trevor are both evoked and matched in achievement. Jean, in particular, is a brilliantly realised character, and Half Broken Things is a novel that deserves all the accolades that have been thrown its way. --Barry Forshaw

'Half Broken Things is sad, funny, original and wise'

'Morag Joss's distinguished debut demonstrates an interesting setting, characters, both sympathetic and villainous, who are drawn with wit and perception, good writing and a plot which combines tension with credibility.' - P D JAMES 'Both literate and sardonic, filled with persuasive characters' - The Sunday Times 'Well written and well plotted, with a good Bath background' - Evening Standard 'A mesmerising psychological thriller set in beautiful surroundings, it suggests that Joss is the most persuasive chronicler of the city perhaps best known to some as Jane Austen's stamping ground' - The Times 'A literate and surprisingly lyrical read, as well as a mesmerising thriller' - What's On - Birmingham 'Morag Joss gets better with each book.' - Donna Leon on Fruitful Bodies

'It is a fantastic moral excercise as well as a gripping novel'

'This is a top-notch example of British psychological thriller writing'

'Morag Joss gets better with each book.'

'This book is a triumphant performance. People will be standing to applaud.'

'A fascinating moral exercise as well as a gripping novel'

'Half broken things is sad, funny, original and wise'

'Well written and well plotted, with a good Bath background'

'Morag Joss writes with razor sharp, wry observation' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Jean, Michael and Steph are three reluctant loners who are getting by. Damaged and fearful of life, they cannot survive alone for much longer. A mixture of deceit, good luck and misfortune draw them together to Walden Manor, a secluded and gracious country house that promises sanctuary, freedom from failure and impending destitution. Out of an invented past they shape a beautiful present, full of hope and happiness. And beguiled by the gentle passing of time itself, all three of them, for the first time in their lives, lose their dread of the future. If their sense of safety is built on a delusion, does it matter? When the idyll is threatened, Jean, Michael and Steph discover that because their lives are now worth living they are also now worth preserving, although at appalling cost. In this stunning novel, which explores what happens when the 'have-nots' strive to become the 'haves', Morag Joss combines thought-provoking, sometimes chilling moral complexity with humane and compelling story-telling. Half Broken Things is a dark story, richly told, about love and our need for it: the damage done when we go too long without it, and what people might be driven to do in its name.

Morag Joss left her native Scotland to study singing at the Guildhall School of Music. Since then, she has worked in museums, galleries and higher education as a manager and lecturer and, most recently, as an adviser to arts education at the National Trust. She now writes full time.