PRAISE FOR
Maureen
“Profoundly moving and deeply human, this story of self-discovery and forgiveness is essential reading. I loved every word.”
—Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
“I was enthralled from the first page of this short, powerful book. Maureen is a wonderful, frustrating character—so rigid, and so frightened of what she might learn about herself and her own past. We all have some Maureen inside us, and so the journey we take with her across England and into her own personal tumult is a satisfying, visceral one.”
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward
“This book is a perfect gem. Fans of Olive Kitteridge and Eleanor Oliphant will love Maureen Fry, and it’s a brilliant coda to the Harold Fry series.”
—J. Ryan Stradal, bestselling author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota
“This is a quiet miracle of a book. I loved the absurdity of some scenes and the tenderness of others, and then I was met with the kind of gasp-able (truly—I gasped!) transcendent experience that only the best books can deliver. Rachel Joyce has been a favorite of mine since The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and Maureen only reinforces my idea that she is a master at mixing humor and pathos, and at showing hard truths about life and living that nonetheless make us grateful to be here.”
—Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv and Earth’s the Right Place for Love
“I adored Harold and Queenie, but who knew Maureen waited in the wings to steal my heart? A testament to just how exquisitely Rachel Joyce understands people, and written with kindness and such perception. I can’t recommend it enough.”
—Joanna Cannon, bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and A Tidy Ending
“Rachel Joyce has a genius for creating the most damaged and difficult characters and making us care deeply about their redemption. Maureen is a powerful finale to her classic trilogy of heartbreak and healing.”
—Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
“At last it’s Maureen’s turn! It may only have the physical heft of a novella but Rachel Joyce’s angry-sad latest packs the weight of a long marriage into the space of several well-ironed handkerchiefs. Just brilliant.”
—Patrick Gale, author of Take Nothing With You and A Place Called Winter
“Maureen is so beautifully and unflinchingly portrayed—a complex contradiction of brittle and prickly with an underbelly of fragility and fear. Her journey, both physical and psychological, is compelling and profoundly moving and leaves the reader feeling fully satisfied and just a little lighter.”
—Ruth Hogan, author of Madame Burova and The Keeper of Lost Things
“Rachel Joyce is deeply attuned to the complex rhythms of life and love and she sublimates this understanding, sentence by delicate, powerful, glistening sentence, into an unforgettable story. It’s beautiful all through, but the closing chapters are just astonishing, transcendent and hope-filled and life-affirming. I’ll never forget this wonderful novel or the sunny, slightly teary day I spent reading it.”
—Donal Ryan, author of The Queen of Dirt Island and Strange Flowers
“Beautifully written and endlessly touching, Rachel Joyce once again captures what it means to be human in the final book of her wonderful trilogy.”
—Phaedra Patrick, author of The Book Share and The Library of Lost and Found
“This book is short but very special. As fans of Rachel Joyce might expect, it’s funny, touching and quite beautiful. It’s also packed with wisdom about love and loss—and is sure to provide comfort to anyone who’s known grief.”
—Matt Cain, author of The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle
“In this slender, lyrical novel, Rachel Joyce offers a story as epic and encompassing as that wide-armed Angel of the North. A journey of redemption, forgiveness and love. A journey you don’t want to miss.”
—Helen Paris, author of Lost Property
“Maureen is the sort of person we pass in the street every day, every hour, and probably give little thought to. She is difficult, perhaps, a little brittle, unable to engage successfully with the world, and maybe hard to warm to—an embattled figure often lost against the vast opera of life. But Rachel allows us to see into her complex universe, feel firsthand her fears, the profound longing, the grim phantoms of the past, the ordered rebelliousness, and strange, dark sense of humor—and of shame. This story also happens to tie three life-affirming, vital, and unpredictable novels together into a perfect, never-ending dance.”
—Damian Dibben, author of The Color Storm
“Rachel Joyce writes with incredible depth, beauty and heart. Reading her prose is like listening to great music—sometimes soft and sweet, sometimes heart-rending, always beguiling. This is an emotional story about loss, resilience and reconciliation. Maureen Fry is a prickly kind of star…but wow, how she shines!”
—Hazel Prior, author of Call of the Penguins
“This is a deceptively simple story of love, forgiveness, fulfilment and hope. I can’t think of any other novelist quite as tender and compassionate as Rachel Joyce, who understands that miracle of transformation when human fragility becomes strength of spirit.”
—Bel Mooney, author of Lifelines
“This is a fitting and deeply moving end to the trilogy of Harold Fry. A portrait of a woman adrift in grief, it is as fragile as a songbird and just as beautiful.”
—Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
PRAISE FOR THE HAROLD FRY TRILOGY
“A gentle adventure with an emotional wallop.”
—USA Today
“A cause for celebration.”
—The Washington Post
“Beguiling…[A] modest-seeming story that…enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”
—People
“Gorgeously poignant.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Tender and profound, fresh and funny.”
—Marie Claire
“It will stick with you, this story of faith, fidelity and redemption.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A comic and tragic joy.”
—The Plain Dealer
“Almost unbearably moving.”
—The Sunday Times (UK)
“[Joyce has an] unerring ability to convey profound emotions in simple, unaffected language…An original, quietly courageous testament to the inhuman effort of being normal.”
—The Guardian
“Wonderfully evocative…uplifting and moving.”
—The Daily Express
“A wonderful read.”
—The Independent
“Joyce addresses the themes that occupy us all: love and death, loyalty and betrayal. Big subjects treated with empathy in a story that goes straight to the heart.”
—Financial Times
“Funny, tender and with a heart-stopping twist to boot.”
—New Zealand Woman’s Weekly
“Rachel Joyce probes questions that are as simple as they are profound: Can we begin to live again, and live truly, as ourselves, even in middle age, when all seems ruined? Can we believe in hope when hope seems to have abandoned us? I found myself laughing through tears.”
—Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife
“This funny, poignant story moved and inspired me.”
—Nancy Horan, New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank
“Marvelous!”
—Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand