Frankie : The instant Sunday Times bestseller

‘Immersive, stunningly written and very emotional – this is a triumph’JENNIE GODFREY, author of The List of Suspicious Things ‘Warm and wise, Frankie is a woman worth getting to know’ BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry’I couldn’t stop reading it, but feel bereft now that I’ve finished’ NIGELLA LAWSON’A warm, deeply moving, life-enhancing novel’ SARAH WINMAN, author of Still LifeFrankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take centre stage – after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now in her eighties, she finds it easier to forget the life that came before.

Then Damian, a young Irish carer, arrives at her London flat to keep an eye on her as she recovers from a fall. A memory is sparked, and the past crackles into life as Damian listens to the story Frankie has kept stored away all these years.

From post-war Ireland to the dazzling art scene of 1960s New York, Frankie shares a world in which friendships and chance encounters collide. A place where life blazes with an intensity that can’t last but will perhaps live on in other ways and in other people.