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  • The Lie of the Land

  • By: Amanda Craig
  • Narrated by: Emma Powell
  • Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)

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The Lie of the Land

By: Amanda Craig
Narrated by: Emma Powell
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Publisher's Summary

Chosen as Book of the Year by The Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Sunday Times and Irish Times.

Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded. 

Mud, mice and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them. 

Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless, knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor and a sheep farmer's wife; and when Lottie's innocent teenage son, Xan, gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed forever. 

A suspenseful black comedy, this is a rich, compassionate and enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside and the potentially lethal interplay between money and marriage. 

©2018 Amanda Craig (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group

Critic Reviews

"I loved the The Lie of the Land. A panoramic, superbly-plotted novel about the ways we live now, about money and desire, cruelty and generosity, crime and vengeance, country and city. Craig is at the top of her game." (Helen Dunmore)
"She has everything you look for in a major novelist." (Alison Pearson, Sunday Telegraph)
"Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny." (India Knight)

What listeners say about The Lie of the Land

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Good piece of literary fiction with some thrills

Found it to be well-written and insightful concerning marriage and the human condition. Some big thrills and spills in there too, to keep you turning the page.

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