{"title":"Louise Dean","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the poignant and beautifully written novels of Louise Dean. Exploring themes of family, identity, and resilience, her books offer a deeply moving reading experience. Start your Louise Dean journey here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9780743240000","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":"Jan and Annemieke are going on their last holiday together, their love dissolving in middle age. Thirty years their senior, Dorothy and George are on one of their first. When these four people meet on an island in the Caribbean, they find more than an escape from their daily existence. They discover that it's not too late to save the rest of their lives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49510254182673,"sku":"GOR005033754","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53715374735633,"sku":"GOR015014259","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0743240006.jpg?v=1786120382"},{"product_id":"the-idea-of-love-large-print-edition-book-louise-dean-9781408461020","title":"The Idea of Love (Large Print Edition)","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49517680984337,"sku":"GOR010459853","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49654225207569,"sku":"GOR010690861","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50555390886161,"sku":"GOR010765675","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408461021.jpg?v=1750890984"},{"product_id":"this-human-season-book-louise-dean-9780743240024","title":"This Human Season","description":"It is December 1979. Kathleen's son Sean has been convicted of a crime on behalf of the IRA and sent to Long Kesh prison - newly renamed the Maze. John Dunn has just taken up a job as a prison guard after leaving the army. Both will be shocked at what they find. Both will try to do the right thing, and fail. Neither will ever be the same again. Louise Dean's sensational new novel deals with one of the most explosive and morally complex incidents in recent British history. THIS HUMAN SEASON is a powerful, confronting, humane, and blackly funny examination of the lives of ordinary people when placed in the vice of history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49530732577041,"sku":"GOR001226240","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49662824251665,"sku":"GOR003051487","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0743240022.jpg?v=1786120256"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9781999856557","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":"Elizabeth Prentiss was a remarkable woman who authored a number of notable works in the 19th century. A writing prodigy, she used her sharp abilities to author stories poems, and even hymns despite much tragedy in her life. As she later stated, her purpose in writing, Much of my experience of life has cost me a great price and I wish to use it for strengthening and comforting other souls. This treasury contains her two most important and influential works, Stepping Heavenward and The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49532964798737,"sku":"GOR010029361","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50302604673297,"sku":"CIN1999856554VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50905262424337,"sku":"GOR011332857","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51598777090321,"sku":"GOR014342329","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1999856554.jpg?v=1750997414"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9781905490196","title":"The Old Romantic","description":"Obsessed with death and planning his own funeral, Ken is determined to die in the bosom of his family. But it isn't that easy; his family don't want to know him. His oldest son Nick left home over twenty years ago and reinvented himself. But the past is coming back for Nick and it won't let him be.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568808730897,"sku":"GOR002106923","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49598950899985,"sku":"GOR002107303","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49665485209873,"sku":"GOR003041015","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1905490194.jpg?v=1751444470"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9781416522669","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49623289528593,"sku":"GOR010451609","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B000SGRBX0.jpg?v=1718445476"},{"product_id":"idea-of-love-book-louise-dean-9780141030593","title":"The Idea of Love","description":"Richard's life is unravelling: his beautiful wife, Valerie, is having an affair, his son Maxence may (or may not) be mentally disturbed, and the idyllic life he'd hoped for when they moved to Provence has become more nightmare than paradise. Suddenly, a routine trip to Africa to sell pharmaceuticals is more than he can handle.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49628451143953,"sku":"GOR002993327","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49650030182673,"sku":"GOR004786913","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52449491419409,"sku":"GOR001248163","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141030593.jpg?v=1778925172"},{"product_id":"this-human-season-book-louise-dean-9781999856519","title":"This Human Season","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49640937652497,"sku":"GOR011671688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1999856511.jpg?v=1750997414"},{"product_id":"this-human-season-book-louise-dean-9780743240017","title":"This Human Season","description":"It is December 1979. Kathleen's son Sean has been convicted of a crime on behalf of the IRA and sent to Long Kesh prison - newly renamed the Maze. John Dunn has just taken up a job as a prison guard after leaving the army. Both will be shocked at what they find. Both will try to do the right thing, and fail. Neither will ever be the same again. Louise Dean's sensational new novel deals with one of the most explosive and morally complex incidents in recent British history. THIS HUMAN SEASON is a powerful, confronting, humane, and blackly funny examination of the lives of ordinary people when placed in the vice of history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49662966825233,"sku":"GOR012141156","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49807127904529,"sku":"GOR004475487","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49904801841425,"sku":"GOR012213736","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0743240014.jpg?v=1751449077"},{"product_id":"this-human-season-book-louise-dean-9780151012534","title":"This Human Season","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt's not personal, he says. But that's a lie in a place where everything is personal, and a matter of life and death too. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis Human Season is award-winning Booker longlisted author Louise Dean's second novel set in Belfast, Ireland, during The Troubles of the late 1970's and early 1980's. It was widely praised by critics internationally and described as 'astonishing' by reviewers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is November 1979. Kathleen's son Sean has just been transferred to Belfast's most notorious prison - Long Kesh, recently renamed the Maze. Kathleen knows that he will join the other prisoners on their non-cooperation protest, known as the Blanket. Rumours of a hunger strike are beginning to circulate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Dunn has finished twenty years in the British Army. After three tours of Belfast, he's found a girl and a house and a job as a prison guard. In the weeks before Christmas, both Kathleen and John will find themselves in impossible situations. Both will have to find a way to survive when everything they love is in danger of being destroyed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Breathtaking...This Human Season is a novel that confirms the arrival of a significant voice in British fiction'. The Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Magnificent.' Arena.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'This is a fine and thoughtful historical novel which manages to find humour and decency in the most awful of places.' The Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Audacious . . . remarkable. That an English woman born after the Troubles began should take one of its most grisly episodes--the 'dirty protests' in the Maze prison--as the focus of a compelling family drama is ambitious to say the least. That she should pull it off with such compassion and perceptive detail is nothing short of astonishing.' The Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Louise Dean's pitch-perfect second novel, ''This Human Season, '' recreates the time of the troubles ... With remarkable evenhandedness, she evokes the day-to-day struggles of English and Irish, Protestant and Roman Catholic, as they try to get on with their lives while the world around them goes insane ...' New York Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean mercilessly heightens the suspense while managing at the same time to confer complexity and even grace on her characters and on their forbidding city.' The Boston Globe\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean's great achievement is showing us how ordinary people can go on with their lives in the midst of extraordinary brutality and how a few are able to do so with compassion and hope.' People\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'How everyday people become mortal enemies is both the central mystery and tragedy of this intelligent book.' Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Not a wasted moment in this terrifying and terribly funny book.' Kirkus Starred Review.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean is an audacious arrival in British fiction. She is unafraid to tackle unsexy or unsafe material, or to stray beyond the domestic sphere.' The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Ranging across this desperate landscape is a novel which captures a community's resilience and it's humour full of broken glass.' Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'With clear-eyed compassion, and with all the resources of the novelist's art, Louise Dean leads us through those terrible days when for a while Belfast was a vortex for the worst of the world's cruelty and pain' J.M. Coetzee\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLouise Dean is founder and course director at the worldwide writing school for novelists The Novelry.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49800793358609,"sku":"CIN0151012539G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50410273014033,"sku":"CIN0151012539VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0151012539.jpg?v=1751389348"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9781594487798","title":"The Old Romantic","description":"\u003cb\u003eA highly entertaining, vivid evocation of love and marriage. -\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's been decades since Nick cast off his impossible, contentious, embarrassingly working-class parents: gruff, stingy, explosive Ken, and Pearl, who seemed to revert to a primal state of nature after a divorce that both of them managed to blame on Nick. Enjoying the life of the country gentleman that he's made for himself with impeccably turned-out Astrid and her daughter, Laura, Nick has kept only the slenderest connection to his brother, Dave, who's stuck with the role of ambassador in a family that's long settled into cold war.\u003cbr\u003e Then Ken decides that the year of his death has arrived, and kicks off an ill-conceived quest to reunite his family before he meets his fate. Bringing to this tinderbox the park it needs, Louise Dean, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eBecoming Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e and several more acclaimed novels, sends up the whole clan, each of them fatally flawed, yet saved by hidden grace, and illuminates their clashes of generation, gender, class, and temperament, in a riotous, compassionate, and truly memorable family saga.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50233573900561,"sku":"CIN1594487790VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50384007102737,"sku":"CIN1594487790G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51328781713681,"sku":"CINB005ZO6V6IA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B005ZO6V6I.jpg?v=1751023832"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9780151011742","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50261890564369,"sku":"GOR006633823","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345724150033,"sku":"CIN0151011745VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52103011270929,"sku":"CIN0151011745G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0151011745.jpg?v=1751227407"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9780156032667","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50296683921681,"sku":"GOR010000946","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51113434415377,"sku":"GOR008829532","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51822448378129,"sku":"CIN015603266XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53274495549713,"sku":"CIN015603266XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/015603266X.jpg?v=1751037249"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9781594485633","title":"The Old Romantic","description":"\u003cb\u003eA highly entertaining, vivid evocation of love and marriage. -\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's been decades since Nick cast off his impossible, contentious, embarrassingly working-class parents: gruff, stingy, explosive Ken, and Pearl, who seemed to revert to a primal state of nature after a divorce that both of them managed to blame on Nick. Enjoying the life of the country gentleman that he's made for himself with impeccably turned-out Astrid and her daughter, Laura, Nick has kept only the slenderest connection to his brother, Dave, who's stuck with the role of ambassador in a family that's long settled into cold war.\u003cbr\u003e Then Ken decides that the year of his death has arrived, and kicks off an ill-conceived quest to reunite his family before he meets his fate. Bringing to this tinderbox the park it needs, Louise Dean, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eBecoming Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e and several more acclaimed novels, sends up the whole clan, each of them fatally flawed, yet saved by hidden grace, and illuminates their clashes of generation, gender, class, and temperament, in a riotous, compassionate, and truly memorable family saga.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50393898156305,"sku":"CIN1594485631G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1594485631.jpg?v=1750960098"},{"product_id":"this-human-season-book-louise-dean-9781393358596","title":"This Human Season","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt's not personal, he says. But that's a lie in a place where everything is personal, and a matter of life and death too. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis Human Season is award-winning Booker longlisted author Louise Dean's second novel set in Belfast, Ireland, during The Troubles of the late 1970's and early 1980's. It was widely praised by critics internationally and described as 'astonishing' by reviewers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is November 1979. Kathleen's son Sean has just been transferred to Belfast's most notorious prison - Long Kesh, recently renamed the Maze. Kathleen knows that he will join the other prisoners on their non-cooperation protest, known as the Blanket. Rumours of a hunger strike are beginning to circulate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Dunn has finished twenty years in the British Army. After three tours of Belfast, he's found a girl and a house and a job as a prison guard. In the weeks before Christmas, both Kathleen and John will find themselves in impossible situations. Both will have to find a way to survive when everything they love is in danger of being destroyed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Breathtaking...This Human Season is a novel that confirms the arrival of a significant voice in British fiction'. The Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Magnificent.' Arena.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'This is a fine and thoughtful historical novel which manages to find humour and decency in the most awful of places.' The Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Audacious . . . remarkable. That an English woman born after the Troubles began should take one of its most grisly episodes--the 'dirty protests' in the Maze prison--as the focus of a compelling family drama is ambitious to say the least. That she should pull it off with such compassion and perceptive detail is nothing short of astonishing.' The Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Louise Dean's pitch-perfect second novel, ''This Human Season, '' recreates the time of the troubles ... With remarkable evenhandedness, she evokes the day-to-day struggles of English and Irish, Protestant and Roman Catholic, as they try to get on with their lives while the world around them goes insane ...' New York Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean mercilessly heightens the suspense while managing at the same time to confer complexity and even grace on her characters and on their forbidding city.' The Boston Globe\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean's great achievement is showing us how ordinary people can go on with their lives in the midst of extraordinary brutality and how a few are able to do so with compassion and hope.' People\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'How everyday people become mortal enemies is both the central mystery and tragedy of this intelligent book.' Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Not a wasted moment in this terrifying and terribly funny book.' Kirkus Starred Review.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean is an audacious arrival in British fiction. She is unafraid to tackle unsexy or unsafe material, or to stray beyond the domestic sphere.' The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Ranging across this desperate landscape is a novel which captures a community's resilience and it's humour full of broken glass.' Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'With clear-eyed compassion, and with all the resources of the novelist's art, Louise Dean leads us through those terrible days when for a while Belfast was a vortex for the worst of the world's cruelty and pain' J.M. Coetzee\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLouise Dean is founder and course director at the worldwide writing school for novelists The Novelry.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51024157966609,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51024161472785,"sku":"NIN9781393358596","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1393358594.jpg?v=1751336364"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9781393883043","title":"The Old Romantic","description":"\u003cb\u003eA highly entertaining, vivid evocation of love and marriage. -\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's been decades since Nick cast off his impossible, contentious, embarrassingly working-class parents: gruff, stingy, explosive Ken, and Pearl, who seemed to revert to a primal state of nature after a divorce that both of them managed to blame on Nick. Enjoying the life of the country gentleman that he's made for himself with impeccably turned-out Astrid and her daughter, Laura, Nick has kept only the slenderest connection to his brother, Dave, who's stuck with the role of ambassador in a family that's long settled into cold war.\u003cbr\u003e Then Ken decides that the year of his death has arrived, and kicks off an ill-conceived quest to reunite his family before he meets his fate. Bringing to this tinderbox the park it needs, Louise Dean, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eBecoming Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e and several more acclaimed novels, sends up the whole clan, each of them fatally flawed, yet saved by hidden grace, and illuminates their clashes of generation, gender, class, and temperament, in a riotous, compassionate, and truly memorable family saga.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51024231366929,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51024233726225,"sku":"NIN9781393883043","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1393883044.jpg?v=1750890026"},{"product_id":"idea-of-love-book-louise-dean-9781393720904","title":"The Idea of Love","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn her dark and witty third novel, award-winning Booker Prize longlisted author Louise Dean explores the perplexing marriages of two couples living in Provence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRichard is the head of sales in Africa for a pharmaceutical company. He spends most of his time away on business, sleeping with other women and pushing psychiatric drugs on a developing market. Back in Provence, he and his wife, Val rie, no longer share a bed, and his teenage son, Maxence, is hearing voices. When Richard begins an affair with a neighbour, Rachel, he discovers that Val rie, too, is having an affair - with Rachel's husband, Jeff. Suddenly, a routine trip to Africa to sell pharmaceuticals is more than he can handle and his life starts to implode as he realizes that the idea of a life full of that love he has cherished is a mere illusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'With wry humour, Dean captures the gloom of existences imploding in incongruous surroundings.' The Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Engaging.it is hard to stop turning the pages.arresting.fizzes with talent.' Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Wonderfully complex and original novel about desire, disappointment and mental illness, largely set in ex-pat Provence.Louise Dean's lovely rendering of her awful people makes The Idea of Love an enormous delight.' The Independent\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'An acute, cynical wit. An unforgettable study of the dark side of the mind.' The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'This dark novel is interesting and original, a study of love but not a romance and a story with many morals.' The Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'In her third novel, Louise Dean regards with a sardonic eye a group of scalded lovers ricocheting between desire, despair and dipsomania.Dean's portrayal of Maxence's madness and his mission to save souls is tender and funny, and lifts the novel far above the torrid soul-searching of its narcissistic lovers.' The Guardian \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'Louise Dean's third novel is a careful dissection of our search for love in its many forms - sexual, religious, parental, and brotherly.Dean has a deliciously wry eye for the convincing detail.' Literary Review\u003cp\u003e'An unusual but fascinating story that examines the different ways in which people face the harsh realities of love gone wrong.' Tatler\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLearn to write a novel with Louise Dean at The Novelry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51225037504785,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51225039667473,"sku":"NIN9781393720904","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1393720900.jpg?v=1751083400"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9781393835981","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51278686421265,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51278687043857,"sku":"NIN9781393835981","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1393835988.jpg?v=1751369987"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9781999856564","title":"The Old Romantic","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51662893678865,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51662894203153,"sku":"GOR010705081","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1999856562.jpg?v=1751316143"},{"product_id":"idea-of-love-book-louise-dean-9781999856526","title":"The Idea of Love","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52116585218321,"sku":"GOR011823489","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781999856526.jpg?v=1757341458"},{"product_id":"old-romantic-book-louise-dean-9780141030609","title":"The Old Romantic","description":"Ken is so obsessed with death that he's planning his own funeral - right down to the last morbid detail. He will die in the bosom of his family. There's just one problem. His family want nothing to do with him. His upwardly mobile son Nick hasn't seen him in fifteen years - and doesn't want to be reminded of the miserable old man he escaped.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53740841730321,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53740841926929,"sku":"GOR002769410","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780141030609.jpg?v=1786105569"},{"product_id":"becoming-strangers-book-louise-dean-9780743239998","title":"Becoming Strangers","description":"Jan has been dying for six years, bringing his unhappy marriage with Annemieke to an end in middle age. Their sons have given them one last gift, a holiday in the Caribbean. Dorothy and George have also been given a holiday, by their granddaughter - their first and probably last trip overseas. In the rain of Bexhill-on-Sea, two weeks at a beach resort seems irresistible. Alone together, in perfect surroundings, they are unable to escape their troubles, until a few chance events - a disappearance, an assault and a man called Bill Moloney - allow them to make something out of the ashes of their love. This is a different love story - about how there's seldom a 'happily ever after', but sometimes a chance to redeem a life together half-lived.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53796204347665,"sku":"GOR002773404","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53797817778449,"sku":"GOR002774566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780743239998_d478ecda-ab7d-46f4-989e-a071386d66ba.jpg?v=1786119879"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-louise-dean.oembed?page=2","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}