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Saltwater: Winner of the Portico Prize

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Saltwater: Winner of the Portico Prize

By: Jessica Andrews
Narrated by: Natalie Jamieson
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the Portico Prize.

When Lucy wins a place at university, she thinks London will unlock her future. It is a city alive with pop up bars, cool girls and neon lights illuminating the Thames at night.

At least this is what Lucy expects, having grown up seemingly a world away in working-class Sunderland, amid legendary family stories of Irish immigrants and boarding houses, now-defunct ice rinks and an engagement ring at a fish market.

Yet Lucy's transition to a new life is more overwhelming than she ever expected. As she works long shifts to make ends meet and navigates chaotic parties from East London warehouses to South Kensington mansions, she still feels like an outsider among her fellow students. When things come to a head at her graduation, Lucy takes off for Ireland, seeking solace in her late grandfather's cottage and the wild landscape that surrounds it, wondering if she can piece together who she really is.

Lyrical and boundary breaking, Saltwater explores the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, the challenges of shifting class identity and the way that the strongest feelings of love can be the hardest to define.

©2019 Jessica Andrews (P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction England

Critic reviews

"This book is sublime. It dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone's shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch." (Daisy Johnson)
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I never write reviews but I just found this to be magical!. Such an original way of jigsawing together life's little anecdotes.

Lyrical

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Probably a great read, but as an audiobook I found the verbal numbering of the extremey short chapters intefered with the enjoyment of listening. Had to return it.

Annoying numbering of very short chapters.

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This is beautiful lyrical prose coming if age story but the story goes nowhere.

beautiful prose

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Bought this to impress a guy - it didn't work, however the book is actually really good 😊

Great listen!

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This is a rare treat! Totally hooked from the start. The narration is spot on and I felt so tuned into the book that when I’d finished listening I just wanted to hear it all over again in case I’d missed anything.

Loved this

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