Promise of Happiness

Charles Judd meanders round his local Cornish beach, contemplating the turns his life has taken. His wife Daphne struggles hopelessly with the latest fish recipe, trying to keep something in her life under control. Two of their children are keeping it all together - just. But they are all still recovering from the shock of the prodigal daughter, Juliet, being imprisoned in New York State for her part in an art theft. Since then, Charles appears to have lost his entire family. Now Juliet is being released, the family is about to be reunited and the wounds her imprisonment has caused are being re-opened.

'A compelling and candid portrait of a family in crisis' Mail on Sunday 'Impressive ... an intelligent, generous and unsentimental take on an English middle-class family' Daily Telegraph 'Extraordinarily bold ... This is a funny, angry, moving novel' Independent 'Bitingly funny and fiercely observed ... The savage irony and probing moral questioning nicely balance each other out, and as an exploration of contemporary Englishness it is unsurpassed' New York Times Book Review

Justin Cartwright's novels include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers and the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award. His latest novel is To Heaven by Water. Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and lives in London.