Still life

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF DYMOCKS BOOK OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2021 A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER OF THE INWORDS LITERARY AWARD ‘Sheer joy' Graham Norton ‘Utterly beautiful … filled with hope’ Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep ‘A bear-hug of a book’ Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry From the author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a big-hearted story of people brought together by love, war, art and the ghost of E.M.

Forster. 1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy.

She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view. Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades. Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate. ‘Four course nourishment for all Winman fans’ Patrick Gale, author of Take Nothing With You ‘Extraordinary . . . my book of the year’ Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties ‘The kind of story that bolsters the heart and soul’ Donal Ryan, author of Strange Flowers Sunday Times bestseller 09/06/2021