Saturday, June 22, 2013

INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE: A PREVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED 
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE
BY MAGGIE O'FARRELL

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O’Farrell’s beguiling novels—After You’d Gone, winner of a Betty Trask Award; The Distance Between Us, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of the Costa Novel Award; and her unforgettable bestseller The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox—blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense. Instructions for a Heatwave finds her at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.

Gretta Riordan wakes on a stultifying July morning to find that her husband of forty years has gone to get the paper and vanished, cleaning out his bank account along the way. Gretta’s three grown children converge on their parents’ home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and a blighted past that has driven away the younger sister she once adored; and Aoife, the youngest, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal a devastating secret.

Maggie O’Farrell writes with exceptional grace and sensitivity about marriage, about the mysteries that inhere within families, and the fault lines over which we build our lives—the secrets we hide from the people who know and love us best. In a novel that stretches from the heart of London to New York City’s Upper West Side to a remote village on the coast of Ireland, O’Farrell paints a bracing portrait of a family falling apart and coming together with hard-won, life-changing truths about who they really are.
 

PRAISE FOR INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE:
“Maggie O’Farrell has written my favorite kind of novel: big-hearted, psychologically complex, and utterly gripping from page one. Her spare and subtle prose yields a narrative of extraordinary power. Instructions for a Heatwave is a quiet masterpiece, one I’ll be recommending for years to come.”–Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette

“Maggie O’Farrell’s Instructions for a Heatwave is just the kind of family drama I love: Nobody gets off easy in it, but everybody gets treated with compassion. It’s stylish, funny, smart and skillfully written, and I could not put it down.”
–Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins

“Instructions for a Heatwave is a thoroughly engrossing and suspenseful novel about an Irish family and its disparate members coming together one unbearably hot summer. Their mission is to find a father who has wandered off. Their unspoken mission is to rediscover and forgive each other for a lifetime of slights and betrayals, real and imagined. O’Farrell, in this beautifully-written tale, gets the psychological nuances just right.”
–Anita Shreve

“O’Farrell should be a household name.”
–Library Journal

“Superlative . . . A reunion of far-flung siblings for a Mike Leigh-style extravaganza of reckonings and reconciliations.”
–Vogue

“An Irish family saga, replete with secrets, rivalries, and misbehavior becomes a compelling and entertaining story in Maggie O’Farrell’s hands . . . O’Farrell takes readers on journeys interior and exterior—recounted in flawless prose that will have you reading while strap-hanging, standing in line, or waiting at a stop light.”
–Shelf Awareness

“A beautiful portrait of family life. The story really blossoms in the second half . . . where the family’s secrets and private feuds come raging forth so that the true healing can begin.”
–Booklist

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Maggie O’Farrell is the author of After You’d Gone, winner of a Betty Trask Award; My Lover’s Lover; The Distance Between Us, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox; and The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of a Costa Novel Award.

AN EXCERPT FROM INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE:
Highbury, London

The heat, the heat. It wakes Gretta just after dawn, propelling her from the bed and down the stairs. It inhabits the house like a guest who has outstayed his welcome: it lies along corridors, it circles around curtains, it lolls heavily on sofas and chairs. The air in the kitchen is like a solid entity filling the space, pushing Gretta down into the floor, against the side of the table.

Only she would choose to bake bread in such weather.

Consider her now, yanking open the oven and grimacing in its scorching blast as she pulls out the bread tin. She is in her nightdress, hair still wound onto curlers. She takes two steps backwards and tips the steaming loaf into the sink, the weight of it reminding her, as it always does, of a baby, a newborn, the packed, damp warmth of it.

She has made soda bread three times a week for her entire married life. She is not about to let a little thing like a heatwave get in the way of that.
Of course, living in London, it is impossible to get buttermilk; she has to make do with a mixture of half milk and half yogurt. A woman at Mass told her it worked and it does, up to a point, but it is never quite the same.

At a clacking sound on the lino behind her, she says, “Is that you? Bread’s ready.”

“It’s going to be—” he begins, then stops.

Gretta waits for a moment before turning around. Robert is standing between the sink and the table, his large hands upturned, as if he’s holding a tea tray. He is staring at some-thing.
To finish reading this excerpt, visit the publisher's website HERE.

OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR MAGGIE O'FARRELL:
                    

                    

GIVEAWAY
THANKS TO DANIELLE AND THE GOOD FOLKS 
AT RANDOM HOUSE/ALFRED A. KNOPF FOR A
COPY OF INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE TO
GIVE AWAY TO ONE VERY LUCKY READER
  
--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
 

COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!


HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS 

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK 


+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING WHEN YOU VISITED AUTHOR MAGGIE O'FARRELL'S WEBSITE HERE 

 +1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY YOU HAVE ENTERED. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT SEPARATELY TO GAIN MORE ENTRIES 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY  
GIVEAWAY ENDS AT 
6 PM, EST, JULY 5
GOOD LUCK!

115 comments:

Patricia said...

I love Irish family sagas. This sounds right up my alley.

patricia DOT mariani DOT esq AT gmail DOT com

debbie said...

I would like to see what happens when the family all gets together.
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debbie said...

I am a email subscriber.
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I entered thread and buried.
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Steve Capell said...

If Maggie's writing style carries through the rest of her novel then I am sure I will enjoy this novel. I somehow felt the heat and the smell of homemade bread just reading the short excerpt from this book. Speaking of heat ... this novel may be better read on a cold winter day with fluffy snowflakes falling from a grey sky and the smell of bread baking in the oven. Just a thought ... its really hot outside. Thanks for the opportunity.

steven.capell@gmail.com

Carol N Wong said...

I love Irish Soda Bread but haven't made it in years. It sounds like all her troubles are coming at once. I would like to read this book to see if the characters have self discoveries and grow from their experiences. I would read this book when the air-condition is on full blast!

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Carol N Wong said...

I tweeted: http://t.co/4FbNoQIoty

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Carol N Wong said...

I read about her on her blog and learned that she is from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. I looked it up a map and found that it was not too far from Londonderry where a few of my ancestors are from.

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Unknown said...

I would love to read this book. It sounds really good. It is about family. Thanks for the giveaway. Please enter me. I am a follower and email subscriber. Tore923@aol.com

holdenj said...

Certainly has a timely title! Summer has arrived with a vengeance! Read Esme long ago, this looks good. Thanks!
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holdenj said...

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Margie said...

This sounds like a fascinating story of a marriage. I read After You'd Gone, and I enjoy this author's books.
Thanks for the giveaway.
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Tina said...

This is a new author for me, and the story looks fabulous. Want to win.
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Tina said...

love the range of Maggie's previous works I saw on her website.
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Linda Kish said...

I like to read stories about family dynamics. They can seem so real.

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traveler said...

this sounds compelling and great. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

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traveler said...

maggie's other novels look fascinating. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

petite said...

An enthralling saga. elliotbencan(at)hotmail(dot)com

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An author whose talent is great. elliotbencan(at)hotmail(dot)com

Unknown said...

The relationships within families is always interesting reading.

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Pamela Keener said...

I have never read this author but the locale of this book sounds inviting
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rubynreba said...

This sounds like a very interesting Irish novel.

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