The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams
Ain't nothing wrong with being broken. Nothing at all. You're like these houses, not a whole brick in em and look how strong they are.
As Tess traces the sunrise over the floodplains, light that paints the house a startling crimson, she yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was. Instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen - Tess and Richard's 'rainbow twins' - Tess absorbs the quiet. The nights draw in, the soil cools and Richard fights to get his winter crops planted rather than deal with the discussion he cannot bear to have.
Secrets and vines clamber over the broken red bricks and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, in the damp, crumbling soil Sonny knows that something is stirring . . . As the seasons change, and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal.
This is the story of a broken family, what they see and what they cannot say laid bare in their overlapping perspectives. It is a tale of life in the cracks, because in the space for acceptance, of passing and of laying to rest, the possibilities of new energy, light and love, are seeded.
Reviews
'An almanac for the heart.' EVIE WOODS, author of The Lost Bookshop
'Haunting prose that cracks the English pastoral novel and lets the darkness in. A pleasure to read.' SARAH MOSS, author of Ghost Wall
'A clever, heartbreaking, heartwarming depiction of family love, grief and the possibility of hope.' JO BROWNING WROE, author of A Terrible Kindness
'Poignant and unexpected . . . brave and subtle.' EMMA HEALEY, author of Elizabeth is Missing
'Wonderful . . . brave in its deep truths about loss and love.' INGRID PERSAUD, author of Love After Love