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Solace

Nicci Gerrard
Chapters (40)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. PENGUIN BOOKS
  4. Dedication
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. THE BEGINNING

Cover

Penguin Brand Cover
Penguin Brand Logo
Penguin Brand Logo

About the Author

Nicci Gerrard writes for the Observer and is the co-author, with Sean French, of the bestselling Nicci French thrillers. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and four children. Her first solo novel, Things We Knew Were True, was published by Penguin in 2003 and received rave reviews. This is her second novel.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Solace

Praise for Things We Knew Were True

‘A quietly impressive novel that isn’t afraid to take on big themes of life,
love and the inescapable influences of families’ Guardian

‘A skilfully observed book about grief, sibling relations and first love’
Company

‘A thoughtful tale of love, sibling rivalry and family secrets’ Vogue

‘Such beguiling candour and clarity … poignant and all too true to life’
Helen Dunmore

‘In Nicci Gerrard’s novel Things We Knew Were True, the past is not a
sunshine destination, but a treacherous place freighted with emotional
danger and damage … [It] describes the way time erodes even the most
precious of memories’ Observer

‘This tale about middle-aged angst is quietly compelling’ Daily Mirror

‘Poignant and true to life’ Daily Express

Dedication

To Edgar, Anna, Hadley and Molly

Penguin walking logo

One

When did it all start? She would never know for sure, although later she would trace it, like a finger on a map following the broad river back to the invisible thread of its beginnings, to one evening in early winter. Outside, she remembered it as cold, dark, full of damp, gusty wind; the rattle of dustbin lids, the hiss of cars through puddles, the rustle of bushes, the creak of bending trees. Inside it was warm and the puddles of brightness cast by the lamps and the candles made the room seem like a deep cave in the secret heart of London. She dwelt on what might have happened until she could no longer distinguish between what she knew and what she had imagined. She illuminated the shadowy corners, poured into mysterious silences the suggestive murmur of their voices, allowed herself to picture them together: a moment when the match was struck, its cool flame licking at the dry tinder, and nobody had any idea of the conflagration to come. And if they had known, would they have stopped it? Blown out the flame, left it at that: a moment of possibility, something they would remember later, if they thought about it at all, with a rueful sense of life’s precariousness.

And what about her? If Irene herself could have turned the hidden destruction of that evening back on its oiled hinge, closed it off with a neat click, would she have done so? Would she?