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For some families, a year can feel like a lifetime…
The Harrisons are a large and extremely close-knit family. But with the grandchildren fast becoming adults and elderly Pamela struggling to adapt to widowhood and the emptiness of Ashley House, the four children of the middle generation find themselves equally lost in a changing world.
As preparations for 42 year-old Cassie's long-awaited wedding gather pace and an exotic family holiday is planned, sibling and marital bonds are stretched to breaking point: adultery, an unwanted pregnancy, shadows of past losses… suddenly a year of celebration threatens to become one of painful upheaval.
Beset by such emotional chaos, how can the adults hope to guide their children in matters of the heart? Or are the children the ones who should be guiding them?
A multi-generational story of love, lies and family ties, The Simple Rules of Love presents Amanda Brookfield at her perceptive and poignant best.
On The Simple Rules of Love:
'It's brilliant - read it!'
Closer
‘Step aside Jilly Cooper, Penny Vincenzi and Joanna Trollope, there is a new kid on the block. Surely it’s time Amanda Brookfield gained her rightful place with this brilliantly observed epic surrounding the further fortunes and misfortunes of the extended Harrison family’
Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror
On Amanda’s writing:
‘Brookfield skilfully illuminates the relationships, dilemmas and compromises that define so many lives’
Sunday Express
‘A strong sense of humour, a natural narrative gift’
Evening Standard
‘Brookfield goes from strength to strength. Treat yourself’
Patricia Scanlan
On Relative Love:
‘Another heart-rending exploration of the lasting legacy of childhood from the best-selling author’
Daily Mirror
‘This book, about deep and complex family love from this accomplished author, is told with true passion’
Family Circle
On Sisters & Husbands:
‘Brookfield skilfully illuminates the relationships, dilemmas and compromises that define so many lives’
Sunday Express
‘Few contemporary British novelists writing today explore the messy tangles of close human relationships with quite such warm perceptiveness as Brookfield’
Daily Mirror
On A Family Man:
‘This book is charming and enjoyable, and Matthew is completely gorgeous, if a little misguided’
Best
‘This is a funny, poignant and relevant novel – superb in detail that will be familiar to many’
Essex Chronicle
On The Lover:
‘A truthful look at how people’s lives are shaped by the attitudes and expectations of other’
Coventry Telegraph
‘Amanda Brookfield’s writing never fails to please’
Devon Life
‘I was a Brookfield virgin but after this I’ll certainly be seeking out more’
Northern Echo
On Single Lives:
‘Witty and engaging’
Family Circle
On The Godmother:
‘Take this book on holiday with you – it’s a wonderful beach read with a happy, if rather unexpected, ending’
Options
On A Cast of Smiles:
‘What is refreshing here is the author’s conspicuous sanity and her sharp line in defence of reason’
Guardian
‘Amanda Brookfield’s voice is young and clear’
Observer
On Alice Alone:
‘Even unshowy writing and a confident narrative voice’
Daily Telegraph
‘Amanda Brookfield’s assurance and intelligence make Alice Alone stand out from the flush of the new year’s fiction’
Evening Standard
‘Penetrating insights into the ordinary female condition’
Woman’s Own
‘The story rings true, and the writer deals with a potentially tedious subject in a fresh, amusing way’
Washington Times
On Walls of Glass:
‘The story is told in pithy scenes using excellent dialogue and it is notable that having dared to breath life in to a set of stereotypes, Ms Brookfield succeeds in undermining her conventional ending’
Sunday Telegraph
September
Back in England an Indian summer lay in wait, each day a hot, sultry package encased in the freshness of dawn and dusk. Unattended for four weeks and fed by rain, the garden at Ashley House had swelled to the point where the house itself seemed to be sinking among the tidal waves of verdure and colour that surrounded it. Butterflies and insects bobbed lazily at the full fat flowers, splayed among the beds and bushes like the basking populace of a crowded beach, all heedless of the shortening days and the occasional tugging breeze that warned of change.
Serena, tracing the particularly busy traffic of bees to a crack in the lintel above the front door, thought of calling Sid, or a pest-control company from the Yellow Pages but didn’t have the heart. The weather would turn eventually and the bees would die. They were living on borrowed time, on borrowed hope, clinging to the coat-tails of summer, just as she, Charlie and Ed were clinging to the feel-good shreds of the holiday and the new, desperate hope about the paternity test. Change, and reaction to it, would be forced upon them all soon enough. She only wished she knew where it would lead. The natural world might have its patterns, its enviable seasonal grand design, but she was losing faith in the notion that the existence of humans could relate to anything so comfortingly certain.
A LETTER FROM AMANDA
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your interest in my new novel.
The Simple Rules of Love is in no way a sequel, but it does pick up on characters I've written about before. The novel follows a year in the life of the Harrison family. I tried initially to concentrate on just a few of the characters (with grannies and middle-aged parents and children, there are so many of them!) but I quickly realised that with such a strong close-knit family it would be impossible and unsatisfying to leave anybody out! I was aware too, that, as in real life, there are different phases relating to one’s age and preoccupations and so everybody had a new and interesting story for me to tell.
A novelist, like a parent, shouldn’t have favourites… but that said, I was always particularly fond of Roland, the sensitive product of a broken marriage, with strong artistic abilities and an emotional intelligence way beyond his years. I loved being able to show him move towards adulthood, struggling with his awakening sexuality and the demands of a needy mother with huge deficiencies in her own personal life.
Several people have asked me about the title… why I chose it and what it’s supposed to mean. The answer, for anyone interested, is that it arose from the realisation, acquired during the course of three years immersion in the numerous interrelations of the Harrison clan (siblings, parents, spouses, lovers and friends), that while human love takes countless forms its abiding principles are basic and constant.
I would love to hear how readers, both new to and familiar with the Harrison family, feel about The Simple Rules of Love. Writing is an isolated process and so any feedback I get is hugely appreciated. Like this letter to you, it is also a chance for both sides to enjoy that very special, invisible connection between an author and the people who enter the world he or she creates. I hope above all that The Simple Rules of Love comes across as a real world, full of the humdrum, desperate, complicated and rewarding emotions familiar to each and every one of us.
I am working on a very different story now, about a divorcee with a gaggle of female friends and a difficult eleven year old – not a Harrison in sight! I miss them, but am ready now to leave their fates in the capable hands of your imaginations. I have a heroine for my new novel but no satisfactory name as yet… any ideas?
With best wishes,
Amanda
For further information please contact Miranda Higham on 020 7010 3279 / miranda.higham@uk.penguingroup.com
