Phosphorescence (20 page)

Cactus bounds up and jumps on to my lap. He wriggles and wags his tail, delighted and wanting to let me know he has rolled in something. I don't need him this close to realize it is something rank. He has covered me in it too. I leap up and take off my jeans and without pausing I run, carrying Cactus, into the sea and dive underwater. It is the best, most exhilarating feeling I know.

Raffaella Barker, daughter of the poet George Barker, was born and brought up in the Norfolk countryside. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels:
Come and Tell Me Some Lies
,
The Hook
,
Hens Dancing
,
Summertime
,
Green Grass
,
A Perfect Life
and
Poppyland
. She is a regular contributor to the
Sunday Times
and the
Sunday Telegraph
, and teaches on the Literature and Creative Writing BA at the University of East Anglia and the
Guardian
UEA Novel Writing Masterclass. Raffaella Barker lives by the sea in north Norfolk.

Come and Tell Me Some Lies
The Hook
Hens Dancing
Summertime
Green Grass
A Perfect Life
Poppyland
From a Distance

Come and Tell Me Some Lies

‘A gentle, charming account of a family of cosmopolitan sophistication living in a rural shambles'
Evening Standard

Gabriella lives in a damp, ramshackle, book-strewn manor in Norfolk with her tempestuous poet father and unconventional mother. Alongside her ever-expanding set of siblings and half-siblings, numerous pets and her father's rag-tag admirers, Gabriella navigates a chaotic childhood of wild bohemian parties and fluctuating levels of poverty. Longing to be normal, Gabriella enrols in a strict day school, only to find herself balancing two very different lives. Struggling to keep the eccentricities of her family contained, her failure to achieve conformity amongst her peers is endearing, and absolute.

Come and Tell Me Some Lies
is Raffaella Barker's enchanting first novel – a humorous, bittersweet tale of a girl who longs to be normal, and a family that can't help be anything but.

‘She writes beautifully … combining with apparent ease, emotion and admirable precision'
Independent on Sunday

If you have a device with internet capabilities please click
here
or visit
www.bloomsbury.com/raffaellabarker
for more information

Hens Dancing

‘Charming … Engrossing'
Sunday Times

‘A positive hymn to provincial living, it is an entertaining celebration of family life with all its highs, lows and eccentricities'
The Times

When Venetia Summers' husband runs off with his masseuse, the bohemian idyll she has strived to create for her young family suddenly loses some of its rosy hue. From her tumble-down cottage in Norfolk she struggles to keep up with the chaos caused by her two boys, her splendid baby daughter and the hordes of animals, relatives and would-be artists that live in her home. From juggling errant cockerels, jam making frenzies and War Hammers, to unexpected romance, Bloody Mary's and forays into fashion design,
Hens Dancing
is like a rural
Bridget Jones' Diary
as it charts a year of Venetia's madcap household.

‘Glittering prose … Venetia is a disarmingly wry and engaging narrator with a keen eye for nature and the follies of urban chic'
Financial Times

If you have a device with internet capabilities please click
here
or visit
www.bloomsbury.com/raffaellabarker
for more information

Summertime

‘Very, very funny'
Independent

‘My advice is not to read
Summertime
in public. You'll giggle, you'll snort, you'll make an exhibition of yourself … I loved
Hens Dancing
, and this is better yet'
Country Life

After one year of being ‘buffered from single-motherhood' by her boyfriend, David, Venetia Summers suddenly finds her life unravelling as he is sent to the Brazilian jungle and she is left alone in Norfolk. As chaos reigns in her home and her three children run wilder than ever she finds her life further complicated by a bad-mouthed green parrot, a burgeoning fashion career designing demented cardigans and her brother's outrageous wedding. As emails languish unanswered, phone lines cut out and long-distance relationships prove both vexing and bewildering, life and love take some very unexpected turns.

‘I loved it. I couldn't put it down'
Daily Express

If you have a device with internet capabilities please click
here
or visit
www.bloomsbury.com/raffaellabarker
for more information

Green Grass

‘So funny and acerbic' Maggie O'Farrell

‘She writes beautifully … Combining with apparent ease, emotion and admirable precision'
Independent on Sunday

Laura Sale has grown tired of her life. Her daily routine of dividing her time between pandering to the demands of her challenging conceptual artist husband, Inigo and those of their thirteen-year-old twins Dolly and Fred, has taken its toll. She longs to remember what makes her happy. A chance encounter with Guy, her first love, is the catalyst she needs, and she swaps North London for the rural idyll she grew up in. In her new Norfolk home Laura finds herself confronting old ghosts, ferrets, an ungracious goat and a collapsing relationship. As she starts to savour the space she has craved, and she takes control of her destiny, Laura finds it lit with possibility.

‘A light touch and a way with words that leaves you gasping ... With laughter as much as anything'
Marie Claire

If you have a device with internet capabilities please click
here
or visit
www.bloomsbury.com/raffaellabarker
for more information

Poppyland
A Love Story

‘A modern day
Brief Encounter
'
Daily Express

‘Both lyrical and real, light and darkly full of yearnings for a profound and lifelong love'
Good Housekeeping

On a freezing cold night in an unfamiliar city, a man meets a woman. The encounter lasts just moments, they part barely knowing one another's names, they make no plans to meet again. But both are left breathless.

Five years on they live thousands of miles apart and live totally separate lives, except that they both still think about that night. So when they meet again it seems clear that they will do all they can to try and stay together, but can it be that easy? Will they be able to escape their past? Will they be able to take the risk they know they should?

‘Rich, confident and emotionally convincing'
Sunday Times

‘An insightful, highly readable novel'
Daily Express

If you have a device with internet capabilities please click
here
or visit
www.bloomsbury.com/raffaellabarker
for more information

The Hook

‘Glorious'
Mail on Sunday

‘Stylish and insightful … With the pace and verve of a thriller'
Independent

Christy Naylor was forced to grow up quickly. Still reeling with anger after the death of her mother, she abandons college in order to help her father uproot from suburbia and start a new life on a swampy fish farm out in the sticks, a prize that he won in a shady game of poker.

Amid this turmoil, looms the mysterious Mick Fleet, tall, powerful and charismatic. Unsettled and unsure of herself, Christy is hooked on his intense charm. She knows nothing about him yet she feels like she is being swallowed up in his embrace and she plunges into a love affair blind to the catastrophe he will bring…