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Publication Date: 31 August 2023
Format: Paperback
Extent: 576 pp
Our Price: 10.99
ISBN: 9780857308320
Publication Date: 17 January 2023
Format: Hardback
Extent: 480 pp
Our Price: 19.99
ISBN: 9780857308344
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Publication Date:5 January 2023
Format: ebook(ePub)
Our Price: 6.99
ISBN: 9780857308337
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FEAR AND LOVELY
Anjana Appachana
A vibrant, wholly original novel about identity, family, desire and love, set in 1970s India.
Mallika is a painfully shy young woman growing up in the heart of a lively, sometimes stifling New Delhi colony. Though she is surrounded by love, Mallika's life is complicated by secrets that she, her mother and her aunt work hard to keep.
When she suffers a trauma aged nineteen that causes her to lose three days of her memory and slowly spiral into a deep depression, Mallika must find a way out of this abyss, back to herself and those she cares about. But she must also hide her mental illness from her community.
In a narrative that unfolds elliptically from the perspectives of Mallika and the seven people closest to her, the astonishing story of these characters' intertwining lives emerges. For Mallika's family, childhood friends and the two men she loves are also hiding truths. As each gives voice to contending with their own struggles, secrets and silences shatter.
As irreverent and funny as it is serious and anguished, Fear and Lovely is a tender, character-driven story of love, longing, terror and healing that will keep you turning pages, and won't let you go.
READER REVIEWS FOR FEAR AND LOVELY
PRESS REVIEWS FOR Fear and Lovely
'Trauma, forgiveness, hope, marriage and the shame around mental health are all explored in this beautiful, complex and funny story set in 1970s New Delhi. It's the first novel from Appachana in 20 years and one to be savoured'
- Stylist (Big Fiction Books for 2023)
'Tender and poignant'
- Woman's Weekly
'Love, longing, terror and healing all come into play in Anjana Appachana's New Delhi set novel, Fear and Lovely'
- The Handbook (a 'best new book release arriving this month')
'A story written with confidence and panache, sprinkled with humour'
- TripFiction
'Some novels melt your heart. For me, this is one of them. Anjana Appachana's Fear and Lovely is beautiful, wise, funny and deeply moving. It's bursting with emotion, truth, secrets and love, all written with such insight and tenderness. I loved it'
- RACHEL ELLIOTT
'Appachana's gifts are extraordinary, her sympathies humble and unsparing, her subtlety and wit true heart-shifters. Fear and Lovely is one of the best books you'll read this year, next year, last year... A once-in-a-lifetime achievement'
- JUNOT DIAZ
'Fear and Lovely is a brave and beautiful cautionary tale about the corrosive impact of unaddressed trauma and the healing power of love.'
- Elisa M. Speranza, author of THE ITALIAN PRISONER
'Entertaining and sophisticated... Fear and Lovely underscores the importance of accepting those we love even when we can't fully understand their decisions, actions, or the invisible language of their hearts'
- Melissa Pritchard, Image
'This is a growing-up tale driven by dialogue, spoken and interior. A whole colony comes to life; the Delhi of the mid-late 1970s is mapped.'
- Mini Kapoor, The Hindu
'The past, in Anjana Appachana's novel, is brought to pulsating life... Appachana is a wonderfully understated and charming writer.'
- Rimi B. Chatterjee, India Today
''A story written with confidence and panache, sprinkled with humour' '
- Tina from TripFiction Team, TripFiction
'This is a delicious coming-of-age novel... The tenderness, the subterranean swell of desires, and the emotions that must be camouflaged all are portrayed with great perception and balance... This is a seasoned writer: a mistress of the deft touch, the understated.'
- Nandita Bose, Deccan Herald
'Anjana Appachana's Fear and Lovely is a page-turner of the classiest order... This tale, in all its finest moments, brims with brilliantly placed wit and wisdom. It exposes some of the toughest complications of love, while moving the reader on a suspenseful journey spiced with lightness and depth. With a focus on India and America in the 1970s, the book captures the delights and dangers of family dynamics; the moods and jargon of an era; and the timeless tug of war between cultural tradition and inescapable change'
- Ann Hagedorn
Anjana Appachana's Fear and Lovely is a page-turner of the classiest order. While delving into the unshakable challenges at the core of accepting what we cannot control, this tale, in all its finest moments, brims with brilliantly placed wit and wisdom. It exposes some of the toughest complications of love, while moving the reader on a suspenseful journey spiced with lightness and depth. At the same time, it captures the delights and dangers of family dynamics; the moods and jargon of an era; and the timeless tug of war between cultural tradition and inescapable change. The sharp, indelible main characters are so vividly portrayed that they seem real enough to miss after the reminder that there must be a last page. Thank you, Ms. Appachana, for your gift to us all.
'Full of spice and verve, the novel keeps the reader turning pages till the very end. It's a novel you don't just read. You start living in it'
- Veeksha Vagmita, Scroll
'I consider Fear and Lovely a book to keep for life. That's because I love Mallika and the people who surround her...They are strong, funny, vulnerable, scared, annoying and real. I want them in my life forever... I hope to heaven that Anjana Appachana writes a sequel'
- The Asian Age
AUTHOR LINKS
Anjana Appachana in conversation with Platform Magazine
onmanorama - Learn from reading these profound, intricate and character-driven books