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Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her new novel, Miss Benson's Beetle, is out now. Rachel's books have been translated into thirty-six languages and two are in development for film. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards 'New Writer of the Year' in December 2012 and shortlisted for the 'UK Author of the Year' 2014. Rachel has also written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre and Cheek by Jowl. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire.
Rachel Joyce has a genius for creating the most damaged and difficult character and making us care deeply about their redemption. Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North is a powerful finale to her classic trilogy of heartbreak and healing. -- Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures At last it's Maureen's turn! It may only have the physical heft of a novella but Rachel Joyce's angry-sad latest packs the weight of a long marriage into the space of several well ironed handkerchiefs. Just brilliant. -- Patrick Gale Maureen Fry is wonderfully complex, flinty and closed and obsessive yet full of love and concern for others as she navigates her present and her past, carrying her terrible burdens of grief and guilt. Rachel Joyce is deeply attuned to the complex rhythms of life and love and she sublimates this understanding, sentence by delicate, powerful, glistening sentence into an unforgettable story. It's beautiful all through, but the closing chapters are just astonishing, transcendent and hope-filled and life-affirming. I'll never forget this wonderful novel or the sunny, slightly teary day I spent reading it. -- Donal Ryan This book is short but very special. As fans of Rachel Joyce might expect, it's funny, touching and quite beautiful. It's also packed with wisdom about love and loss - and is sure to provide comfort to anyone who's known grief. -- Matt Cain, author of The Secreet Life of Albert Entwistle Maureen is so beautifully and unflinchingly portrayed - a complex contradiction of brittle and prickly with an underbelly of fragility and fear. Her journey - both physical and psychological - is compelling and profoundly moving and leaves the reader feeling fully satisfied and just a little lighter. -- Ruth Hogan
