Held: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024

WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024

**The international bestseller**
**A Guardian Book of the Year**
**Chosen as a book of the year by the independent.co.uk**

‘Her prose is a thing of wonder’ TELEGRAPH
‘Michaels’s writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction’ OBSERVER
‘Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity’ MARGARET ATWOOD
‘Michaels is exceptionally open to beauty’ GUARDIAN

The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change

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1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.

Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.

‘I am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking of this book … It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent everything I know about the novel’ RACHEL JOYCE

From the Publisher

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Content
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. A novel of astounding beauty and wisdom, Fugitive Pieces is a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and love’s ability to restore even the most damaged of hearts. Weaving historical moments with the quiet intimacy of human lives, this is the story of a husband and wife trying to find their way back to each other; of people and nations displaced; and of the ways by which we all seek out a place to call home.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 26 Sept. 2024
Edition ‏ : ‎ Heruitgave
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1526659123
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1526659125
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 450 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 1.8 x 19.6 cm
Best Sellers Rank: 12,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) 1,511 in Literary Fiction (Books) 1,611 in Historical Fiction (Books) 2,269 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)
Customer reviews: 3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 1,648 ratings var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });