My Heavenly Favourite

The electrifying new novel from the sensational bestselling winner of the International Booker Prize. I heard you laughing from time to time and you stayed lying there on the flattened hay, and after you left, your body's imprint was left behind, and I rested my hand on the dry blades of grass that were still slightly warm and I wanted to carry on feeling you forever, really I did, but everything changed when you began to speak to me, on 7 July to be precise. In the tempestuous summer of 2005, a 14-year-old farmer's daughter makes friends with the local veterinarian who looks after her father's cows. He has reached 'the biblical age of seven times seven' and is trying to escape trauma, while she is trying to escape into a world of fantasy. Their obsessive reliance on each other's stories builds into a terrifying trap, with a confession at the heart of it that threatens to rip their small community apart. Indelible, audacious and impossible-to-put-down, My Heavenly Favourite is powered by the paradoxical beauty of its prose. It confirms Rijneveld as one of the bravest and brilliant writers on the world stage. Translated by Michele Hutchison Praise for The Discomfort of Evening: '' One of the best debut novels I have ever read: a classic.' . Max Porter ' 'Haunting . . . Like Iain Banks. It's incredible that it's a debut.' . Douglas Stuart 'Exceptional.' Financial Times / 'Exhilarating.' Independent / ' Luminous.' Observer / 'Beautifully wild.' Guardian

The electrifying new novel from the sensational bestselling winner of the International Booker Prize. I heard you laughing from time to time and you stayed lying there on the flattened hay, and after you left, your body's imprint was left behind, and I rested my hand on the dry blades of grass that were still slightly warm and I wanted to carry on feeling you forever, really I did, but everything changed when you began to speak to me, on 7 July to be precise. In the tempestuous summer of 2005, a 14-year-old farmer's daughter makes friends with the local veterinarian who looks after her father's cows. He has reached 'the biblical age of seven times seven' and is trying to escape trauma, while she is trying to escape into a world of fantasy. Their obsessive reliance on each other's stories builds into a terrifying trap, with a confession at the heart of it that threatens to rip their small community apart. Indelible, audacious and impossible-to-put-down, My Heavenly Favourite is powered by the paradoxical beauty of its prose. It confirms Rijneveld as one of the bravest and brilliant writers on the world stage. Translated by Michele Hutchison Praise for The Discomfort of Evening: '' One of the best debut novels I have ever read: a classic.' . Max Porter ' 'Haunting . . . Like Iain Banks. It's incredible that it's a debut.' . Douglas Stuart 'Exceptional.' Financial Times / 'Exhilarating.' Independent / ' Luminous.' Observer / 'Beautifully wild.' Guardian