Ann Packer – författare

‘A tour de force family drama’ELLE ‘Bursting with poignancy’NEW YORKER ‘Tender, absorbing’ CATHERINE NEWMAN‘First-rate storytelling’ BBC ‘A riveting novel about how family molds us – for good and ill – and the grace that comes with forgiveness’PEOPLE MAGAZINE Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. It is here that he will fall in love with Penny Greenway, build a home and raise a perfect family.Decades later, the lives of the three oldest Blair children are upended by the return of their younger brother, James – the wayward son – whose sudden presence forces to light the siblings' past rivalries and grievances, and sets off a struggle over the family's future.From New York Times bestselling author, Ann Packer, The Children's Crusade explores the secrets, desires and heartbreaks of one Californian family over the course of five decades. **Some Bright Nowhere, the latest novel from Ann Packer is available now** ‘This is a novel with something to teach about forgiving the people we love’NEWSDAY ‘Superb … I’ve rarely read a novel so astute about the jumble of love and respect, rivalry and envy, empathy and scorn that makes up family dynamics’SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE ‘A beautiful novel that will stay with me’ ABRAHAM VERGHESE

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK ‘One of those rare books that once you’ve finished, comes with you for life’ RACHEL JOYCE‘A moving book … I was enraptured by it’ PHILIPPA PERRY‘Readers, you will shed tears and talk long into the night about this book’ ANDREW SEAN GREER‘A heartbreaking novel that actually made me happy’ MEG WOLITZER An extraordinarily beautiful and life-affirming new novel from one of America's greatest chroniclers of the human heart, Ann Packer. Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs that come with a long marriage. Now, eight years into Claire’s cancer diagnosis it’s time to gather their loved ones and prepare for what comes next.Through Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly and lovingly shifted into the role of caregiver, coming to appreciate the new intimacy this creates. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling.Ann Packer makes a triumphant return with this beautifully powerful and life-affirming novel. Some Bright Nowhere explores the profound gifts and costs of truly loving someone, and the unexpected feelings we experience as the end of life draws near. ‘As devastating as it is life-affirming’ iPAPER ‘This beautifully written story is going to get you thinking about some things that really matter’ OPRAH WINFREY‘Intimate and devastating;I felt winded, while reading, and unable to look away’ CLAIRE DAVERLEY, author of Talking at Night‘Extraordinary. Books like this are why I love reading’ ELIN HILDERBRAND, author of The Perfect Couple‘I read it in awe and haven't stopped thinking about it since’ CLAIRE POWELL, author of At the Table ‘A moving meditation on love's many forms’ PEOPLE ‘Packer’s gorgeous, deeply involving novel is a suspenseful and radiant reckoning with love, sorrow, and the everlasting mystery of death’BOOKLIST ‘One of those rare books that leaves you feeling altered somehow, like the light has shifted’ HUMA QURESHI, author of Playing Games‘Prose beautiful enough to get you drunk … A triumph’ RUFI THORPE, author of Margo's Got Money Troubles‘I read it feverishly; I lived and mourned with its characters’ AYŞEGÜL SAVAŞ, author of The Anthropologists‘Exquisite … you've never read a novel about marriage quite like this one’ TANIA JAMES, author of Loot

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK ‘One of those rare books that once you’ve finished, comes with you for life’ RACHEL JOYCE‘A moving book … I was enraptured by it’ PHILIPPA PERRY‘Readers, you will shed tears and talk long into the night about this book’ ANDREW SEAN GREER‘A heartbreaking novel that actually made me happy’ MEG WOLITZER An extraordinarily beautiful and life-affirming new novel from one of America's greatest chroniclers of the human heart, Ann Packer. Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs that come with a long marriage. Now, eight years into Claire’s cancer diagnosis it’s time to gather their loved ones and prepare for what comes next.Through Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly and lovingly shifted into the role of caregiver, coming to appreciate the new intimacy this creates. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling.Ann Packer makes a triumphant return with this beautifully powerful and life-affirming novel. Some Bright Nowhere explores the profound gifts and costs of truly loving someone, and the unexpected feelings we experience as the end of life draws near. ‘As devastating as it is life-affirming’ iPAPER ‘This beautifully written story is going to get you thinking about some things that really matter’ OPRAH WINFREY‘Intimate and devastating;I felt winded, while reading, and unable to look away’ CLAIRE DAVERLEY, author of Talking at Night‘Extraordinary. Books like this are why I love reading’ ELIN HILDERBRAND, author of The Perfect Couple‘I read it in awe and haven't stopped thinking about it since’ CLAIRE POWELL, author of At the Table ‘A moving meditation on love's many forms’ PEOPLE ‘Packer’s gorgeous, deeply involving novel is a suspenseful and radiant reckoning with love, sorrow, and the everlasting mystery of death’BOOKLIST ‘One of those rare books that leaves you feeling altered somehow, like the light has shifted’ HUMA QURESHI, author of Playing Games‘Prose beautiful enough to get you drunk … A triumph’ RUFI THORPE, author of Margo's Got Money Troubles‘I read it feverishly; I lived and mourned with its characters’ AYŞEGÜL SAVAŞ, author of The Anthropologists‘Exquisite … you've never read a novel about marriage quite like this one’ TANIA JAMES, author of Loot

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK ‘One of those rare books that once you’ve finished, comes with you for life’ RACHEL JOYCE‘A moving book … I was enraptured by it’ PHILIPPA PERRY‘Readers, you will shed tears and talk long into the night about this book’ ANDREW SEAN GREER‘A heartbreaking novel that actually made me happy’ MEG WOLITZER An extraordinarily beautiful and life-affirming new novel from one of America's greatest chroniclers of the human heart, Ann Packer. Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs that come with a long marriage. Now, eight years into Claire’s cancer diagnosis it’s time to gather their loved ones and prepare for what comes next.Through Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly and lovingly shifted into the role of caregiver, coming to appreciate the new intimacy this creates. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling.Ann Packer makes a triumphant return with this beautifully powerful and life-affirming novel. Some Bright Nowhere explores the profound gifts and costs of truly loving someone, and the unexpected feelings we experience as the end of life draws near. ‘As devastating as it is life-affirming’ iPAPER ‘This beautifully written story is going to get you thinking about some things that really matter’ OPRAH WINFREY‘Intimate and devastating;I felt winded, while reading, and unable to look away’ CLAIRE DAVERLEY, author of Talking at Night‘Extraordinary. Books like this are why I love reading’ ELIN HILDERBRAND, author of The Perfect Couple‘I read it in awe and haven't stopped thinking about it since’ CLAIRE POWELL, author of At the Table ‘A moving meditation on love's many forms’ PEOPLE ‘Packer’s gorgeous, deeply involving novel is a suspenseful and radiant reckoning with love, sorrow, and the everlasting mystery of death’BOOKLIST ‘One of those rare books that leaves you feeling altered somehow, like the light has shifted’ HUMA QURESHI, author of Playing Games‘Prose beautiful enough to get you drunk … A triumph’ RUFI THORPE, author of Margo's Got Money Troubles‘I read it feverishly; I lived and mourned with its characters’ AYŞEGÜL SAVAŞ, author of The Anthropologists‘Exquisite … you've never read a novel about marriage quite like this one’ TANIA JAMES, author of Loot

Liz and Sarabeth have been friends forever, childhood neighbours bound together in adolescence by a devastating event, the suicide of Sarabeth's mother when the girls were just sixteen. In the decades that followed - through Liz's marriage and the birth of her children, through Sarabeth's depressions and her volatile love affairs - their relationship has remained a source of continuity and strength, a fixed point amid the tumult of their adult lives. But when an unforeseen calamity strikes at the heart of Liz's family, all the assumptions - the deepest habits of their friendship - are revealed in a strange new light, and Liz and Sarabeth must question everything they thought they knew about each other and themselves. Ann Packer's new novel expertly explores the inequities between close friends, the unspoken roles, hidden expectations and deep resentments that can be violently exposed by a true crisis, and the endurance and limits of bonds forged in childhood.

Carrie Bell was born and raised in Wisconsin. She's had the same best friend, the same good relationship with her mother, the same boyfriend for as long as anyone can remember. She is already quietly bored with Mike when he is horrifically injured in a diving accident at Clausen's Reservoir. Now the future that Carrie was only beginning to rebel against looks set in stone. Everyone thinks they know what Carrie will - and ought to - do. But Carrie is caught in a maze of moral dilemmas and is forced to question everything she thought she knew about herself. It is a moment of terrifying confusion, but also of mesmerising possibility.