Valerie Martin – författare

''There are shades of Highsmith here, and Wilde''s Dorian Gray. This novel is marvellous and unmissable'' THE TIMES''Valerie Martin is a goddess. Her prose is so sharp, intense and wickedly witty, you''ll whip through this story like lightning... Glamour, intrigue and passions run high in this scintillating novel'' EASY LIVING''Martin draws us skilfully and boldly into a world in which near drownings, lost loves, stalkers and the loaded gun which must finally go off, are not nearly as terrifying as the unknowability of the human psyche'' DAILY TELEGRAPHIn the seamy theatre world of 1970s New York, where rents are cheap and love is free, aspiring actor Edward Day joins his friends for a summer weekend on the New Jersey Shore. But something happens - and Edward''s life will never be the same again. He is saved from drowning by the mysterious Guy Margate, a man with whom he shares both a marked physical resemblance and an implacable attraction to the beautiful, talented, neurotic Madeleine. Ever after, in encounters provoked by envy and resentment, Edward is torn between his desire for Madeleine and his indebtedness to the querulous Guy. Professional and personal jealousies come to a head when Edward is cast opposite Madeleine in an acclaimed production of Uncle Vanya, their respective roles painfully mirroring the reality of their personal situations. As the sexual tensions of the play spill over outside the theatre walls, Guy - Edward''s reluctant saviour and now Madeleine''s husband - makes the ultimate act of protest...

''A compelling, wonderfully observed study of families and the histories from which they evolve ... a strikingly resonant and emotive novel'' TIME OUT''Serene echoes of Ian McEwan''s SATURDAY'' FINANCIAL TIMES''Mesmerizing ... a war novel that gives you a glimpse of what war might really mean ... Trespass revels in truth'' WASHINGTON POSTToby and Salome are a young, modern couple living in New York, but their backgrounds are world apart. He is a middle-class all-American boy from a family of academics; she is a Croatian refugee raised in New Orleans.When Salome unexpectedly becomes pregnant, they decide to spend their lives together and hastily marry. But finding a way to reconcile their families and pasts proves a difficult task. Toby''s mother''s deep-seated mistrust of Salome causes tension, leaving her unable to accept her new daughter-in-law. But Salome'' s past, full of dangerous secrets, is more horrifying than any of them could imagine - and the violence that destroyed her homeland is far from over...

''Spellbinding'' NEW YORK TIMES''Entrancingly good'' FINANCIAL TIMES''A narrative gift that can raise the hairs at the top of the spine'' SUNDAY TIMESIn the six stories that make up The Unfinished Novel, Valerie Martin turns an unflinching eye upon artists - driven and blocked, desired and detested, infamous and sublime, as they struggle beneath the tyranny of Art to reconcile their audience with their muse.A painter who owes his small success to a man he despises, discovers that his passivity has cost him the love that might have set him free. An actress struggles with the guilt she still feels twenty years after an affair with a young actor whose promise mysteriously vaporized after a performance of Hamlet. A starving artist inhabits a bleak netherworld, where pride is a luxury no one can afford. A writer of modest talents encounters the old love who once betrayed him; now she repels him, yet the unfinished novel she leaves in his hands may surpass anything he could ever produce himself.The last stories in the collection take us to Rome and a room with a limited view, and to a Brooklyn studio where a window opens onto limitless space. In the Eternal City an American poet is forced to choose between her lover, a dancer who has outraged academe, and a world so alien it takes her voice away. In the final story, a print maker, who has reached a certain age, enters so deeply into the magical world of her imagination that she can never find her way back.

''A masterpiece'' GUARDIAN''A wonderfully ingenious novel, compelling, convincing and exciting'' John BanvilleA mystery unsolved to this dayA mystic who confounds the cynicsA writer looking for the story that will make his nameA ghost ship appears in the mist. To the struggling author Arthur Conan Doyle, it is an inspiration. To Violet Petra, the gifted American psychic, it is a cruel reminder. To the death-obsessed Victorian public, it is a fascinating distraction. And to one family, tied to the sea for generations, it is a tragedy.In salons and on rough seas, at séances and in the imagination of a genius, these stories converge in unexpected ways as the mystery of the ghost ship deepens. But will the sea yield its secrets, and to whom?

WINNER OF THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2003Manon Gaudet is unhappily married to the owner of a Louisiana sugar plantation. She misses her family and longs for the vibrant lifestyle of her native New Orleans, but most of all, she longs to be free of the suffocating domestic situation. The tension revolves around Sarah, a slave girl who may have been given to Manon as a wedding present from her aunt, whose young son Walter is living proof of where Manon''s husband''s inclinations lie. This private drama is being played out against a brooding atmosphere of slave unrest and bloody uprisings. And if the attacks reach Manon''s house, no one can be sure which way Sarah will turn . . .Beautifully written, PROPERTY is an intricately told tale of both individual stories and of a country in a time of change, where ownership is at once everything and nothing, and where belonging, by contrast, is all.