The Bride's Farewell

Name: The Bride's Farewell
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Meg Rosoff
ISBN: 9781101079416

Author: Meg Rosoff

Narrator: Susan Duerden

Unabridged: 5 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 08/06/2009

Categories: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A young woman runs away from home and finds love in the most unexpected place

In Meg Rosoff's fourth novel, a young woman in 1850s rural England runs away from home on horseback the day she's to marry her childhood sweetheart. Pell is from a poor preacher's family and she's watched her mother suffer for years under the burden of caring for an ever-increasing number of children. Pell yearns to escape the inevitable repetition of such a life.

She understands horses better than people and sets off for Salisbury Fair, where horse trading takes place, in the hope of finding work and buying herself some time. But as she rides farther away from home, Pell's feelings for her parents, her siblings, and her fiancé surprise her with their strength and alter the course of her travels. And her journey leads her to find love where she least expects it.

Rosoff's magical voice and her novel's ethereal setting will thrill her passionate longtime fans and garner her new ones.

About The Author

Meg Rosoff grew up in Boston and worked in advertising for fifteen years before writing her first novel, How I Live Now, which has sold more than one million copies in thirty-six territories. It won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Printz Award, was short-listed for the Orange Prize and made into a film. Her subsequent five novels have been awarded or short-listed for, among others, the Carnegie Medal and the National Book Award. The laureate of the 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, she lives in London with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. Her most recent novel is Jonathan Unleashed.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ceilidh on May 26, 2011

I love Meg Rosoff’s work. “How I Live Now” and “Just In Case” were refreshing and vibrant, with a fascinating layer of unease throughout the simple but highly effective prose. Both books received mass acclaim, both from teens and adults, and many literary awards, such as the Carnegie Medal and Print......more

Goodreads review by Debbie on April 25, 2011

I think both the picture on the cover and the cover blurbs do this rather remarkable and extremely UN-romantic novel a disservice. They make it sound like a rollicking, romantic romp, and those who come to it with those expectations will be sorely disappointed. I admit to beginning it with those pre......more

Goodreads review by Mary on August 30, 2010

I loved this and lapped it up in a night, like ice cream. Set in the middle of the 19th century in some wild back of beyond British setting right out of Hardy, it tells a fairy like tale of Pell, a 17 year old bride to be who flees a future that she knows will confine her like a coffin: marriage and......more

Goodreads review by Angie on August 26, 2009

When I'm opening up a new Meg Rosoff novel I literally never know what to expect. In a good way. She never tells the same story twice. She does generally center her stories around a character who feels ambivalent, anxious, or sometimes downright disenchanted with his or her world. She explores theme......more

Goodreads review by Paradoxical on December 06, 2009

Bleakkkk is pretty much the word I think of when I read this book. The heroine runs away from her impending marriage with a horse and her brother, but life afterward isn't a happy one. It's very bleak and grim and for every half-decent turn, the heroine gets beaten down a little further later. I did......more

Quotes

“Rosoff’s prose is strong and muscular, its cadence that of a horse’s canter, its chiming tone ballad-like. Teens will be enthralled by Pell and her archetypal quest; adults will revel in the novel’s canny wit, lyricism and piercing insights.”
—LA Times

“Pell’s tale is slim yet rich, like a flourless chocolate cake. The lyrical passages and the strange and wonderful characters will linger with you long after the covers are closed. You’ll be tempted to devour the book in one gulp, to read it in one sitting, when really, it should be savored.”
—St Petersburg Times

“Another shift in emphasis for this always revelatory author as she illuminates the lives of the rural poor in the world of Hardy’s Wessex… it is not necessary to love horses, but you probably will after reading it.”
—The Bookseller

“Pell Ridley will captivate the readers of this book.”
—The Globe and Mail

“Rosoff specializes in feisty heroines, and her main character here, Pell Ridley, is no exception.”
—The Guardian (London)

“Meg Rosoff is a wonderful, captivating writer--her evocation of place and time are pitch-perfect.”
—Daily Telegraph (London)

“As exhilarating as a ride across the moors, Rosoff's fourth novel is rich in the emotional landscape of the untamed female heart. . . . Rosoff's vivid, pared-down style brings it closer to a kind of western . . . every sentence is crafted and weighted with beauty, but it's the intelligence and shaping sensibility with which the story is told that make it something special.”
—The Times (London)

“Rosoff specializes in feisty heroines, and her main character here, Pell Ridley, is no exception…. Rosoff never patronises her readership or succumbs to the desire to make goodness seem simple: her world is as morally ambiguous as it is deftly realized, and all the better for it.”
—The Guardian (London)