Published in 2022
280 pages
Cressida Connolly is a reviewer and journalist, who has written for Vogue, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Guardian and numerous other publications. Connolly is the author of three books: The Happiest Days, which won the MacMillan/PEN Award, The Rare and the Beautiful and My Former Heart.
What is this book about?
‘Haunting and beautiful… In recent British fiction I can think only of Tessa Hadley who rivals Connolly in exacting such intricate, compelling drama from close-knit families… I don’t often wish a book were longer, but this one I did’ Observer
On the battlefields of the Crimea, William Gale cradles the still-warm body of his brother. William’s experience of war will bring about a change in him that will reverberate through his family over the next two centuries.
In the 1970s, William’s descendants invite Stephen, a distant relation, to stay in their house in the English countryside – but their golden summer entanglements will end in a shocking fall from grace.
Half a century later, a confrontation between the surviving members of the family will culminate in a terrible reckoning.
‘The characters in Bad Relations are so brilliantly real, so wonderfully compelling at their best, and at their worst, that I can’t get them out of my head. A wonderful novel’ Nina Stibbe
