Product Description

Lewis has a problem, and it won't go away. For the last twenty years, he has been haunted by the memory of his brother, by a stolen car and a river running full, and most of all by the boy at the wheel. Carl Finn, sociopath, liar, and drug runner, has remained his enemy. Lewis's life is one of self-torment and introversion, all darkness and no light until he meets Anna. Anna is haunted too, but her ghost is very much alive. Rita, Anna's mother, is the exact opposite of her daughter. Loud, carefree, a daredevil, at seventy-six and with a boarding house to run, she really ought to take more care. Rita has suffered a fall, which forces Anna to leave London and spend the winter looking after her mother in Yarmouth. It would be straightforward, were it not for Vernon, a retired actor and bon vivant, who behaves more like Rita's boyfriend than a paying guest. Despite Anna's protestations, the two live every day as if it might be their last. Into this environment of carousing and cocktails stumbles Lewis, set to find the person responsible for his brother's death. He recognizes in Anna a kindred spirit, and she in him. As they search for solutions to their problems, Anna and Lewis find themselves having to face troubling truths about who they are and what they might become with electrifying consequences. Told against the backdrop of the Norfolk coast, with its massive skies and devastating sea, "Winterton Blue" is an enthralling novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of "The Hiding Place" and "Remember Me". In prose that touches the sublime, "Trezza Azzopardi" tells a moving, funny and sad story, one that never lets the reader go.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #516344 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Sunday Herald
'[her] style has become formidable - the absence of quotation
marks and spare, controlled dialogue allows for unbroken, fluid prose.'

Red magazine
'A haunting tale of two people struggling with their pasts'

Eve
'Funny, bizarre and addictive.'

Customer Reviews

Great book and love story
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

An average read
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.