Belladonna
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
'A beguiling whirlwind of love and obsession' Elle
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It is summer, 1956, when fifteen-year-old Bridget first meets Isabella. In their conservative Connecticut town, Isabella is a breath of fresh air. She is worldly, alluring and brazen: an enigma.
When they receive an offer to study at the Academy in Italy, Bridget is thrilled. This is her ticket to Europe and - better still - a chance to spend nine whole months with her glamorous and unpredictable best friend.
There, lodged in a convent of nuns who have taken a vow of silence, the two girls move towards a passionate but fragile intimacy. As the year rolls on, Bridget grows increasingly fearful that she will lose Isabella's affections - and the more desperate she gets, the greater the lengths she will go to keep her.
Belladonna is a hypnotizing coming-of age story set against the stunning and evocative backdrop of rural Northern Italy. Anbara Salam tells a story of friendship and obsession, desire and betrayal, and the lies we tell in order to belong.
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'An enthralling tale of race, secrets and the desire to belong' i
'Lush and languid, this sultry coming-of-age tale captures a fractured friendship and the yearnings of girlhood' Daily Mail
'Raw and tender . . . this searingly honest coming of age story will steal your heart' Sunday Mirror
'The Virgin Suicides meets Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, this unputdownable and lush novel had me entranced' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the late 1950s, Salam's arresting U.S. debut centers on the relationship between dazzling, wealthy Isabella Crowley and smart yet socially inept Bridget Ryan. They meet as juniors in a Connecticut Catholic high school, where Isabella, a newcomer, is caught playing a game called Dead Nun. Bridget is infatuated with Isabella, and falsely claims she put Isabella up to it, finding favor as a result. The other girls then pretend to overlook Bridget's Egyptian, "foreign" mother and perpetually ill sister, Rhona. After Bridget and Isabella are accepted into an exchange program at an Italian academy for their senior year, Bridget's overwhelming desire to have Isabella to herself momentarily comes true, yet Isabella holds the power even after Bridget kisses her ("a ribbon spun through my body and I stiffened, daring myself not to breathe and give away the rippling feeling"). Bridget returns home shortly after arriving in Italy, though, to be with Rhona, who suffered a heart attack, and the Ryan family is horrified at the doctor's request to study Rhona's "mixed heritage."After Rhona is discharged and Bridget returns to Italy, Bridget disapproves of Isabella's new friendship with a young nun, with whom she spitefully shares compromising information about Isabella. The tender, exquisite prose brilliantly captures the feelings and fault lines in the girls' friendship. This is a discerning look at secret infatuation and racial prejudice. Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated this is the author's first book. It is in fact the author's first book to be published in America.
