Maria in the Moon

By Louise Beech

A devastating flood reawakens a young woman’s buried childhood memories … with life-changing results. A dark, warmly funny and deeply moving novel from the bestselling author of How To Be Brave and The Lion Tamer Who Lost.

***LoveReading Book of the Year***
***Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize***

'Part psychological thriller, part love story and fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine will love it' Red Magazine

‘Storytelling at its finest, Louise Beech is a beguiling wordsmith. Prepare to be hooked’ Amanda Prowse

‘Beautifully constructed, laugh-out-loud funny in places, achingly sad in others, I completely fell in love’ John Marrs

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‘Like a cold spider, the memory stirred in my head and spun an icy web about my brain. Someone else crawled in. I remembered’

Thirty-on-year-old Catherine Hope has a great memory. But she can’t remember everything. She can’t remember her ninth year. She can’t remember when her insomnia started. And she can’t remember why everyone stopped calling her Catherine-Maria.

With a promiscuous past, and licking her wounds after a painful breakup, Catherine wonders why she resists anything approaching real love. But when she loses her home to the devastating deluge of 2007 and volunteers at Flood Crisis, a devastating memory emerges … and changes everything.

Dark, poignant and deeply moving, Maria in the Moon is an examination of the nature of memory and truth, and the defences we build to protect ourselves, when we can no longer hide…

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‘Some books seem to fly under the radar and catch you completely by surprise, which is exactly what Louise Beech’s Maria in the Moon did. Brilliantly written and incredibly moving, Beech captures the nature of memory and truth with an honest poignancy’ CultureFly

'Quirky, darkly comic, but always heartfelt, this original and sad story has wonderful characters and will linger long in your memory' Sunday Mirror

‘A powerful and moving story’ Madeleine Black

‘Heartfelt and wry, this will transport you into a keenly observed world; secrets are hidden, people are flawed, but humanity endures’ Ruth Dugdall

• Language: English
• Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS
• Release date: Jul 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781910633830

Louise Beech

Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. The follow-up, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.

Reviews for Maria in the Moon

[dubaireader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"It's not love unless it hurts".This was all set to be a 3 star read for me, until about the last third, when it rewarded my perseverance with an excellent ending. Until that, I had enjoyed the relationships between the volunteers in the crisis line office, but was not really inspired by the characters ringing in for help nor the interactions between Catherine's family members.The book is set immediately after the floods that inundated Hull in 2007, and Catherine is staying with her friend Fern while her house dries and the necessary repairs are made. She has helped on Crisis lines before and volunteers to provide support on Flood Crisis, a phone line set up to help those devastated by the floods. Between answering the phone to flood victims, she battles with her own demons and her inability to form any lasting relationships. For some reason she can't recall any of her ninth year and this weighs on her mind between phone calls and Sunday lunches with her 'mother' (her deceased father's wife).I'd never thought much about crisis lines and this book was a bit of an eye-opener on the subject - rules prevent the volunteers from getting too close to callers and they are not permitted to give advice, just to listen and encourage. it is Flood Crisis that draws this novel together into a cohesive whole, and prompts the inevitable ending that we can feel the book drawing towards. Although it is fairly evident why Catherine is struggling, the reveal was well handled and had me turning the pages with increased speed.