Books by Deborah Moggach
Tulip Fever: A Novel
A sensual tale of art, lust, and deception—now a major motion picture
In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy.
Cornelis yearns for an heir, but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality, he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas, a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist.
As the portrait unfolds, so a slow dance is begun among the household’s inhabitants. Ambitions, desires, and dreams breed a grand deception—and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax.
In this richly imagined international bestseller, Deborah Moggach has created the rarest of novels—a lush, lyrical work of fiction that is also compulsively readable. Seldom has a novel so vividly evoked a time, a place, and a passion.
Praise for Tulip Fever
“Sumptuous prose . . . reads like a thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review
“An artful novel in every sense of the word . . . deftly evokes seventeenth-century Amsterdam’s vibrant atmosphere.”—Los Angeles Times
“Need a brief escape into a beautiful and faraway world? Deborah Moggach’s wonderful Tulip Fever can offer you that.”—New York Post
“Taut with suspense and unexpected revelations.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Elegantly absorbing.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel (Random House Movie Tie-In Books)
Now a major motion picture starring Jude Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith.
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled, and that such amenities as water and electricity are . . . infrequent. But what their new life lacks in luxury, they come to find, it’s plentiful in adventure, stunning beauty, and unexpected love.
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This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature
by Alice Walker, China Miéville, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Michael Palin, Pankaj Mishra, J.M. Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Michael Ondaatje, Henning Mankell, Molly Crabapple, Teju Cole, Kamila Shamsie, Adam Foulds, Najwan Darwish, Linda Spalding, Mohammed Hanif, Suheir Hammad, Rachel Holmes, Deborah Moggach, Gillian Slovo, Mahmoud Darwish, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Ed Pavlic, Raja Shehadeh, Ru Freeman, Victoria Brittain, Susan Abulhawa, Jeremy Harding, Yasmin El-Rifae, Mercedes Kemp, Suad Amiry, Sabrina Mahfouz, John Horner, Bridget Keenan, Selma Dabbagh, Jehan Bseiso, Omar El-Khairy, Remi Kanazi, Maath Musleh, Ghada Karmi, Muiz, Nancy Kricorian, Nathalie Handal, Jamal Mahjoub
Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world.
The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power."
Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations.
Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.
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In The Dark A Novel
1916: Pretty young Eithne Clay runs a shabby-genteel South London boarding house while her husband is off at the War. There's Ralph, her fourteen-year old son, and Winnie the young maid, a homely, goodhearted country girl, and the lodgers, of course, a curious but necessary burden. They include blind Alwyne Flyte, communist and cynic, victim of a gas attack in the trenches. When the dreaded telegram arrives at the house, things turn from difficult to desperate for the two young women. Then along comes the butcher, Neville Turk, big handsome ladies' man, irresistible for his meat, money and brutish confidence, who throws flighty Eithne into a turmoil but has sinister plans of his own. Winnie and the blind lodger, meanwhile, conduct a strange, erotic liaison of their own. And young Ralph, ignored by his mother, looks on, feeling the undercurrents of desire, seeing more than he should. All the strands come together in a shocking denouement that turns a coward into a hero and young Ralph into a man. They're all in the dark with their dreams, secrets and fantasies, and electric light, new to their world, may be a boon but it reveals both grime and secrets. Life is tough on the home front and they're all working the system in different ways, sometimes comic sometimes tragic, always human.
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Heartbreak Hotel: A Novel
In her effortlessly winning novels Tulip Fever and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Deborah Moggach charmed readers and critics alike with her generous prose and hilarious dialogue. With Heartbreak Hotel, Moggach has triumphed once again. When retired actor Buffy decides to leave London and move to rural Wales, he has no idea what he is letting himself in for. In possession of a run-down bed and breakfast that leans more toward the shabby than the chic and is, quite literally, miles from nowhere, Buffy realizes that he needs to fill the beds―and fast. Otherwise, his vision of the pastoral countryside will go up in smoke. Enter a motley collection of guests: Harold, whose wife has run off with a younger woman; Amy, who’s been unexpectedly dumped by her (not-so) nebbishy boyfriend and Andy, the hypochondriac postman whose girlfriend is much too much for him to handle. But under Buffy’s watchful eye, this disparate group of strangers finds that they have more in common than perhaps they first thought. A charming romantic comedy that will captivate even the most determined urbanite, Heartbreak Hotel is a supreme entertainment.
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SOMETHING TO HIDE
“Classic Moggach: readable, memorable . . . an unashamedly colorful journey across continents, with clothes, food, landscapes brought joyously to life.” —The Times (London)
“Nobody in the world knows our secret . . . that I’ve ruined Bev’s life, and she’s ruined mine.”
Petra’s romantic life has always been a car crash, and even in her sixties she’s still getting it disastrously wrong. And then she falls in love with Jeremy, an old friend visiting from abroad. There’s just one catch: Jeremy is married to her best friend, Bev.
Meanwhile, on opposite sides of the world, two other women are also struggling with the weight of betrayal: Lorrie, a Texan, is about to embark on the biggest deception of her life, and in China, Li Jing is trying to understand exactly what it is her husband does on his business trips.
It turns out that no matter where you are in the world or how well you think you know the one you love, everyone has secrets.
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Final Demand: A Novel
Bestselling author Deborah Moggach, who “captures mood through careful choice of detail and has a deft sense of the grotesque” (James McNamara, The New York Times Book Review) delivers an extremely powerful novel about the consequences of greed and deceit in her gripping page-turner Final Demand.Natalie is a girl who should be going somewhere. Although beautiful, bright, and ambitious, she’s stuck in a dead-end job in the accounts department of a telecommunications company, living her life through wild weekends and yearning for something more. While processing the final notice payments on customer’s accounts, Natalie devises a simple little scam that could change her life in a major way. And since it’s only a minor crime―nobody’s going to get hurt― she doesn’t hesitate to follow through her scheme.But when Natalie’s selfish actions have tragic consequences, she learns there’s no such thing as a victimless crime. A cautionary tale that “captures the soulless sign of the times” (Jerry Broton, New York Times bestselling author), Final Demand is a beautifully written, emotionally taut story about the battle between love, envy, and misguided aspirations, and our own frailty in the face of temptation.
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