LOVE IN IDLENESS

 
Love in Idleness.jpg

Anna stands in the doorway, waiting. There Stella sits, legs drawn up beneath her on the sofa, a cigarette wanly smoking between her fingers. She smiles at Anna, eyes almost closed, and pats the sofa beside her.

‘So. How lovely. Just us two together.’

Love in Idleness [2001] is set in London, where Anna, its young protagonist, has always wanted to live. But she knows no one there except Stella, her mother’s excitingly reckless younger sister, and soon Anna’s loneliness begins to fester. Is it wise to be thinking quite so much about Stella? And what, exactly, does Stella want?

buy the book

At your local independent bookshop or:

Waterstones Hive Foyles

Book Depository Amazon

 

Praise for love in idleness

Praise

‘With her gift for light humour, Mendelson seems to be skipping across the surface. Then she’ll suddenly dive into a world of obsession’
— INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘Charlotte Mendelson displays enough zest and flair to convince in a branch of fiction that is often slackly written... authentic – even sympathetic – portrayal of solitude’
— TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Love in Idleness is an elegant and assured debut, both a neat comedy of London manners and a poignant journey to self-discovery’
— DAILY MAIL

‘A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book... “The air is sticky with distractions” from start to finish of Love in Idleness’
—Ali Smith

‘A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book’
—Ali Smith, GLASGOW HERALD