Iris and Ruby

A gripping, exotic and epic tale for fans of Dinah Jeffries and Victoria Hislop

The unexpected arrival of her willful teenage granddaughter, Ruby, brings life and disorder to 82-year-old Iris Black’s old house in Cairo. Ruby, driven away from England by her fraught relationship with her own mother, is seeking refuge with the grandmother she hasn’t seen for years.

An unlikely bond develops as Ruby helps Iris document her fading memories of the glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo of World War Two, and of her one true love – the enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux – whom she lost to the ravages of war.

This lost love shaped Iris’s past – and will affect Ruby’s future in ways they could not have imagined…

Reviews

Praise for Iris and Ruby:

‘Thomas can write with ravishing sensuality.’ KATE
SAUNDERS, The Times

‘Her evocation of the wartime [Cairo] has all the raffish, glittering brittleness of life on the edge… touches on the varieties and nuances of love betweeen men and women, and the power of family relationships to enhance and destroy lives.’ ELIZABETH BUCHAN, Daily Mail

‘Whether brilliantly conjuring the past – the colour and life of wartime Cairo, the loves and the losses, the friendships made and severed – portraying Lesley’s stifled life or capturing Ruby’s tangled emotions, Rosie Thomas creates unforgettable characters and settings. She’s a superb writer.’ Choice Magazine

‘Rosie Thomas is both a subtle and realistic author and her portrait of Iris is never less than absorbing.’ Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail

About the author

Rosie Thomas is the author of a number of celebrated novels, including the bestsellers The Kashmir Shawl, Sun at Midnight, Iris and Ruby and Constance. Once she was established as a writer and her children were grown, she discovered a love of travelling and mountaineering. She has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, competed in the Peking to Paris car rally, spent time on a tiny Bulgarian research station in Antarctica and travelled the silk road through Asia. She lives in London.