Lover
A Novel
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Kate—a wife, a mother of two, and a senior executive at a multinational hotel company—has made caring for others her life’s work, and she’s good at it. But when she opens her husband’s computer to find a series of email exchanges with an unknown woman, it all begins to fall apart. After ten years of marriage, Kate is forced to take a closer look at her relationship with her husband, and she must ask herself: How well do I really know him?
Things begin to spiral at work, too, with the political machinations in the office reaching an increasingly Shakespearean level of drama and ferocity. Kate gets caught between the ravings of power-hungry bosses and her job, which is to make the hotel guests happy. With both her work and home lives crumbling around her, Kate, for the first time, begins to think about what it is she really wants: from her husband, from her job, from her life.
Lover, the British writer Anna Raverat’s U.S. debut, is an observation of love, work, and life as seen through the lens of a troubled marriage. With the irresistible wit of Emma Straub’s The Vacationers, the compelling candor of Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and no shortage of brightening humor, Raverat paints an acute portrait of the female psyche, freshly exploring intimacy and the politics of work. Intellectually rich and captivatingly poignant, Lover is the powerful story of a woman making her way in the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A woman searches for her true self amid the wreckage of a crumbling marriage and the hollow successes of a burgeoning career in British writer Raverat's beautiful, fast-paced U.S. debut. Kate Pedley is blindsided when she finds emails written by her husband, Adam, to another woman. She probes their recent past, uncovering secrets she cannot ignore, lies she cannot forgive, and mistakes on both sides that she cannot undo. Kate's career as an executive at a hotel chain becomes a refuge from everything, including her young daughters, who struggle to navigate their new normal. But even Kate's job is treacherous. As a corporate power game escalates, Kate must stop being a bystander in her own life and decide if she's the type of person who mends what is broken or makes something new. Raverat's prose is lyrical and to-the-point, punctuating Kate's transformation with vivid memories, wisdom from friends, and revelations from unexpected sources. To leave the place where "being seen in despair more painful than the despair itself," to reach the "outer reaches of love," Kate strives to find the self she has walled away beneath habit and complacency. Raverat's portrayal of Kate's "excavation, unswerving," into the forgotten, unsung corners of independence is a realistic and moving tale of finding oneself in the tatters of romantic and professional strife.
