Books

Joanna Nadin’s first novel for adults, The Queen of Bloody Everything, is about mothers, daughters and how we can make many choices in life but can’t choose where we come from.

As Edie Jones lies in a bed on the fourteenth floor of a Cambridge hospital, her adult daughter Dido tells their story, starting with the day that changed everything.

That was the day Dido – aged exactly six years and twenty-seven days old – met the next door neighbours and fell in love.

Because the Trevelyans were exactly the kind of family Dido dreamed of.
Normal.

Longlisted for the Guardian‘s ‘Not the Booker’ 2018

Shortlisted for the 2018 Hearst Magazines’ Big Book Awards

‘The book expertly follows funny and chubby six-year-old Dido into adulthood, swinging from gentle comedy towards something sadder, and wiser… a must-read.’

– The Independent

‘Tender and with a wince-inducing evocation of adolescence, you’ll fall for awkward Dido as surely as she falls for the boy next door. Cleverly crafted and beautifully written.’

– Sunday Mirror

‘This bittersweet coming of age novel is both achingly romantic and painfully real, as well as one of the best accounts of the mother-daughter bond that I have ever read.’

– Ruth Ware, author of The Lying Game and The Death of Mrs Westaway