Mosquito

Tearne, Roma

Harpercollins

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

William Collins

HARPER/COLLINS

Paperback. Pages: 432 Language: English Publisher: HarperCollins UK An epic novel of love. loss and a family uprooted. set in the contrasting landscapes of war-torn Sri Lanka and immigrant London.Grace de Silva. wife of the shiftless but charming Aloysius . has five children and a crumbling marriage. Her eldest son. Jacob. wants desperately to go to England. Thornton. the most beautiful of all the children and his mothers favourite. dreams of becoming a poet. Alicia wants to be a concert pianist. Only Frieda has no ambition. other than to remain close to her family. But civil unrest is stirring in Sri Lanka and Christopher. the youngest and the rebel of the family. is soon caught up in the tragedy that follows.As the decade unfolds against a backdrop of increasing ethnic violence. Grace watches helplessly as the life she knows begins to crumble. Slowly. this once happy famil...

BONE CHINA PB

Literary

Harper-perennial

When Grace de Silva's once-prominent family loses their vast tea estate, she has little idea how everyone's life in her lush, Eden-like homeland of Sri Lanka is about to change. Her children dream of escape—Jacob, the eldest, wants desperately to go to England; Thornton longs to become a poet; Alicia wants to be a concert pianist. But civil unrest is brewing and Christopher, the youngest of the de Silva children, is soon caught up in the violence and tragedy that follows. Against a backdrop of escalating ethnic conflict, Grace watches helplessly as the life she knows begins to crumble. Slowly, this once-inseparable family is torn apart as they make the decision to emigrate to England. In London, the de Silva's are all, in their different ways, desperately homesick. Caught in a cultural clash between the traditional life they knew in the East and the jarring modernity of the West, life is not what any of them had dreamed of. Only Meeka, the first of the de Silva family to be born in England, moves confidently through a world that is full of possibilities. But even her life is not as easy as it often seems to her immigrant family. Only after she has overcome heartbreak and a terrible mistake can she finally see the extraordinary effects of history on her family's migration.  This beautifully crafted story of hope and survival will appeal to all readers of White Teeth and The Inheritance of Loss.

Bone China

Harper Press

Opening dramatically with the horrors of the 2005 London bombings, this is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child’s struggle to come to terms with loss.
London. On a bright July morning a series of bombs brings the capital to a halt. Simon Swann, a medic from one of the large teaching hospitals, is searching frantically amongst the chaos and the rubble. All around police sirens and ambulances are screaming but Simon does not hear. He is out of breath because he has been running, and he is distraught. But who is he looking for?
To find out we have first to go back thirty years to a small island in the Indian Ocean where a little girl named Alice Fonseka is learning to ride a bicycle on the beach. The island is Sri Lanka, and its community is on the brink of civil war. Alice’s life is about to change forever. Soon she will have to leave for England, abandoning her beloved grandfather, and accompanied by her mother Sita, a woman broken by a series of terrible events.
In London, Alice grows into womanhood. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she has a son. Slowly she fulfils her grandfather's prophecy and becomes an artist. Eventually she finds true love. But London in the twenty-first century is a mass of migration and suspicion. The war on terror has begun and everyone, even Simon Swann, middle class, rational, medic that he is, will be caught up in this war in the most unexpected and terrible way.

Brixton Beach

Swimmer

Harper Collins Ome

43-year-old Ria is used to being alone. All her life, she has struggled to form a meaningful relationship with any man. Her existence is a solitary one - until she discovers the swimmer. It is midnight when she first sees him, across the river. His name is Ben and he is a Sri Lankan doctor, awaiting a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application. He is also 18 years Ria's junior but despite this, their friendship steadily grows. At first, she resists anything more than his companionship, but in the long summer days that follow they are irresistibly drawn to each other. Then tragedy strikes, and in an act of violence Ria's life is changed forever.

The Swimmer

Isis Large Print

Following her critically acclaimed debut novel, Mosquito, Roma Tearne returns with a lyrical family story that crosses continents and generations to explore how our country of origin leaves an indelible mark on our present and our future. Grace de Silva, a mother of five, struggles to hold her family and her crumbling marriage together as civil unrest stirs in Sri Lanka. Her husband is charming but shiftless, and her children are poised to pursue their dreams for the future. Jacob, her eldest, wants to leave home for England, while Frieda longs to remain in her homeland. Thornton, Grace’s favourite son, dreams of becoming a poet; his sister Alicia wants to be a concert pianist. But when Grace’s youngest son, Christopher, becomes embroiled in the political tensions tearing apart the country, this once happy family is suddenly fractured. As four of the siblings make their way to London, they become caught in a cultural clash between East and West, and life as they’ve known it changes forever.

HarperCollins, Publishers

A beautiful, atmospheric novel about family, love, loss, and regret by a critically acclaimed author How deep the summer had bitten into the land that last August, how cruelly it had burnt into earth and grass and air. What had started out as a pastel and water-faded spring turning so unexpectedly into a splintering, shimmering thing. All that had been required was a spark to cause a fire. Why had no one noticed? The summer of 1939 broke the Maudsley family. Cecily was only 13-years-old and desperate to grow up; desperate to be as beautiful and desired and reckless as her older sister Rose. Now, in her 40s, the family resemblance is uncanny, but Cecily is a shadow of her former self. A part of her died that fateful summer. Returning to the deserted family farm as an adult, Cecily recalls the light before the storm, before the war came and before the terrible family tragedy. It was a summer of laughter and ice cream, promises and first love. She remembers her father’s unrequited love for her, her melancholy mother, and her brittle and argumentative aunt Kitty, and how everyone, somehow, was guarding a secret. None more so than the impossibly beautiful Rose. And in her childhood innocence, between snatches of misunderstood conversations, Cecily helps set in motion a chain of devastating events. Wandering through the family home 29 years later, Cecily hopes to lay some ghosts to rest but the past has yet to give up some shocking secrets.

The Last Pier

Hesperus Press

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Books by Tearne, Roma

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tearne, Roma. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquito

BONE CHINA PB

Bone China

Brixton Beach

Swimmer

The Swimmer

Bone China

The Last Pier