Author(s): Rosie Thomas

General fiction

Best-selling author Rosie Thomas will not fail to delight old and new fans alike, with her stunning new novel Iris and Ruby. Set in the surrounds of Cairo, Iris and Ruby is a stirring story of family relationships spanning three generations. Fragility and forgetfulness have left 82-year-old Iris vulnerable and in the care of her manservant, Mamdooh. Stiflingly quiet and claustrophobic, Iris' Cairo house is suddenly disturbed by the unexpected arrival of her troubled and wilful granddaughter, Ruby, who, labouring under a fraught relationship with her family, has run away from England to seek solace with the grandmother she hasn't seen for many years. An unlikely bond arises as the two women open themselves up to one another and Ruby helps Iris document her deteriorating memories of the vibrant life she enjoyed in Cairo during World War Two, a time when she lost her heart to her one true love-the enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux-and then lost him to the ravages of the war. This early devastation of Iris' heart precipitated a disastrously compensatory marriage and the birth of Ruby's mother, thus shaping the lives of all three women. It is the need to recover Iris' past and solidify Ruby's present that leads the two women into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert. With skilfully intertwined narratives, written from the points of view of both Iris and Ruby, Rosie Thomas has created a characteristically atmospheric novel, rich and alive with descriptions of the bustling streets of Cairo and the vast, foreboding desert surrounding it. It is a highly moving story spanning three generations of one family.