Perfect

byRachel Joyce, Paul Rhys (Read by)

From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

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In 1972, two seconds were added to time. It was in order to balance clock time with the movement of the earth. Byron Hemming knew this because James Lowe had told him and James was the cleverest boy at school. But how could time change? The steady movement of hands around a clock was as certain as their golden futures.

Then Byron’s mother, late for the school run, makes a devastating mistake. Byron’s perfect world is shattered. Were those two extra seconds to blame? Can what follows ever be set right?

A near-flawless novel of emotional truth. Joyce executes this story with precision and flair... Its unputdownable factor lies in its exploration of so many multilayered emotions... It is her clever did-I-read-that-right twist at the end that really got to me and had me scrabbling back through the chapters, open-mouthed.
Evening Standard

Joyce's faith in the essential goodness of humanity and her observation of the comedy in the everyday shine through... This is a darker, more complex novel than Joyce's first but readers will find other points of comparison. Not least a twist that few will see coming and will leave you reeling; and a redemptive ending that is perhaps the sweeter given all the pain that goes before. An instant classic, Perfect confirms Rachel Joyce as a major new British literary voice.
Daily Express

What’s right with it? You’ll fall in love with the characters. They’re kind, anxious, flawed, funny and wonderful. Also, knowing that the two stories will have to meet builds a wonderful sense of tension. What’s wrong with it? Nothing. It’s brilliant. Even the fact that Byron is convinced that scientists tried to slip an extra two seconds into time is a wonderful hook for all the decisions he goes on to make. Verdict: Uplifting, engaging, sad and funny. A perfect follow-up to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.
Heat magazine's #1 book to be reading right now (July)

This book is hard in every sense... But persevere and plough on alongside Byron (who you’ll find you want to stay with, as if by continuing to read him you might be able to protect him somehow, or at least keep him company), and the reward is a redemptive ending of such tenderness that after 300-odd pages of darkness you will end up grinning dippily and recommending this wild, searching book to everyone you know.
The Times

About Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North, The Music Shop, Miss Benson's Beetle, and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories.
Rachel’s books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The critically acclaimed film of the novel, for which Rachel also wrote the screenplay, was released in 2023. Miss Benson’s Beetle won the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize in 2021. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards New Writer of the Year in December 2012 and was shortlisted for the UK Author of the Year in 2014. In 2024 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kingston University.
Rachel has written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family near Stroud.

Details

Imprint: RH AudioGo
Published: 18/07/2013
ISBN: 9781448160198
Length: 680 minutes
Price: £11.00

All editions

Paperback 2014
Ebook 2013
Audio Download 2013

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Perfect

From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Format:

Buy the book from:

The power of Joyce's prose lies in small, astute observations... [her] subtle touches give the book an intense, slightly mesmeric feel. **Tense and engrossing... readers who loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry will not be disappointed.**

Diana herself is faultless. She is to Perfect what Harold Fry was to [The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry]: a fully rounded hero, someone to fall in love with and argue about, cherish and admonish, as though she were real... If only there were more novelists like Rachel Joyce

Brilliantly realized... a powerful study of grief, loss, guilt, depression, mental illness - and ultimately the power of love - which grips the reader on every page.

Colonising the territory occupied by Catherine O'Flynn and Clare Morrall, Perfect is marked by effortless storytelling, droll side-swipes at the oddities of human behaviour and the use of simple, unaffected imagery that manages to plumb deep emotion... it will move and enchant.

This month's best book. 3 reasons to read Perfect: for real characters you'll fall in love with... for a book that will keep you asking questions... to question the nature of mistakes.

Full of compassion... the heartbreaking story of how two lives are derailed by a split-second mistake.

About Rachel Joyce

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