Buy The Brink of Something Beautiful at your favourite independent bookstore and:
Please remember that independent booksellers need our support to survive.
Praise for The Brink of Something Beautiful
-
“Bobbi French’s The Brink of Something Beautiful is a massively tender, heart pounding take on family, gender-based violence, and the messiness of love. It’s about mothers, lovers, friends, the spectacular failings of the child welfare system; about survival and how even the smallest kindnesses can cause people to step away from the brink toward something beautiful. I cannot think of the last time I’ve read such a multi-faceted evocation of what it means to love with everything you’ve got, despite all the risks. It’s clear-eyed, unsentimental, honest and wise. But bring the tissues. This will be the best book you read this year, and for a long time afterward!”
-
“This book is an anthem of women: women in strength, women in crisis, women in grief, women in love and most powerfully, women in solidarity with each other. Beautiful, thoughtful, layered. Brava, Bobbi French!”
-
“In Bobbi French’s second novel, women face complicated choices and their often catastrophic consequences. The Brink of Something Beautiful is a heart-wrenching, yet heartwarming, ode to the brave women who battle stormy waters and find ways to make it safely to the other side. French’s trademark powerful, lyrical storytelling is at play once again.”
-
“The Brink of Something Beautiful is intimate and tender, full of found family, hope, and brave and broken women who stand up for themselves and others with love, laughter and not a small amount of daring. A delightful read that’ll have you smiling one moment, crying the next, then giggling through your tears, but a hard read, too, in the best way. Bobbi French doesn’t shy away from the heartbreaking realities of life, while gently reminding us of the power of connection.
I blazed through the pages of this book, choosing it over my favourite shows, over sleep, often thinking about the next chance I’d have to visit its pages and carving in short moments throughout my day to make sure I did. Perfect for fans of Ethan Joella, this book is a joy.”
-
“This is not a story of heroines or saints, but of women as they truly are; flawed, funny, tender and tough. Between laughter and loss, between what’s said and swallowed, French finds the extraordinary in the ordinary. This book is a triumph of resilience and realism, and a necessary reminder of how remarkable the power every “ordinary” woman has.”
-
“We meet Ruby Nolan on the day of her husband’s funeral. What unfolds in this beautifully rendered novel is a portrait of a complicated woman caught between grief and freedom, duty and desire. Bobbi French understands the human heart.”
Buy The Good Women of Safe Harbour at your favourite independent bookstore and:
Please remember that independent booksellers need our support to survive.
Translations are now becoming available…
Praise for The Good Women of Safe Harbour
-
“An engaging novel with an unforgettable main character. Frances Delaney has lived a “small” life, but as she responds to a devastating diagnosis, her rich and moving story unfolds. We learn the secrets of Frances’s past and how she makes peace with those secrets, and we also see how that past shaped the woman she has become. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, this is one of the most sensitive fictional portrayals of the end of life that I’ve ever read.”
-
“The Good Women of Safe Harbour will break your heart and mend it back together again. In this novel, set beside the changeable Newfoundland sea, Frances Delaney reckons with the question of how to make life worth living even as she nears the end of hers. With the help of her long-lost best friend, Annie and the irrepressible teenager, Edie, Frances emerges from a self-imposed loneliness to learn that the only thing that truly endures is the unabiding love they hold for each other. Bobbi French is a master storyteller, as she gently leads us to Frances’ final lesson with humour, compassion and grace.”
-
“An absolutely soul-comforting meditation on what’s possible when there’s nothing left to lose. Rich, lively, surprising, warm, and wise, the voice of Frances Delaney won me wholly. I couldn’t put this book down, and its message of embodied healing will stay with me. A cathartic and uplifting story about friendship, forgiveness, and healing.”
-
“Bobbi French brings an authentic eye to a tender truth: whatever our woes, it is never too late to lay down what we are carrying. A poignant, deeply arresting, and often funny portrayal of female friendships, even those that get lost, for a time, somewhere along the way.”
-
“Bobbi French has created an unforgettable character in Frances Delaney. Facing the premature end of her solitary life, Frances chooses to die on her own terms, assisted by two good women – her childhood friend Annie, with whom she has recently reconciled, and the savvy teenaged Edie. The final revelation in this deeply moving debut will leave you stunned, satisfied, and reaching for a box of tissues.”
-
“So vividly imagined, it was as if I carried the characters’ worries and hopes in my own heart. Set in an unforgettable landscape, brimming with insights, Bobbi French’s warm, honest prose makes even the most tragic secrets and events shimmer and lift.”
-
“In turns moving and funny, The Good Women of Safe Harbour is a heartfelt story of a woman who is determined to live what life she has left as if it is only beginning. Whether for the tears or laughter, you’ll want to keep a Kleenex box handy for this one. In lyrical prose and with a character voice that sings, Bobbi French offers a story that’s all about forgiveness and the power of friendship between women. But this novel is also a call to reawaken the wonder found in the everyday world all around us. As Frances Delaney swims through her memories and surfaces reborn, she learns to make even the smallest experience count in her final days. In sharing that journey with her, you’ll feel more alive and so much more here, in this precious, shining moment. This novel is a reminder to pay attention as we move through our day, to phone a friend or sister, to find connection and touch and meaning in our ordinary routines. Because life is made of these moments.”
-
“The Good Women of Safe Harbour lets you meet Frances Delaney gently, almost formally. That’s a kindness. None of that prepares you for a book that, as it quickly reaches take-off speed, quite simply won’t let you go.”
Praise for Finding Me in France
-
“I devoured this book and enjoyed myself so much I poured another glass and read it all again.” (Read the whole article.)
-
“Bobbi French writes a hilarious tale of starting over that will tempt you to run away and join the circus. Or for people like me who did, it will convince you that you did the right thing. If you wondered what Eat, Pray, Love would be like if David Sedaris wrote it… This book is for you!”
-
“In Finding Me in France, Bobbi French delivers a fresh, honest and downright hilarious perspective on what it’s like to pack up an entire life and start over in a small town in France. Her tales of setting up shop in the land of croissants, verb conjugations, and mortgage applications will have you laughing out loud, yearning for a pain au chocolat, and plotting a trip (or a move!) back to France.”
-
“Finding Me in France is a thoughtful, funny, engaging memoir. If the prose doesn’t make you you want to run away to France, the pictures definitely will.”
-
“A delicious book … You can taste it all through her scrumptious stories and sumptuous photos. The taste is fresh and original … I fell in love with this book.”
