Black And Blue | Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

Black And Blue

Nov 10, 2025 3:21 PM

Author:Anna Quindlen

Black And Blue

'The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old.'

For eighteen years Fran Benedetto kept her secret, hid her bruises. She stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father, and because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice - she ran for both their lives.

Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby. She uses a name that isn't hers, watches over her son, and tries to forget. For the woman who now calls herself Beth, every day is a chance to heal, to put together the pieces of her shattered self. And every day she waits for Bobby to catch up with her. Bobby always said he would never let her go, and Fran Benedetto is certain of one thing: it is only a matter of time.

Reviews

Quindlen invests her tale with rare pathos and even rarer psychological acumen ... the honesty of her storytelling is exemplary

—— Sunday Telegraph

Quindlen has got so deeply inside her characters that they gave me nightmares

—— The Times

Don't miss Anna Quindlen's compassionate portrayal of a violent marriage

—— Marie Claire

It is rare to find a novel at once tender and taut, full of insight, yet with a darkness at its centre - and that's what makes it a gripping read

—— Margaret Forster

Beautifully paced - keeps the reader anxiously turning the pages.

—— New York Times Book Review

I loved it. Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart that one is carried away on a tidal wave of involvement and concern

—— Elizabeth Jane Howard

Engrossing - compassionate and tense.

—— New York Times

Writing with great verve and charm, Belgium-based Unigwe describes the parameters of a half-life where dreams of big houses and plait extensions help to block out a grubby reality

—— Independent

Haunting story... Sometimes a novel can tell you more than any amount of documentary journalism.

—— The Observer

Sobering... the humiliations endured by the quartet are forcefully driven home by Unigwe.

—— Sunday Times

A very superior work of women's fiction... an exceedingly skilled analysis of the relationship between different generations of women and how the power shifts as the old, as they must, get old and the young move on... it is a story told beautifully

—— SUNDAY EXPRESS

The legendary Ms Trollope triumphs yet again, with her latest slick of classy chick-lit

—— HEAT

This thoroughly engaging, intelligent, literate novel

—— WASHINGTON POST

The brilliantly observed portrayal of family life is wonderfully compelling - and a story many will be able to identify with. ****

—— CLOSER

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