The Patchwork Marriage

Dec 1, 2025 8:14 PM

Author:Jane Green

Number one best-seller Jane Green - author of The Love Verb and Spellbound - examines the dynamics of family life and relationships in her novel The Patchwork Marriage.

When he asked her to be his wife, he also wanted a mother for his children . . .

When Andi marries Ethan she gets a ready-made family in the shape of his daughters Emily and Sophia. Unable to have a child of her own, and crazy in love with Ethan, she has a chance to make the perfect family. But teenager Emily's hostility leaves Andi feeling hated in her own home.

And worse, Ethan, blinded by love for his daughter, cannot see that her behaviour is driving a wedge through their marriage. So when Andi and Ethan's world is rocked by an act of recklessness, Andi knows that their whole future is in doubt.

Can Andi and Ethan heal the rift in their relationship?

Can each of them find enough love to go around?

And how strong can a patchwork marriage ever be?

'A heartbreaking tale of love and family, truly compelling' Closer

'Green is women's fiction royalty . . . a compelling family drama' Heat

'A compulsive and moving read' Good Housekeeping

Jane Green's internationally best-selling novels, including The Other Woman, Jemima J., Babyville, Girl Friday (published as Dune Road in the USA), Life Swap (Swapping Lives), Spellbound (To Have and to Hold), The Beach House, Second Chance, Straight Talking, Mr. Maybe, and Bookends, are moving and extremely relatable. The Patchwork Marriage is published as Another Piece of My Heart in the USA.

Reviews

Fully fun, challengingly complex and entirely entertaining

—— Kirkus Reviews

A moving, often troubling exploration of faith, self-belief and identity... The writing has a rare courage. This is a novel from a skilled storyteller working at the height of his powers

—— Times Literary Supplement

Khadra has an easy-going style, and tailors his discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict to the form of a thriller. The fuse lit at the beginning of the novel crackles through the story to its clever destination

—— James Francken , Daily Telegraph

Khadra is a passionately moral writer, but he rarely sits in judgement... A magnificent novel, believable and moving

—— Literary Review

The characters are not mere mouthpieces - above all else, this is a novel about a man who feels himself betrayed. Amin Jaafie's very human drama is the heart of this thoughtful and affecting work

—— Kamila Shamsie , New Statesman

Probably Khadra's most ambitious novel to date...[the] power is in the lucidity and the intelligence of the terrorists Amin despises

—— Gerry Feehily , Independent

Outstanding novel

—— Benjamin Evans , Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

Using the language of the scriptures, Markovits depicts religion’s potential for both beauty and cruelty, and the inevitability of transgression even in the most devout life

—— Maria Crawford , Financial Times

The writing is stunning, the execution flawless and the plot utterly gripping (4 stars)

—— Helen Cullen , Stylist

An unusual, beautifully written novel

—— The Lady

A bittersweet rumination on first love ... The language soars, full of the beauty of nature and the sadness of loss

—— Marie Claire

Banville perfectly captures the spirit of adolescence, the body yearning for sexual experience, the mind blurring eroticism and emotion ... Banville is a Nabokovian artist, his prose so rich, poetic and packed with startling imagery that reading it is akin to gliding regally through a lake of praline: it's a slow, stately process, delicious and to be savoured ... This is a luminous breathtaking work

—— Independent on Sunday

Ancient Light also bears resemblance to Lolita that extend beyond the obvious hallmark ecstatic prose..different periods of his life blending into a single meditation of breathtaking beauty and profundity on love and loss and death, the final page of which brought tears.

—— The Financial Times

A beautifully written tale of youthful passion

—— Good Housekeeping

A novel about sexual awakening and the tricks that memory plays. Banville's lushly gorgeous prose enhances a mood of brooding passion in a place of secrets

—— The I

A sumptuous novel. Read it for the sentences and smarts, and for the copious sexy parts

—— Richard Ford , Guardian, Books of the Year

Everything I want from a love story: sexy, convincing, baffling, funny, sad and unforgettable

—— Juliet Nicholson , Evening Standard, "Books of the Year"

Banville's exquisitely written novel unravels the deceptions of memory with wit and pathos

—— Telegraph

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