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A Family Matter
- Author
- Claire Lynch
- Narrator
- Miranda Raison
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 29 May 2025
- Run Time
- 4 hours 41 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Narrative theme: love / relationships, Family life fiction / Stories about family, Narrative theme: social issues / social problems, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
- Rating
- 5.0 (2 reviews)
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
**Winner of the Nero Book Awards Gold Prize Book of the Year 2025**
A mother following her heart
A father with the law on his side
A child caught in the middle
It’s 2022, and Heron, an old man of quiet habits, has just had the sort of visit to the doctor that turns a life upside down. Sharing the diagnosis with Maggie, his only daughter, seems impossible. Heron just can’t find the words to tell her about it, or any of the other things he’s been protecting her from for so long.
It’s 1982, and Dawn is a young wife and mother penned in by the expectations of her time and place. Then Hazel comes into her life like a torch in the dark. It’s the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected. But Dawn has responsibilities, she has commitments: Dawn has Maggie.
A Family Matter is an immersive and tender debut, at once heart-breaking and hopeful, that asks how we might heal from the wounds of the past, and what we might learn from them.
© Claire Lynch 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
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'Lynch’s debut burns like a sparkler, quick and mesmerizing.'
New York Times
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Affecting... Distilling sadness and hope , Lynch movingly weighs the gifts and costs of the era into which a person is born
Mail on Sunday
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'I was caught up from the first page, and completely taken aback by this story of restraint and 'civilised' behaviour, and things unsaid. I loved it’
Clare Chambers
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‘A wonderful novel: profoundly sad but also absolutely gripping… it manages to be damning about a culture and a system whilst being compassionate towards the human beings pitted against each other inside that system’
Mark Haddon
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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'A beautiful and tender exploration of parental love, prejudice and the things we carry that we don’t even fully understand; the terrible decisions made in ignorance, and the almost unbearable consequences'
Rachel Joyce
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Gorgeous writing, beautifully told. From the first lines I was caught up in this family's net, the half-truths, the lies, and the love
Claire Fuller
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Explores love and loss, intimacy and justice, custody and care…it’s brilliant, I couldn’t put it down
Woman's Hour
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I smiled. I cried. I raged. Claire Lynch has written an un-put-downable novel, and I want everyone to read it. Lynch takes part of our recent history of shame and stigma, and makes it real and beautiful and moving and challenging. Every page sings out with empathy and love, pain and honesty. And the writing - so precise, so deceptively simple, so beautiful in its tiny moments - makes the pages speed by. This book will make you look differently at the world.'
Emilie Pine
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'To tackle heart-wrenching emotion with such precision and restraint takes one hell of a talent. An impeccable debut that takes the mess of life and turns it into something quite beautiful. A timely reminder of love’s redemptive power. I was blown away by this novel.'
Lotte Jeffs
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I’m full of admiration for this novel, which strikes the satisfying balance of being both quietly observed and deeply felt. It’s an intimate portrait of expectation, love and restraint written with great sensitivity and warmth. I adored it.'
Chloe Ashby
User Reviews
Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
-
5.0 5.0
Well done Claire Lynch for bringing these issues up in a novel especially for younger folk. In a novel it was so much easier to comprehend how bigoted, dangerous and discriminatory our society was and it wasn’t really that long ago. I was almost scared to read on as I knew and dreaded what would happen. Thank goodness this has changed but we have to be mindful that legislation can turn on a sixpence depending on who holds power.
I am also eternally grateful for those who came just before mePammy1962 2026-04-01 -
5.0 5.0
Heartbreaking and stunning
nottoobusy 2025-10-20
Details
- Author
- Claire Lynch
- Narrator
- Miranda Raison
- Duration
- 4 hours 41 minutes
- Release Date
- 29 May 2025
- ISBN
- 9781529946444
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Narrative theme: love / relationships, Family life fiction / Stories about family, Narrative theme: social issues / social problems, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
- Rating
- 5.0(2 reviews)
- Narration
- 5.0(2 reviews)
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.**Winner of the Nero Book Awards Gold Prize Book of the Year 2025**A mother following her heartA father with the law on his sideA child caught in the middleIt’s 2022, and Heron, an old man of quiet habits, has just had the sort of visit to the doctor that turns a life upside down. Sharing the diagnosis with Maggie, his only daughter, seems impossible. Heron just can’t find the words to tell her about it, or any of the other things he’s been protecting her from for so long.It’s 1982, and Dawn is a young wife and mother penned in by the expectations of her time and place. Then Hazel comes into her life like a torch in the dark. It’s the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected. But Dawn has responsibilities, she has commitments: Dawn has Maggie.A Family Matter is an immersive and tender debut, at once heart-breaking and hopeful, that asks how we might heal from the wounds of the past, and what we might learn from them.© Claire Lynch 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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