Iris And Ruby

Description

Rich and alive with descriptions of the bustling streets of old Cairo, and the vast, foreboding desert surrounding it - "Iris and Ruby" is a stirring story of mothers, daughters and the distance between three generations of one family. Stiflingly quiet and claustrophobic, Iris Black's Cairo house is suddenly disturbed by the unexpected arrival of her troubled and wilful granddaughter, Ruby. Teenage Ruby has run away from England to seek solace with the grandmother she hasn't seen for many years. An unlikely bond is formed as the two open themselves up to one another. Ruby helps Iris document her deteriorating memories of the glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo of World War Two, a time when she lost her heart to her one true love - the enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux - and then lost him to the ravages of the war. Iris' early devastation shapes her own heart and that of her daughter and granddaughter in turn - and leads the two women into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert.

Author description

Rosie Thomas is the author of a number of celebrated novels, including the bestsellers White, The Potter's House, If My Father Loved Me and Sun at Midnight. Once she was established as a writer and her children were grown, she discovered a love of travelling and mountaineering. She has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, competed in the Peking to Paris car rally, and spent time on a tiny Bulgarian research station in Antarctica. She took inspiration for this book from a trip to Egypt and a dramatic excursion into the desert. She lives in London.