Western Lane

**'A beautiful and evocative novel about grief, about growing up, about losing and winning. The people and places in this book will stay with me for a long time.' - Sally Rooney, author of Normal People

A Times Best Paperback of the Year
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the William Hill Award
A BBC Arts & The Reading Agency's Big Sporting Read selection
Selected by Dua Lipa as one of Service95's 'Books of the Year'

A deeply moving novel about grief, sisterhood and a teenage girl's struggle to transcend herself.**

Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.

But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.

**An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo's Western Lane is an exploration of the closeness of sisterhood, the immigrant experience, and the collective overcoming of grief.

A 'Book of the Year' in The Economist, The Independent, The Week, The New York Times and The Guardian**

**'With this gorgeous debut, Maroo blows most of the competition off the court.' - The Times

'Stunning . . . Spare, tender, brilliantly achieved' - The Guardian**