Amanda - by H S Cross (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Love is the only lifeline.

"A historical romance of a grand, old-fashioned and very British variety, with hints of L.P. Hartley, D.H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh... Compelling and ultimately convincing, which is one of the most difficult things a love story can be."--Mary Marge Locker, The New York Times Book Review

Post-WWI England is a nation in upheaval, its foundations shaken by the Great War and the collapse of genteel Edwardian society. The streets are haunted by shell-shocked men, runaways, mutilated veterans, damned poets, and revolutionaries.

Marion has fled Galway for Oxford after her elopement with a violent man ended violently. In the City of Dreaming Spires, where the cobbled streets, barely lit pubs, and underground book presses hum with restless energy, she meets Jamie, a damaged soul like her who is struggling to recover from his experiences at the front. He alone sees her scars. She alone knows his secret name. Their love is wild, anarchic, dangerous, absolute. Everything, it seems, is at stake. When the "talkers" in Marion's head get too loud and the circumstances of her life too dire, she disappears, leaving Jamie bereft and without word. But their love is like gravity--an undeniable force pitted against the dark forces that would keep them apart.

At once an erotic drama, a formally inventive romantic epic, and a historical novel written with an emotional intensity that bears comparison to classics like Wuthering Heights, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, and Madame Bovary, Amanda is a poignant, atmospheric meditation on love, trauma, and redemption. H.S. Cross delivers an unforgettable novel on the infinite varieties of human experience.

Review Quotes

Praise for Amanda

"A historical romance of a grand, old-fashioned and very British variety, with hints of L.P. Hartley, D.H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh--an impressive feat for an American author writing many decades after them... Compelling and ultimately convincing, which is one of the most difficult things a love story can be."--Mary Marge Locker, The New York Times Book Review

★ "In 1926 England, two people--a young woman desperate to avoid her former lover and that former lover, equally desperate to find her--struggle with despair and spiritual doubt... Cross tackles such small issues as faith, the Easter Rebellion, and British classism... That Cross' voice--some combination of Edna O'Brien, Muriel Spark, and maybe a pinch of Jane Austen--comes from a contemporary American writer is hard to believe. Mesmerizing, haunting, hopeful."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"It's an intoxicating drama about two damaged individuals finding love in post-World War I England... Cross impresses with original descriptions and deft examinations of the agony and ecstasy of love. This is a book that appeals to hearts and minds."--Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"At once as a mysterious romance, a psychological portrait of two fractured protagonists, and an utterly convincing, inside-out look at an England navigating the heat and the shadows of The Great War... A propellent, engaging, complex work of literature that inhabits, rather than uses, its time period. Amanda, like history itself, is truly original."--D. W. White, Chicago Review of Books

"Sizzling with restrained eroticism, Amanda is about two lovers driven apart by secrets and brought together again by irrepressible need... A scintillating historical novel about the potential revival of a star-crossed love."--Foreword Reviews

"Cross delivers an intense psychological drama set in the aftermath of WWI, when an English headmaster searches for the woman he fell for when he was at Oxford... It's a nuanced tale of love and loss."--Publishers Weekly

"Cross writes with an eloquent lyrical tone that penetrates through the storyline for a profound literary work. Readers will be entranced by the wounded lovers and by Cross' writing style, reminiscent of classic works like Jane Eyre and Rebecca."--Booklist

Praise for H.S. Cross

"For Anglophiles, seekers, and those who enjoy the insular world of C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers novels and the haunting power of Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending."--Jen Baker, Booklist on Wilberforce

"This ambitious and accomplished debut is part historical, part bildungsroman, part psychological study, and part English boarding-school novel...VERDICT: This convincingly handled work is recommended for all fans of coming-of-age novels."--Library Journal on Wilberforce

"Cross writes with a beautiful precision... The author crafts passages of agonizing psychological self-torment with a master's ear for the perfect phrase."--The New York Journal of Books [on Wilberforce]

"Cross's rich gifts as a writer are evident on every page. She has thoroughly researched and inhabited this world, down to its slang, rituals, and historical atmosphere."-- Image Journal on Wilberforce

"Cross's fine eye for detail and empathy for the human condition . . . [are] rewarding in their emotional insights."--Kristen McDermott, Historical Novel Society on Wilberforce