An Equal Stillness

Winner of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writing.

Born in 1924, Jennet Mallow grows up in Yorkshire, the daughter of a minister haunted by memories of war and a mother who craves the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Entranced by the act of drawing from an early age, Jennet moves to London on a scholarship to art school and there, among the community of artists, she meets the handsome and enigmatic painter David Heaton. The two embark on a tempestuous relationship that leads them into marriage and parenthood. Aware that David is becoming increasingly reliant on drink and tired of the dank terraced house in which they live, Jennet agrees a move to the brighter skies of Spain. But, as her career flourishes, her relationship with David Sours and they enter a mutually destructive spiral with potentially tragic consequences.

Francesca Kay grew up in South-east Asia and India and has lived in Jamaica, the United States and Germany. She now lives in Oxford with her family. An Equal Stillness is her first book.