Felicia's Journey

Book excerpt: *WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD* *WINNER OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD * From acclaimed author William Trevor, Felicia's Journey is a tightly woven psychological thriller 'A book so brilliant that it compels you to stay up all night galloping through to the end' Daily Mail You're beautiful, Johnny told her. So, full of hope, seventeen-year-old Felicia crosses the Irish Sea to England to find her lover and tell him she is pregnant. Desperately searching for Johnny in the bleak post-industrial Midlands, she is instead found by Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely man, a collector and befriender of homeless young girls . . . 'Immensely readable. The plot twist is both sinister and affecting, and so skilfully done that you remember why authors had plot twists in the first place' Guardian Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Felicia's Journey. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature.