A Cupboard Full of Coats: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

'Deeply moving, wonderfully written… A study of grief and remorse.' The Times   'He just knocked, that was all, knocked at the front door and waited...' Fourteen years ago, Jinx’s mother was brutally murdered in their East London home. Since then, her life – and relationships – have been poisoned with guilt.The sudden arrival of Lemon, an old friend of her mother’s, changes everything. He wants to revisit the events leading to that terrible night, forcing Jinx to finally confront her past.   Fuelled by Lemon’s sumptuous cooking and intoxicating story-telling, together they strip away the layers of the past to lay bare a family drama full of jealousy and tragic betrayal. But Lemon has secrets of his own to share. And as Jinx’s life threatens to fall apart for a second time, she finally begins to believe that redemption might be within her grasp.   Blending true East London spirit with a heady Caribbean spice, A Cupboard Full of Coats is a novel of breathtaking elegance that has become a beloved modern classic. Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize * Shortlisted for the Writers’ Guild Awards * Shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award * Nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award   

About the Author :
Yvvette Edwards grew up in Hackney and is of Montserratian-British origin.  A Cupboard Full of Coats, her debut novel, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Writers' Guild Award and the Man Booker prize.  She continues to live in East London with her family.

Review :
'Deeply moving, wonderfully written... A study of grief and remorse.' 'In this potent mystery... Edwards makes us greedy for the full story.'  'Yvvette Edwards unique and uncompromising debut is stoked with violence and passion, rich with voices form East London and the West Indies.' 'A pleasure to revisit. A Cupboard Full of Coats is literary perfection. Beyond glorious.' 'A gut-wrenching and gorgeously lyrical debut... Engrossing and human to the core, Edwards's novel wrings the heart in the most tender of ways.' 'A Cupboard Full of Coats is high drama, full of breathtaking tension, and, at times, brought to mind the works of Arthur Miller and August Wilson, both of whom knew a thing or two about secrets spilled across a kitchen table.' 'An impressive debut… A writer to watch.' 'Redolent of Monica Ali and Zadie Smith, Yvvette Edwards' bold debut is a searing story of family, jealousy, and tragic betrayal… Rich with voices from East London and the West Indies, Edward's narrative is delivered with a unique and uncompromising bite that announces a new talent in British fiction.' 'A piercing and engaging narrative...reminiscent of Toni Morrison and Barbara Kingsolver, who similarly explore hidden and revealed secrets.' 'Lyrical and haunting.' 'A novel that pulses with rhythm, texture, language, and a story that keeps you locked to its pages. Brutally honest, expertly woven, and utterly mesmerizing. I loved this book.' 'A truly stunning work of contemporary literary fiction that packs an emotional punch and keeps readers guessing to the end, A Cupboard Full of Coats is already being compared by critics to the novels of the master, Ruth Rendell.' 'A fierce book, painfully honest and beautifully written… Impressive.' 'Beyond the luminous prose and fully dimensional characters, Edwards explores difficult issues of race, beauty, gender, objectification and how they coalesce to create the identity we present to the world as well as ourselves.' 'One to watch.' 'Expertly woven and perfectly paced, A Cupboard Full of Coats is both a heartbreaking family drama and a riveting mystery, with a cast of characters who linger in the mind and the heart long after the last page has been turned.' 'An elegantly structured story of guilt and redemption…emotionally raw and brutally honest… Impressive in its psychological complexity, this is one of the best novels I've read this year.' 'An impressive debut, particularly notable for its pellucid prose.' 'Fans of British psychological thrillers, à la Ruth Rendell, will adore this lyrical debut.' 'Yvvette Edwards' A Cupboard Full of Coats is a trauma narrative with a surface patina of Junot Diaz.' 'I can't stop talking about this gut-wrenching tale of forbidden love.' 'It is carefully structured and the human relationships brutally real.' 'A slow-burning heartbreaker of a story. . . [written] with elegant restraint and a sensitivity uncommon in debut novels.' 'Rich in emotion but resolutely unsentimental, the story is unspooled with judgement and skill.' 'Expert plotting, a flair for the dramatic and an ability to create characters both vividly idiosyncratic and classically archetypal.' 'The heroine is Jinx and this is her story… It is a very fine first novel, with Edwards keeping her characters interesting, the plot full of guesswork and her story well told. And it is certainly better than some of the others mentioned above.'