When you buy a used copy YOU SAVE
Carbon Dioxide
1.15Kg of CO2
Water
144 litre(s) of Water
Tree
0.0086 Tree(s)
donate
1 book donated to global literacy projects

The Pools

3.86 ( 255 Ratings by Goodreads)
The Pools

The Pools

(Author)
3.86 (255 Ratings by Goodreads)
paperback
Published: 29 August, 2007
Standard worldwide delivery by Wed, June 24 - Mon, June 29
Order within 0
Promo Badge
Condition: USED
$7.36
RRP $14.73
You save $7.37 (50%)
Price includes shipping
Available 2 in stock
- +
Add to basket Wishlist This
FREE Returns within 30 days
More Details

Popular Books by Bethan Roberts

View All Books by Bethan Roberts
A Short Road to Longbrook
A Short Road to Longbrook
Bethan Roberts
$22.49 $25.45
New
Add to basket
My Policeman
My Policeman
Bethan Roberts
$6.22 $12.05
Used
Add to basket
My Policeman
My Policeman
Bethan Roberts
$6.22 $13.39
Used
Add to basket
Graceland
Graceland
Bethan Roberts
$14.15
New
Add to basket
Graceland
Graceland
Bethan Roberts
$10.01 $20.09
Used
Add to basket
The Good Plain Cook
The Good Plain Cook
Bethan Roberts
$5.40 $10.71
Used
Add to basket
Mother Island
Mother Island
Bethan Roberts
$6.86 $22.77
Used
Add to basket
The Good Plain Cook
The Good Plain Cook
Bethan Roberts
$10.12 $14.73
Used
Add to basket
Mother Island
Mother Island
Bethan Roberts
$7.98 $20.09
Used
Add to basket
My Policeman: Der Liebhaber meines Mannes. Das Buch zum Film.
My Policeman: Der Liebhaber meines Mannes. Das Buch zum Film.
Bethan Roberts
$20.65
New
Add to basket

Description

It is middle England, mid-1980s. It is the kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A sixteen year old boy called Robert had been killed, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled. There's Kathryn and Howard, Rob's parents. Kath has been making the best of her second marriage after the love of her life died young. Howard has been clinging onto a family life he hardly expected to have. There's Joanna, the teen queen of nowheresville. She's been looking for a way out, escape from her parents' broken marriage. She thought Rob might take her away from all this, but lately she's started to think Rob might have other plans. And then there's Shane, with the big hands and the fixation on Joanna. Bethan Roberts' strikingly assured debut novel subtly reveals the tensions and terrors that underpin apparently ordinary lives, and can lead them to spiral suddenly out of control. I know Shane's not coming. I sit on the seat of the twitchers. I know he's not coming. But I wait. I grip the seat until my fingers go dead, and I wait for him. Pink hoop earrings, pink pencil skirt. I'm ready, should he stride past, Walkman blasting. I'm ready, but I know he won't come. No one's seen him since that night. Not even me. Rooks scream in the spiky trees. Everything's frozen, even the air. It bursts in my lungs when I inhale. The only thing moving is the steam in the sky. It coughs out of the power station cooling towers. It never stops. I stretch my fingers out and let the blood flow back. Then I grip the seat again.
See more

More Details

Type Book
ISBN13 9781852424992
ISBN10 1852424990
Number Of Pages 288
Item Weight 321 g
Product Dimensions 130 x 24 x 214 mm
Publisher / Reseller Serpent's Tail
Format paperback
See More +

Media Reviews

A complex anatomy of a murder, The Pools brilliantly evokes the sickening recognition of a wasteful death. Bethan Roberts is a fearless writer whose first novel raises questions about fate and responsibility that remain with the reader long after the last page has been turned. A compelling debut -- Louise Welsh
A tense thriller that reminded me of Julie Myerson's Something Might Happen -- Viv Groskop * Eve *
Brilliantly illuminating... A beautifully understated debut * Easy Living *
An unsettling and disturbing tale of awakening sexuality and predatory parents -- Patricia Duncker
A wonderfully self-assured debut... There is a forbidding feeling throughout the novel - an almost audible hum of misgiving coming off the pages. Superb -- Ruth Atkins * The Bookseller *
A cool and relevant novel... an urban Cold Comfort Farm... expertly crafted * Sunday Express *
A sense of controlled menace broods over every scene, as if the book's tragic outcome were inevitableA sense of controlled menace broods over every scene, as if the book's tragic outcome were inevitable * Guardian *
Brilliantly illuminating... A beautifully understated debut * Easy Living *
A haunting glimpse of emerging adolescent sexuality and of adult lives wasted by grief... a convincing, haunting debut that evokes an uneasy and menacing Middle England * Time Out *

Show more

Author's Bio

Bethan Roberts was born in Oxford and brought up in nearby Abingdon. She has MAs from Sussex and Chichester Universities and teaches creative writing at Chichester and for the Open University. Roberts was awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers' Prize for The Pools. She lives in Brighton.

Show more