{"product_id":"tender-by-belinda-mckeon-9780330529907","title":"Tender","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTender\u003c\/em\u003e charts the marshy territory of friendship, obsession, and love, and offers no easy path. . . richly nuanced and utterly absorbing. \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eGuardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Are you asleep?\" James said, nudging her with his leg.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"No,\" Catherine said, the word all in a drowse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Don't go to sleep,\" he said, and she heard him turn a page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCatherine and James are as close as two friends could ever be. They meet in Dublin in the late 1990s, she a college student, he a fledgling artist—both recent arrivals from rural communities, coming of age in a city which is teeming—or so they are told—with new freedoms, new possibilities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCatherine has never met anyone quite like James. Talented, quick-witted, adventurous and charismatic, he helps Catherine to open her eyes, to take on life with more gusto than she has ever before known how to do; she begins to enjoy her new home, to find her voice as a writer and to meet with the people who will shape her new world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut while Catherine's horizons are expanding, James's own life is becoming a prison; as changed as the new Ireland may be, it is still not a place in which he feels able to truly be himself. Catherine, grateful to James and worried for him, desperately wants to help—but as time moves on, and as life begins to take the friends in different directions, she discovers that there is a perilously fine line between helping someone and hurting them further. And when crisis hits, Catherine must face difficult truths not just about her closest bond, but about herself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the author of the multi-award-winning debut \u003cem\u003eSolace\u003c\/em\u003e comes another dazzling exploration of the complexities of human relationships, a novel about friendship and youth, about selfhood and sexuality, and about the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we are taught to tell. Brave, moving and powerfully told, \u003cem\u003eTender\u003c\/em\u003e confirms Belinda McKeon's status as one of the most exciting contemporary voices in Irish fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for Belinda McKeon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"McKeon... captures what it is like to be young in Dublin with grace, subtlety and sympathy. She makes her characters both alluring and complex, and indeed dangerous, too.\" \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eColm Tóibín\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"McKeon is a superb and sophisticated writer, who captures the barely articulable feelings between young people on the brink of adulthood.\" \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic;\"\u003eThe Times\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48244449181932,"sku":"9780330529907","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780330529907-tender-1.jpg?v=1787996784","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/products\/tender-by-belinda-mckeon-9780330529907","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}