A bed in heaven - Tessa de Loo

On the day after her father's funeral, a respectable, middle-age woman reveals that she is intimately involved with a man who may be her stepbrother. The intricacies of how she has arrived at this moment unravel in this dramatic and searing tale of desire, love, guilt, and moral ambiguity. The secrets surrounding her Dutch mother and her Hungarian-Jewish father, as well as her Jewish ancestors in Budapest and Amsterdam are peeled away to reveal a shameful, cruel enigma at the core. The painful legacy of love and survival in time of war reverberates through the generations in this unflinching yet compassionate narrative.

Tessa de Loo made her debut with The Girls from the Sweet Factory; her novels include Meander, Isabelle, The Smoke Sacrifice and The Miracle of the Dog. Her novel The Twins has sold over 35,000 copies in Arcadia's paperback edition. She lives in Portugal.

'Details of time, place and atmosphere are acutely evoked, and the characters are presented with a generous sympathy that stops short of special pleading. Already a best-seller in the author's native Holland, the book deserves to become one here' - The Times 'Completely original...a fiction whose poise, compassion and breadth take the reader's breath away' - Joan Smith, Sunday Times