--Description--It's not easy for Chrysalis Moffat to tell the story of her life. The more closely she tries to set down the facts, the more she finds herself doubting them. Her father has been dead since she was ten; her mother has just succumbed to complications following plastic surgery. --Her bad brother Eddie returns to claim his inheritance and cunningly transforms the family house into the headquarters for a school of Tibetan Buddhism enlisting the help of trainee guru, Ralph. As the pair fleece credulous Californians of their cash, Chrysalis is drawn into a strange and compelling world: a realm of mind-blowing coincidences, obsessive gambling and mysterious siblings. --Sandra Newman has a marksman's skill for quick-fire dialogue, a passion for Byzantine plotting and a wicked sense of humour. But beneath the technical fireworks lies a brilliantly subtle understanding of human nature and our philosophical dilemmas. Is it Fate or Chance that dictates our lives? And who holds all the cards?

The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done

Literature & Fiction

SANDRA NEWMAN

Contemporary

Vintage

Folk Tales Of The Rich

Penguin/Random House

My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star and this be the tale of how I bring the cure to all the Nighted States, save every poory children, short for life. Is how a city die for selfish love, and rise from this same smallness. Be how the new America begin, in wars against all hope - a country with no power in a world that hate its life. So been the faith I sworn, and it ain't evils in no world nor cruelties in no red hell can change the vally heart of Ice Cream Star. In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her people survive by scavenging in the detritus of an abandoned civilization. Theirs is a world of children - by the time they reach twenty, each of them will die from a disease they call posies. When her brother sickens, Ice Cream sets out on the trail of a cure, led by a stranger whose intentions remain unclear. It's a quest that will lead her to love and heartbreak, to captivity and to a nation's throne, and ultimately into a war that threatens to doom everyone she loves.

COUNTRY OF ICE CREAM STAR, THE

Genre Fiction

Vintage Digital

Western Lit Survival Kit: How to Read the Classics Without Fear

History & Criticism

Penguin

Read This Next

Penguin Uk

When Chrysalis Moffat and her brother Eddie inherit a mansion on the coast of California, Eddie hatches a plan to fleece credulous Californians of their cash by starting the fraudulent Tibetan School of Miracles. With Ralph as the would-be guru and miracle worker, the "school" quickly becomes more successful than anybody first imagined.But something else is happening. As Chrysalis begins to discover her adoptive father’s secret past, her own identity begins to unravel. Was it actually in Peru that she was born? What has the CIA got to do with it? Who is Denise Cadwallader? At the same time, Chrysalis is being drawn into Ralph’s strange and compelling world: a realm of mind-blowing coincidence, obsessive gambling, and mysterious siblings.It is rare that novels come as intelligent and as funny as this one. Newman reveals a subtle understanding of human nature and our philosophical dilemmas, while at the same time charting a hilarious roller-coaster ride through the flotsam of American pop culture: from Californian Buddhist retreats to the temples of gambling, from secret agents to UFOs, and then around the corner to the parking lot of the nearest 7-Eleven.At its core, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done is a novel about self-discovery. As Chrysalis lays down the facts of her life, she gambles her identity against the contradictions, half-truths, and fables of her past, leading her ultimately to question what it is we can truly know, and whether it is fate or chance that dictates our lives.

Chatto&Windus

Fleeing to London from the spectacular collapse of her family, Tanya builds a business and begins finally to conquer her addiction to sex. Then the gorgeous, chaotic, ex-prostitute Eleanor enters her life and her home. El is an addict with a history of violence - and possibly a great artist. And sex with a woman can't be sex addiction, can it? Tanya decides that what El needs is a safe haven. It is a decision she comes to regret because, in Sandra Newman's rollercoaster world, murder begins at home. (2004-06-24)

Cake

Chatto and Windus

<p>An adopted daughter in search of belonging, in a startling memoir from Guardian First Book Award shortlisted Sandra Newman. 'This is the Crittendon Home for Unwed Mothers. We believe your birth mother is trying to find you...'\nHaving escaped the madness of her adoptive family (mother Louise committing suicide at the seventh attempt, father Sheldon finding solace in an ever-growing porn collection) American-born Sandra Newman was living in the punk rock squalor of eighties London. She had made a new home in the cheerful Bohemian demi-monde of dreamers, drunks, and anarchists. When the call came, she was living in a squat, taking milk in coffee to make it a meal, surviving variously by temping, scamming, and turning tricks. The daylight world, where people have careers and families, seemed very far away.\nSandra's second chance at parents led her to opulent mansions in Hollywood, a hidden city of astronauts in the Soviet Union, and success as a writer. Her new life promises 'an improbable, abracadabra joy - what angels feel, or the children of happy families feel.' Laced with a streak of surreal humour and told with disarming honesty, Sandra Newman's memoir is an arresting tale of loss, belonging and rescue.</p>

Changeling: A Memoir Of Parents Lost And Found

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

The Country of Ice Cream Star

Fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live in the ruins of a future America. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching age twenty, they all die of a strange disease. To save her brother, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find the cure.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fantasy

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

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Books by SANDRA NEWMAN