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  • Published: 1 April 2015
  • ISBN: 9780099593652
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $29.99

Lay Me Down




A haunting novel about the effect a single event can have on our lives and on countless others; and about how the past shapes us, no matter how hard we try to escape it.

What if the past won't let you go?

London: 31st December, midnight. For Elsa and Jack, a stolen kiss becomes a shot at real happiness. Eight months later, they board a plane to begin a new life in San Francisco, where Jack has found his dream job working on the Golden Gate Bridge.

But this is not your average boy-meets-girl love story, for Jack’s new job comes with an extraordinary obligation. No one told him about the Jumpers – the men and women who try to leap from the bridge to their deaths every year. One in particular begins to haunt Jack, bringing back memories he thought safely buried. As he becomes more and more preoccupied, and Elsa, alone in a new city, becomes increasingly isolated, both retreat into their pasts, back down the paths that led them to that New Year’s Eve.

And the fragile love between them starts to unravel…

  • Published: 1 April 2015
  • ISBN: 9780099593652
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Nicci Cloke

Nicci Cloke was born in Cambridgeshire in 1986. She is the author of Someday Find Me, and the co-producer of literary salon Speakeasy, and online story series 1,001 Nights. Before writing novels, she was in charge of permissions at Faber, where she negotiated with people who wanted to put Plath on stamps or translate Eliot into Pirate. Since becoming a writer, she has also worked as an elf, a waitress in a cocktail bar, and a nanny. She lives and writes in London.

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Praise for Lay Me Down

A masterfully written novel, by turns sparkling and melancholic, with vivid characters and painfully beautiful imagery

Morgan McCarthy, author of The Other Half of Me

Beguiling... An absorbing, entertaining read: one that will see you nicely through a few long dark evenings

A Life in Books

An emotionally powerful, highly charged story... a fascinating story with an intriguing premise

CultureFly

Like eavesdropping on a conversation in a bar...This is a really cleverly structured and well-crafted novel

We Love This Book

A must-read novel

Prima

An addictive page turner

Closer

A book to watch

Elle

Evocative...Flitting between their separate pasts and precarious shared present, Cloke weaves a tale whose opacity feels pleasingly apiece with its foggy backdrop.

Hephzibah Anderson, Daily Mail

An intriguing drama and romance

Daily Record

Brilliant

Good Housekeeping

This is a harrowing, but gripping love story

Good Book Guide