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  • Published: 14 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781405943222
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $29.99

The Consequences of Love




A beautiful, fearless and hopeful account of grief, memory, loss and the love between two sisters

When Gavanndra Hodge was seven years old her world was a precarious place. Her father was a hairdresser and drug dealer to Chelsea's most decadent inhabitants; her mother an alcoholic ex-model. So, it was up to Gavanndra to keep her sister safe.

But when Candy dies suddenly on holiday aged nine, Gavanndra's family, already so fragile and damaged, implodes.

With only memories of Candy's awful final moments, Gavanndra embarks on a journey to write her way back to the little girl whose death tore her family apart.

The Consequences of Love is a story of loss and recovery, trauma and memory. It is a joyous and compelling account of the strength of the love between sisters and how nothing is ever truly lost if we are brave enough to return to where we began.

  • Published: 14 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781405943222
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $29.99

Praise for The Consequences of Love

This is one of the best books I've read about grief - and the catastrophic consequences of addiction. Exquisitely written. Profoundly moving

Robert Peston

I read it in one sitting without pause. It is an astonishing book. I haven't stopped thinking about it

Charlotte Edwardes, columnist for Sunday Times Style Magazine

Brilliant and moving

The Times

Brave and beautifully written

Elle

There are books - and then there are books that you'll never forget reading. A quite extraordinary memoir

Becky Barrow, News Editor of The Sunday Times

This book is genuinely extraordinary

Eleanor Wood

Gavanndra writes beautifully, her words are unsentimental but very lyrical [...] I loved this book and my tears fell into the bath as I read it

Clover Stroud, author of The Sunday Times Bestselling memoir My Wild and Sleepless Nights

I read this in one sitting, tears splashing onto its pages. A beautiful book about grief, losing a sibling, trauma, drugs, parenting & memory in the most exquisite way. Please everyone read it

Emma Gannon, podcaster, author of Olive and founder of The Hyphen Book Club

A wonderful and transformative memoir about the impact of loss and the power of love; and one that illustrates how it is never too late to tackle suppressed grief

Julia Samuel, author of the Sunday Times Bestseller This Too Shall Pass

A heartbreaking and compelling memoir

Red

By turns painful and joyful, this beautiful book has plenty of poignant lessons to teach us about grief and love

Cosmopolitan

The must-read of the summer

The Times

Looks at the power of love and loss in shaping one's life. Moving and beautifully written

Grazia

Life affirming [...] an enrapturing journey through darkness, destructive behaviour and an urgency for light and happiness now

Magic Radio Book Club, May's Book of the Month

There are scenes that will reduce you to tears, but there's also humour, forgiveness and uplifting optimism [...] by the end of this dazzling debut you just want to give her a huge cheer for coming through

Evening Standard

Unflinchingly honestly. A beautiful book . . . everyone should read it

The Sunday Times

The Consequences of Love is undoubtedly one of this year's most hotly-anticipated books, and with good reason

The Sunday Salon podcast with Alice-Azania Jarvis

Timely and highly original

Evening Standard

Brilliantly written and heartbreaking but also joyful and uplifting

Psychologies

So brilliantly written . . . ultimately joyful and uplifting

Daily Mirror

Extraordinary . . . profoundly moving

Sunday Mirror

A real tear-jerker

i

Wise and moving . . . this memoir is an acknowledgment that love demands a price

Guardian

Gavanndra Hodge's moving memoir recounts the consequences of an early life framed by beauty, glamour and tragedy

The Observer

A powerful memoir

Laura Whitmore, BBC Radio 5

At a time when so many families are losing loved ones, and are denied even the scant comfort funerals provide, there is no more poignant moment for this book to appear

Emily Hill, The Spectator

A devastating, heart-breaking and magnificent meditation on the function of memory. It will stay with me forever, so beautifully written

Daisy Buchanan, author of The Sisterhood

A brave, lyrical, painful tale of bereavement, addiction, and the building of a new life

Joanna Briscoe, Evening Standard

Superbly written. Beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking. Courageous, inspired, bleakly comic, extreme candour

Guardian

Searing

Daily Mail

Hodge's beautiful memoir is both a devastating, grief-fuelled account of her sister's death and a redemptive tale of an emotional reckoning

i

It's a vivid and oddly entertaining memoir, a hand plunged into the dark hole of grief . . . uncovers surprising treasures - most importantly, strength, resilience and love

Mail on Sunday

Searing. A masterful writer with a gift for storytelling. Her prose is rich with detail, combining a sharp sense of place with escalating drama. A triumph

i

The most moving, most exquisitely written book about addiction, grief, loss and coming to terms with trauma even decades on. One that you will be thinking about, and remember long after finishing

Sophia Money-Coutts, Quintessentially

One of the most beautiful memoirs I've ever read. This story will say with you long after you put the book down

Emma Gannon

'Beautifully-written, calm-but-utterly-compelling life-story of trauma and healing... the author seems lovely and I want to be her pal!'

Marian Keyes

A completely unforgettable and unique family memoir. A total cliché but I honestly couldn't put it down

Hadley Freeman

I just turned the last page (reluctantly!). A bold, often brutal exploration of memory, grief and love. Full of hope and heart. I can't recommend it enough

Terri White, author of Coming Undone

A brave, brilliant book that is both beautiful and important. Read it then buy it for all your friends

Hello!

Gavanndra's memoir The Consequences of Love is absolutely beautiful. It's compelling, heartbreaking, sweet, honest, fascination. I recommend it HIGHLY. I absolutely LOVED it.

Marian Keyes

This stunning exploration of grief is so well written and profoundly moving

Good Housekeeping

An elegant study of grief and memory

Guardian

Hodge pours heartbreak and love into the pages of a book that never pretends to know the answers, and is all the better for it

Sunday Times

An elegant study of grief and memory

Guardian Weekly

An eye-opening snapshot of the fashion world in '90s London

Vogue UK