The Scrapbook

Overview

Iris, Fern, and Ivy are three women of three generations with one dark secret. Iris keeps a scrapbook of Lawrence, the lover who went missing years earlier. She defines herself by his loss and soothes herself with gin and the fairy tale of this one perfect relationship. Fern, once a strange and difficult child who believed her dead grandmother's soul lived inside her stomach, reluctantly returns home to take care of her mother, Iris. She is tasked with finding Lawrence and in the process she has to confront her own past and memories. Ivy, Iris's mother, had her own cache of secrets—spells she took to the grave that Fern unearths. The Scrapbook is a novel about the unreliability of memory; the tangled, often dysfunctional, bonds of family; and absence and the power that a void can exert over a person's life.

Reviews

"An impressive debut novel from an extremely talented writer."  —Wales Arts Review

"An extremely readable debut. Mysterious, esoteric, and compassionate. . . . Beautifully controlled."  —Buzz Magazine

Author Biography

Carly Holmes is secretary for the PENfro Book Festival committee, on the editorial board of the Lampeter Review, and organizes the Cellar Bards, a group of writers who meet in Cardigan monthly for evenings of spoken word.