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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

CONSENT

Annabel Lyon

A smart and thrilling page-turner about two complex families, and two sets of sisters whose lives are braided together by tragedy.

Longlisted for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction and the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Saskia and Jenny are twins who are alike only in appearance. Saskia is a hard-working grad student whose interests are solely academic, while Jenny, an interior designer, is glamourous, thrill-seeking, capricious, and narcissistic. Still, when Jenny is severely injured in an accident, Saskia puts her life on hold to be with her sister.
Sara and Mattie are sisters with a difficult relationship. Mattie, the younger sister, is affectionate, curious, and intellectually disabled. As soon as Sara is able, she leaves home, in pursuit of a life of the mind and the body: she loves nothing more than fine wines, sensual perfumes, and expensive clothing. But when their mother dies, Sara inherits the duty of caring for her sister. Arriving at the house one day, she finds out that Mattie has married Robert, her wealthy mother's handyman. Though Mattie seems happy, Sara cannot let this go, forcing the annulment of the marriage and the banishment of Robert. With him out of the picture, though, she has no choice but to become her sister's keeper, sacrificing her own happiness and Mattie's too.
When Robert turns up again, another tragedy happens. The waves from these tragedies eventually engulf Sara and Saskia, sisters in mourning, in a quest for revenge.
Consent is a startling, moving, thought-provoking novel on the complexities of familial duty and on how love can become entangled with guilt, resentment, and regret.

ANNABEL LYON is the author of the novel The Golden Mean, a bestseller in Canada that won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor-General's Award, and has been translated into fourteen languages. She is also the author of a story collection, Oxygen; a book of novellas, The Best Thing for You; and two juvenile novels, All-Season Edie and Encore Edie. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.
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Book

Published by Knopf Canada

Comments

“An intense, intimate novel of love, grief, and murder [with] a deliciously dark conclusion Perfectly captures the odd mix of love and resentment faced by caregivers.” – Publishers Weekly

how "'Consent' is a deep, dark look at family life," by "[defying] conventional narrative, embracing instead a sense of emotional time" with an "approach... which most readers will find surprisingly welcoming: this is, after all, how we think and feel, how families and relationships develop and age, how we grow."

A "gripping read about sisters, guilt, grief and revenge Full of twists."

"The subtlety with which Lyon handles all this is remarkable, especially when one considers the novel's brevity. The author packs more into her sentences than most writers working today and constructs a narrative that closes on the reader like a mousetrap. And like any good mousetrap, by the time its victim realizes where they've stumbled, it's too late." Read more...

Knopf U.S.

Entertainment Weekly featured Consent in its list of "Best Books to Keep You Warm this January," with the following praise: "Beyond its intoxicating cover, this novel captivates in plot, too."

Atlantic Books

CONSENT among the Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2021 Book Preview