The Pools
2007
First Published
3.45
Average Rating
288
Number of Pages
Middle England, mid-1980s. The kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A fifteen year old boy called Robert has been killed, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled. There's Kathryn and Howard, Rob's parents. Kath has been making the best of her second marriage after the love of her life died young. Howard has been clinging onto a family life he hardly expected to have. There's Joanna, the teen queen of nowheresville. She's been looking for a way out, escape from her parents' broken marriage. She thought Rob might take her away from all this, but lately she's started to think Rob might have other plans. And then there's Shane, with the big hands and the backward brain and the fixation on Joanna. Bethan Roberts' strikingly assured debut novel expertly reveals the tensions and terrors that underpin apparently ordinary lives, and can lead them to spiral suddenly out of control.
Avg Rating
3.45
Number of Ratings
128
5 STARS
13%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
38%
2 STARS
12%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Bethan Roberts
Author · 6 books
Bethan Roberts was born in Abingdon. Her first novel 'The Pools' was published in 2007 and won a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers’ Award. Her second novel 'The Good Plain Cook', published in 2008, was serialized on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and was chosen as one of Time Out’s books of the year. 'My Policeman' was published by Chatto and Windus in February 2012 and was selected as that year's City Read for Brighton. Her latest novel, 'Mother Island', is longlisted for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She also writes short stories (in 2006 she was awarded the Olive Cook short story prize by the Society of Authors) and drama for BBC Radio 4. Bethan has worked as a television documentary researcher, writer and assistant producer, and has taught Creative Writing at Chichester University and Goldsmiths College, London. She lives in Brighton with her family.
