Belinda McKeon — Tender

Picador 2015 Paperback, 432pp. ""Are you asleep?" James said, nudging her with his leg. "No," Catherine said, the word all in a drowse. "Don't go to sleep," he said, and she heard him turn a page. Catherine and James are as close as two friends could ever be. They meet in Dublin in the late 1990s, she a college student, he a fledgling artist - both recent arrivals from rural communities, coming of age in a city which is teeming - or so they are told - with new freedoms, new possibilities. Catherine has never met anyone quite like James. Talented, quick-witted, adventurous and charismatic, he helps Catherine to open her eyes, to take on life with more gusto than she has ever before known how to do; she begins to enjoy her new home, to find her voice as a writer and to meet with the people who will shape her new world. Uncorrected Proof.", (ISBN: 9781447252177). Near Mint.