Maureen: A Harold Fry Novel Spiral-Bound | February 7, 2023

Rachel Joyce

★★★☆☆+ from 1,001 to 10,000 ratings

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From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes a moving novel told from the point of view of Harold’s wife Maureen. Now undertaking her own journey, Maureen will discover a way to reconnect with the world she’s closed a door on.

Maureen Fry has settled into the quiet life she shares with her husband after his iconic walk across England ten years ago. When an unexpected message from the North disturbs her equilibrium again, it is now her turn to make a journey. But Maureen is not like Harold. By turns outspoken, then vulnerable, she struggles to form bonds with the people she meets, and the landscape she crosses has radically changed. And Maureen has no sense of what she will find at the end of the road. All she knows is that she has to get there.

Maureen is a deeply felt, lyrical, and powerful novel, full of warmth and kindness, about love, loss, and how we come to terms with the past in order to understand ourselves and our lives a little better. While it stands alone, it is also the extraordinarily moving finale to a trilogy that began with the phenomenal bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and continued in The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. What was started by Harold, only Maureen can complete.

Story Locale:Devon, UK

Publication History:Trade Paperback Original
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 192 pages
ISBN-10: 0593446429
Item Weight: 0.4 lbs
Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 8.0 inches
Customer Reviews: 3 out of 5 stars 1,001 to 10,000 ratings
“A beautiful novella about motherhood, grief and the power of forgiveness. . . . Prickly and wary of strangers, Maureen is nonetheless portrayed with compassion and tenderness by Joyce, and the novel’s conclusion is deeply moving and life-affirming.”The Observer

“This slim novella . . . contains a world of emotion . . . The kindness of strangers is Joyce’s theme, as well as forgiveness and grief. No one writes difficult feelings better.”The Daily Mail

“This book echoes ‘Harold Fry’—the journey brings some redemption, some understanding, and some peace. . . . Joyce gets brilliantly right the physical details of the trip, as well as Maureen’s emotional transformation. It is not sudden, it is not miraculous, it is not complete, but it is entirely believable. . . . Joyce is an empathetic writer, and the story is one of hope and redemption.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A real treat . . . A story about belonging and understanding.”Prima

“[This] slim, lyrical book . . . delves deeply into a character who is at once familiar and enigmatic. . . . Bittersweet and quietly stunning, Maureen is a poignant end to Joyce’s trilogy about the Frys and a meditation on opening up and moving forward.”Shelf Awareness

“I was enthralled from the first page of this short, powerful book. We all have some Maureen inside us, and so the journey we take with her across England and into her own personal tumult is a satisfying, visceral one.”—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward

“This book is a perfect gem. Fans of Olive Kitteridge and Eleanor Oliphant will love Maureen Fry, and it’s a brilliant coda to the Harold Fry series.”—J. Ryan Stradal, bestselling author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“This is a quiet miracle of a book. Rachel Joyce is a master at mixing humor and pathos, and at showing hard truths about life that nonetheless make us grateful to be here.”—Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv and Earth’s the Right Place for Love

“Profoundly moving and deeply human, this story of self-discovery and forgiveness is essential reading. I loved every word.”—Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

“I adored Harold and Queenie, but who knew Maureen waited in the wings to steal my heart? A testament to just how exquisitely Rachel Joyce understands people, and written with kindness and such perception. I can’t recommend it enough.”—Joanna Cannon, bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and A Tidy Ending

“Maureen is so beautifully and unflinchingly portrayed—a complex contradiction of brittle and prickly with an underbelly of fragility and fear. Her journey is compelling and profoundly moving and leaves the reader feeling fully satisfied and just a little lighter.”—Ruth Hogan, author of Madame Burova and The Keeper of Lost Things
Rachel Joyce is the author of the novels The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, and Miss Benson's Beetle, as well as the digital short story A Faraway Smell of Lemon and a story collection, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her books have sold over five million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty-six languages. Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize, and is soon to be a major film starring Jim Broadbent. Joyce has been the Specsavers National Book Awards “New Writer of the Year” and shortlisted for “UK Author of the Year.” Joyce has also written more than thirty original afternoon plays and adaptions of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Brontë novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre, and Cheek by Jowl. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire.

Author Residence: Gloucestershire, UK

Author Hometown: London, UK