- Published
- July 31st 2008
- Price
- £7.99
- Extent
- 272 pages
- Format
- B-Format Paperback
- ISBN
- 978 0 9551384 9
Prizes
- LONGLISTED FOR ‘SPREAD THE WORD: BOOKS TO TALK ABOUT’‘ 2009
Blood Tender by Rachel Ingrams
Buy Now Price £7.99
A story about personal choice, love and loss… Blood Tender is an excellent read, with a real authenticity and compelling plot
— Aesthetica
The sky is a bloody gold and there are riots in the streets the night that Marlena arrives in Sicily. A damaged English girl – with her head full of secrets – she’s here to dance. Or rather, to strip: at Mickey’s, a down-at-heel bar on the rough edges of Catania. One night, at the local club, a heart-stopping encounter with Jula – whose secret pride is his Romany blood – transforms Marlena’s life. But as she’s drawn into a chilling relationship with Paulo and his psychotic friends, Marlena is caught in the crossfire of anti-gypsy fury and right-wing politics.
Sultriness and picturesque decay lace her intensely characterised story. Ingrams has personal experience of the gypsy life and puts that knowledge to evocative use in this nigh-operatic scenario; her heroine is a multi-faceted protagonist
— Publishing News
Set in Sicily, the tale of a stripper who discovers it is not easy to hang on to love; full of local colour, prejudice and cruelty
— The Bookseller