These Dividing Walls: Shortlisted for the 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award

In a forgotten corner of Paris stands a building.Within its walls, people talk and kiss, laugh and cry; some are glad to sit alone, while others wish they did not. A woman with silver blonde hair opens her bookshop downstairs, an old man feeds the sparrows on his windowsill, and a young mother wills the morning to hold itself at bay. Though each of their walls touches someone else's, the neighbours they pass in the courtyard remain strangers. Into this courtyard arrives Edward. Still bearing the sweat of a channel crossing, he takes his place in an attic room to wait out his grief. But in distant corners of the city, as Paris is pulled taut with summer heat, there are those who meet with a darker purpose. As the feverish metropolis is brought to boiling point, secrets will rise and walls will crumble both within and without number thirty-seven…Author pictureAuthor bioFran Cooper grew up in London before reading English at Cambridge and Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She spent three years in Paris writing a PhD, and currently works in the curatorial department of a London museum. These Dividing Walls is her first novel.hodder.co.uk@hodderbooks@franwhitcoop/hodderbooks