A topical London love story from the brilliant, prize-winning A. L. Kennedy

Long-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2016.

"Kennedy tenderly anatomised London and loneliness in Serious Sweet." -- Ali Smith Guardian, Book of the Year "So beautiful that it makes your head hurt." -- Katy Guest Independent "Serious Sweet is a magnificent novel, showing Kennedy at the very top of her game. Ambitious in scope, daring in execution, full of dazzling apercus and dark comedy... It is a tale of redemption, as serious and as sweet as you could wish for." -- Rebecca Abrams Financial Times "In equal measures, funny, sad and addictive... The opening pages had me holding my breath in fear and anticipation... Capturing the relentless hustle of London life to perfection." -- Glenda Marchant Stylist "A. L. Kennedy shakes her city until the right atoms collide. She stands back to give a picture of the whole of London on one day, and then suddenly swoops down to pick up a tiny detail." -- Kate Saunders The Times "Deeply affecting... Kennedy strips her characters emotionally bare... Serious Sweet portrays intense lives of quiet desperation: it is a novel about hope and muted courage and, at the end of the day, a very tentatively experienced optimism." -- Hannah Beckerman Observer "A. L. Kennedy's eighth novel is a profoundly moving, often funny, and at points rending depiction of two good people. Serious Sweet is about the heroism of decency; albeit damaged decency... Kennedy is not one of our finest writers simply because of the quality of her prose: she is because of the moral profundity of her work." -- Stuart Kelly Scotsman "This is a bold, cinematic novel... Parts of it are terrifically funny." Herald "A genuinely stirring love story." Mail on Sunday "Her flair for describing feelings and relationships makes this an engaging window into the messy minds of Londoners and her commentary on the city rings true." -- Susannah Butter Evening Standard "Determinedly and impressively intellectual... A novel of ideas that is deft enough never to be didactic because it asks more question than it answers." -- Lara Feigel Guardian "This is an author with a proven ability to see - truly see - and whose prose can fire like gunshots across the page." -- Rebecca Swirsky New Statesman "[Like] Sleepless in Seattle, respun by James Joyce, and set within a London on the precipice of Brexit." Culture Trip "Her best book in years." -- Justine Jordan Guardian "Uniquely moving love story." -- Jess Denham Independent

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards - including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in London and is a part-time lecturer in creative writing at Warwick University.