We are All Made of Glue - Marina Lewycka

Every now and then I get e-mails from the team over at Fanatics with some of the new titles they are releasing and that book fans can pick up at Exclusive Books.

I received the following write-up on the book - We are All Made of Glue - and thought it looked like a potentially interesting read. Have fun:

Marina Lewycka, a previous Boeke nominee for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian brings us her new novel, We are All Made of Glue. From bonding to bondage, from B&Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, a bonker lady, this is the story of a very unlikely friendship.

Georgie Sinclair's husband has walked out; her sixteen-year-old son is busy surfing born-again websites; and, all those overdue articles for Adhesives in the Modern World are getting her down. So when Georgie spots Mrs Shapiro, an eccentric old Jewish emigrant neighbour with an eye for a bargain and a fondness for matchmaking, rummaging through her skip in the middle of the night, it's just the distraction she needs. And although they mistrust each other at first - Georgie doesn't like the look of that past-its-sell-by-date fish, while Mrs Shapiro thinks Georgie needs to smarten herself up and grab a new husband - a firm friendship is formed over the reduced-price shelf at the supermarket.

Then Mrs Shapiro is admitted to hospital and to Georgie's surprise, she is named as her next of kin. But sorting out Mrs Shapiro's semi-derelict mansion in Highbury, home to seven stinky cats with agendas of their own, is no easy job when the handyman called in to change the locks turns out to be not what he seems and his two assistants are doing more breaking than fixing. And what about the two slimy estate agents [one with a charming taste for bondage] who start competing to trick Mrs Shapiro into selling her rickety old house or the social worker determined to commit her to a nursing home? As Georgie steps in to help her new friend, she finds herself unravelling a mystery which takes her from Highbury to wartime Europe to the Middle East, and learning a bit about DIY along the way.

Marina Lewycka was born in Kiel, Germany at the end of the war and grew up in England. She is married with a grown-up daughter and lives in Sheffield. Her two previous novels, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and Two Caravans.

We are All Made of Glue is available to purchase or order at your nearest Exclusive Books.