The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay: A Novel - Couverture souple

"In her disturbing and...tantalizing second novel, Andrea Gillies...plumbs the heart of marital infidelity. In the world of this novel, we betray our spouses simply by withholding the best of ourselves, by saving it for another."  —The New York Times Book Review

"Elegantly told in flashbacks and up-close observations, Nina's story of adult romance is illuminating, redemptive, and hot as all get-out." —The Oprah Magazine

"Gillies’s brisk, confident style deftly manages convoluted jumps in time, and small gems of insight glitter among her clean, precise prose...This sure-handed, lovely exploration of the human heart is certain to build Gillies’s audience." —Publishers Weekly

"In her second novel, Gillies explores...the fallibility of memory and the often heartbreaking half-truths we tell ourselves by way of compensation." —Kirkus Reviews

“Gillies is a skilled writer, painting the scene of Nina’s Greek getaway with cleanly evocative prose.” —The Huffington Post

"Gillies offers a lot of food for thought about love, memory, and the lies we tell ourselves." —Booklist

"Riveting." —Library Journal

“A rich, intricate, utterly convincing portrait of one woman's midlife meltdown.” —Lisa Zeidner, author of Layover and Love Bomb

“This mesmerizing, intelligent work overturns traditional assumptions about love, family, and loss and delivers a series of twists that are as unexpected as they are richly satisfying.” —Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise

"The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay is at once lyrical and riveting. Unfolding on a radiant Greek Island, with darker echoes of Scotland and Norway, this lushly transporting, thoughtful novel moves through overlapping time periods in an intricate series of themes and variations. Despite its graceful cadence, it courses with suspense; Andrea Gillies has given us something rare, an exquisite page-turner." —Hilary Reyl, author of Lessons in French

“The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay is a sure, poised, relentlessly honest novel that carries the reader through multiple layers of deception and revelation, showing us the hidden heartbreak in families and marriage.” —Fernanda Eberstadt, author of Rat and The Furies

“Gillies writes magnificently on everything she touches.”  —Sunday Times (UK)

“[The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay] moves backward and forward across several decades, uncovering intergenerational secrets and the holes in the stories people tell themselves.” —The Guardian (UK)

“Funny and wise . . . not to be missed.” —Good Housekeeping (UK)

“An intelligent, thoughtful, grown-up romance about second chances and the complications of relationships.” —The Herald (Scotland)

“Winner of the Orwell and Wellcome prizes for her first book, Keeper, Gillies combines a wonderfully unreliable narrator with a deeply layered love story.” —Scottish Book Trust

“Romance is everywhere, there is love—filial, parental, platonic, amorous—and flirting and coupling and unraveling. But The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay is not chick lit. There’s a provocative intelligence in Gillies’s tale that challenges perceptions and beliefs about love, honesty, and betrayal.” —Bookanista

Their main courses arrived, and Luca ordered more wine, and they ate and talked about other things. Nina steered the conversation elsewhere, into their respective trips and what they’d seen and eaten. But when the plates were taken, Luca reverted. 

“Promise me one thing. If ever you decide you need a divorce, you think of me first.” He thought he saw in her eyes that she took him seriously. What else could it be, that strange intense look in them? He went on, “But you’re right, of course you’re right. Our marriage is only perfect because it never happened. We haven’t had to deal with dishwashers and bills and recycling and dull sex.” 

“Dull, is it? That’s a shame.” The back of her neck felt as if it was seizing up.

“Francesca lost interest years ago. Even before she got ill. The cancer has been a big sex drought, and now she’s losing interest in me in general, I think.” 

“Oh I see, you’re in need of a cinq à sept.” It wasn’t possible to smile. “On the way home from the office.” 

“I think the French are an enlightened nation. Shall we say five o’clock tomorrow? But I’m getting on a bit. I may not need two hours.” 

She hid her disappointment in him in checking her phone. “A quickie on the way home. Lovely.” 

“It’s these little adjustments in life that make it tolerable.”

“I’m glad I know that you’re joking.” 

Luca could have joined her there. It might still all have been salvageable but instead he said, “We should get another bottle.”