The Ballroom - Hardcover

"Absolutely heart-breaking. One of the best books I’ve ever read" (Dinah Jefferies, author of THE TEA-PLANTER'S WIFE)

"A British version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Moving. Fascinating" (Times)

"An unsentimental and affecting story" (Sunday Times)

"Compelling, elegant and insightful." (Observer)

"In this deeply moving book, Hope reminds us that behind everyone’s facade lies something waiting to be rent free" (Irish Times)

"An original, brilliant, evocative novel" (Chris Cleave)

"A heartbreaking story of how love can flourish in the darkest of times" (Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Bookseller)

"Part social commentary, part mystery and part dangerous liaison, this poignant story casts an unflinching gaze at the historic treatment of mental health disorders." (Financial Times)

"Such a magnificent setting definitely demands a story that delivers, all guns blazing. It does, and then some . . . Fiction at it’s finest." (Irish Independent)

"Beautiful" (Stylist)

A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK AUTUMN 2016

'Compelling, elegant and insightful' Observer

'Beautifully wrought, tender, heartbreaking' Sunday Express 5/5

'Moving, fascinating' Times

'A tender and absorbing love story' Daily Mail

'Unsentimental and affecting' Sunday Times

'Exquisitely good' Metro

'Compelling and masterful' Press Association

1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors,
where men and women are kept apart
by high walls and barred windows,
there is a ballroom vast and beautiful.
For one bright evening every week
they come together
and dance.
When John and Ella meet
It is a dance that will change
two lives forever.

Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a tale of unlikely love and dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.