Description

Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme – Big Apple, Big Heart – that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives.

But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom. As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart.

But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the ‘migrant crisis’ in general – though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.

Hardback
Publication: 17 Feb 2026, Harper Collins 

ISBN: 9780008800109

Extent: 304 pages

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A Better Life by Lionel Shriver

    Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides... Read more

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        Description

        Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme – Big Apple, Big Heart – that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives.

        But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom. As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart.

        But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the ‘migrant crisis’ in general – though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.

        Hardback
        Publication: 17 Feb 2026, Harper Collins 

        ISBN: 9780008800109

        Extent: 304 pages

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