'A tender, devastating and funny exploration of love and friendship and the yearning for self-evisceration. Coco Mellors is an elegant and exciting new voice**' PANDORA SYKES**
New York is slipping from Cleo's grasp. Sure, she's at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. Her student visa is running out, and she doesn't even have money for cigarettes. But then she meets Frank. Twenty years older, Frank's life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art—and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking. He is everything she needs right now.
Cleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates after being cut off. Ultimately, this chance meeting between two strangers outside of a New Year's Eve party changes everything, for better or worse.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an astounding and painfully relatable debut novel about the spontaneous decisions that shape our entire lives and those imperfect relationships born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.
Coco Mellors debut novel, a Sunday Times bestseller, is a poignant exploration of love, friendship, and the yearning for self-evisceration set against the backdrop of a bustling city. It's a literary fiction that delves into the complexities of family dynamics and the aftermath of divorce.
For fans of Dolly Alderton (Ghosts), Taylor Jenkins Reid (After I Do), Emily Henry (Beach Read), Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow), and Sally Rooney (Beautiful World, Where Are You).
HarperCollins 2022
