Better Than This

Do something amazing - the last instruction Taamarai's brother gave her in the last letter he ever sent.So here she was, alone in a nowhere town in North Carolina with a crazy dream and a truck full of boxes. Surely there had to be more to amazing than a broken elevator, a sixth-floor apartment, and a bored girl called Ali wanting to help?Ali's father Carl had never met anyone like Taamarai before. In fact, he was certain she'd be gone in a flash, back to wherever people like her came from. Places where people made plans, and read books, and didn't know how lucky they were. Normally that would be fine. Carl was used to things disappearing. Except... Ali seemed smitten, and the only thing Carl had ever really given a damn about was keeping her safe. Safe was hard enough. Wanting more was just asking to get hurt.What if getting hurt is the risk you have to take for a chance at better? Better Than This is an uplifting, inspirational story about finding love second time around, breaking free of insecurity and believing that you deserve to be happy. This is a full-length novel (280-pages print, c. 80,000 words), featuring blended families, cross-cultural relationships, themes of coercive and controlling behaviour, with some mild violence and reference to suicide. 'The birth of a new love, the death of a poisonous one, the faith in one's dreams... Marzin has a talent to bring it all to the surface: the intensity of pleasure and pain, the reality of the ugly and the beautiful of life. Her writing is vivid and with staying power, and her unflinching depiction of both joy and loss is remarkable. For a life-affirming story from a writer who clearly knows, and can tell, of the highs and lows of the reality of being a woman, look no further. F.P.'