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Half-English and half-French, Michele Roberts was born in 1949. DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE (1992) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the W.H. Smith Literary Award.

Roberts is such a fine writer - one of those languorous word-painters who crafts every sentence with loving care - marvellous to read ... she excels at texture, giving apparently simple scenes a warm sensual glow Sunday Telegraph "Michele Roberts writes some of the most sensual prose around in contemporary fiction ... You do not just read the book, you also smell and see the action" Penelope Lively, Spectator "Beautifully depicted settings ... textured, sensual writing" Sunday Express Magazine "Roberts's delightful new novel ... is a celebration of the sensual joy of reading. Both Charlotte and Vinny discuss the literary experience in quasi-sexual terms. Meanwhile, Roberts's superbly evocative descriptive writing proves their point" Michael "Roberts's detailing of early 1970s counter-culture and the faded bohemians of today's north London is acute. Her central character, the free-spirited poet Vinny, is colourfully believable, and the story of her betrayal by her sister ... is perfectly delineated" Guardian "Michele Roberts's greatest gift is conjuring up material things. Her flowers are the verbal equivalent of trompe l'oeil. She writes with lovely, discriminating greed about food. Her descriptions of houses are intensely evocative" Lucy Hughes- Hallett "Presented with Roberts's customary gift for sumptuous description and eye for telling detail" Joan Smith, Independent "Robert s' books are intricately made, and what happens to the characters grows out of the way new feelings, old repressions and scars and the lure of the future interact and force the characters along one course or another. The nexus of desire, guilt,