The Tell-tale Heart - Tapa blanda

Patrick, a 50-year-old professor of American Studies, drinker and womaniser, has been given six months to live. In a rural part of Cambridgeshire, a teenager dies in a motorcycle accident. When his heart is transplanted into Patrick's chest, the lives of two strangers are forever conjoined. Patrick makes a good recovery from surgery, but has the strange feeling that his old life 'won't have him'. He discovers that his donor's name was Drew Beamish, a local boy who had been expelled from school following a scandal, and becomes intensely curious, not only about Drew but what shaped him: his family and culture, the ancestor who took part in the famous Littleport riots of 1816, and the bleak yet beautiful landscape of the Fens.

Jill Dawson is the author of TRICK OF THE LIGHT, MAGPIE, FRED AND EDIE, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, WILD BOY, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize, THE GREAT LOVER, a Richard and Judy Summer Read in 2009, and LUCKY BUNNY. In addition she has edited six anthologies of short stories and poetry. Born in Durham, Jill Dawson grew up in Yorkshire. She has held many Fellowships, including the Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia, where she taught on the MA in Creative Writing course. In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in recognition of her work. She lives in the Fens with her husband and two sons.