The Queen of the Tambourine - Tapa dura

This epistolary novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Peabody, a woman who believes herself incapable of hurting anybody and a source of inspiration and comfort to her South London neighbours, as she finds her life coming apart after a mysterious disappearance.

Jane Gardam is a novelist, writer of short stories and author of children's books. Over her long and successful career, Jane Gardam has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize (for Old Filth in 2005) and for the Booker Prize (for God on the Rocks, also filmed for TV) and is the only writer to have been twice awarded the prize for Whitbread Novel of the Year (for The Hollow Land and Queen of the Tambourine). She also holds a Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature. Her other books include The Flight of the Maidens, Faith Fox, Going into a Dark House and Missing the Midnight. As well as an acclaimed novelist, she is a writer of short stories such as The People on Privilege Hill, whose title story was runner-up in the BBC National Short Story Award and was read on Radio 4. Jane Gardam was awarded the OBE in the 2009 New Year's Honours lists for services to literature. She was born in Yorkshire and lives in Kent.