Sorrow and Bliss cover art

Sorrow and Bliss

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Sorrow and Bliss

By: Meg Mason
Narrated by: Emilia Fox
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

The instant Sunday Times best seller.

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022.

Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick.

So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?

Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.

Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.

©2021 Meg Mason (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group Contemporary Fiction Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Emotionally Gripping Funny Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Witty Feel-Good

Critic reviews

"A brilliantly faceted and extremely funny book that engulfed me in the way I am always hoping to be engulfed by novels. I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know." (Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House)

"A devastating and sharply funny love story." (Observer)

"Both fantastically dark and almost unbearably funny.... Just read it. It's unforgettable." (India Knight, The Sunday Times)
All stars
Most relevant
Blown away by the writing and the narration. Utterly brilliant book. Witty, sad and funny throughout! I adored it!

Possibly one of my fave books ever

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Meg Mason really gets under the skin of the characters, and at some point, you will hate them, love them, morn for them. At times even feel their anguish even once you have put the book down. So refreshing to read a real story about love and loss.

Real & Raw

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
story well written with intense lovable characters
I think we will all relate to Martha's struggles with x

bliss reading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Emilia Fox reads this wonderful book PERFECTLY, thank you. I couldn’t stop listening, and didn’t want it to end.

Total immersion,

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of my top books of 2021 full of love , hope , sadness and humour.
Emilia Fox was an amazing narrator

Awesome read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews