Bloomsbury

A novel in the form of a memoir, Sweet Caress is William Boyd’s fictional tale of Amory Clay, a woman who records society, war, fashion, in photographs that define the ages through which she lives. Her first job is with her uncle, a London society photographer, but in an attempt to establish herself as an artist in her own right Amory travels to Berlin. When the shocking photographs she takes there cause more of a stir than she had bargained for, she heads for New York to work for a newspaper magnate whose interest in her is more than merely professional. Half of this fascinating tale is told from the perspective of Amory, age 69, by now a photojournalist for decades. Her supposed photographs, scattered throughout the novel, accompany a narrative that crosses continents and decades, taking the reader from generation to generation, war to war. As in the prize-winning novels Any Human Heart and Restless, Boyd artfully and engagingly captures the historical currents of the ages he portrays, the wars that beset us—and the ceaseless, mysterious need that is in the heart of each of us. – Betsy Burton