Everyone Brave is Forgiven

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Dear Reader:

I am thrilled to present you with an early copy of Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave.

In this magnificent novel, Chris has created unforgettable characters and put them in unforgiving circumstances — just as he did in Little Bee.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven begins in London in 1939, at the declaration of war, when a posh young socialite named Mary impetuously volunteers. Assigned a role teaching, Mary has barely memorized her students’ names before they’re evacuated to the countryside. But then some children return. The deformed, the disabled, the nonwhites. Mary fills her London classroom with a handful of children who were not welcomed into the homes of their countrymen even as the bombs begin to fall.

Mary’s relationship with a young black American boy named Zachary and her romantic entanglements — with her middle-class boss, Tom, and then with Tom’s debonair roommate, Alistair, who returns from the battlefront a haunted man — fuel the plot of this page-turner. As the war rages on, these characters endure everyday horrors and small serendipities in equal parts.

As with any Cleave novel, as you read you will laugh and you will cry, and you will find yourself immersed in a story that feels palpably real and important. I couldn’t be more excited to share this novel with you. Thank you in advance — I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Best,

Marysue Rucci

Vice President and Editor-in-Chief

Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Voice 212 698 1234 Fax 212 698 7453

marysue.rucci@simonandschuster.com