Holding a Mirror to the Human Mind

March 28, 2014 - PRLog -- Forbidden desires. A mind in fragments. A shocking act of violence.

A hard-hitting, absorbing and deeply satisfying novel, peppered with sharply observed insights into human character. New author Tanya van Hasselt, whose writing has been compared to that of Alan Bennett, has an unerring eye for life’s interwoven strands of tragedy and comedy.

Martin Darrow: a respected public school chaplain with a secret, bent on ruining the teenage son of the man who abused and seduced him thirty years ago.

Nell Garwood: a young portrait painter struggling to forgive her husband and the friend who betray her.

Lewis Auerbach: a celebrated child psychiatrist with a schizophrenic wife, an inflexible moral code and an unquiet conscience.

Against a background of London's art galleries, a traditional public school and the embattled profession of psychiatry, the three must make the hardest choices of all. Epiphany and tragedy collide on a hot July night - and each is forced to reconsider who they are.

“Fiction acts as a light in the darkness; we may learn something about the human heart and how to live.” – Tanya van Hasselt comments on her inspiration behind All Desires Known

Tanya van Hasselt writes novels under her Dutch maiden name. She has a lifetime’s knowledge of public schools and comes from a family which has learnt about the devastating nature of mental illness. As Tanya Aydon, her short stories have won awards across the country, most recently winning first prize in the Barbara Pym centenary competition.

PUBLICATION DATE February 2014

eISBN: 9781783067367       Price: £3.99