Photo: Antonella Papa
Charles Lambert
Agent: Isobel Dixon
Assistant: Finlay Charlesworth
Biography: Born in England, Charles lives in Rome, where he worked for many years as a university teacher. In addition to his novels, he is a prizewinning writer of short fiction. His work is included in THE BEST OF BRITISH SHORT STORIES 2013 (Salt) and he has won an O. Henry Award and other short story prizes.
‘Honest, sharp and beautifully written – rare, truthful writing.’ – Ann Cleeves
‘Charles Lambert is a terrific, devious storyteller.’ – Owen King
‘Charles Lambert writes as if his life depends on it. He takes risks at every turn.’ – Hannah Tinti
‘Charles Lambert is writer who could one day attain classic status.’ – Maggie Gee
‘A writer who never ceases to surprise.’ – Jenny Offill
‘A seriously good writer.’ – Beryl Bainbridge
THE CHILDREN'S HOME
Literary fiction, 217 pages
Scribner US, Aardvark Bureau UK, Jan 2016
Morgan is a shockingly disfigured recluse who never leaves the country mansion he is heir to. But his solitary existence is disturbed when a young boy and girl arrive in the house, as if from nowhere. As the cluster of strangely wise children explore the corridors and abandoned rooms of the house, they reveal to Morgan a cabinet of curiosities – and bitter secrets of his own life.
'A one-of-a-kind literary horror story.’ – Kirkus Reviews, Starred review
PRODIGAL
Literary, 320 pages
Aardvark Bureau, August 2018
Meet the hapless Jeremy: a man in his late 50s, he scrapes together a living in Paris by writing soft-core pornography under the saucy guise of ‘Nathalie Cray’. When his all-but-estranged sister tells him their father is on his deathbed, Jeremy reluctantly travels back to his parental home in the depths of the English countryside. Confronted with a life that he had always been eager to escape, his return marks the start of an emotionally fraught journey into the family’s chequered past. An atypical coming-of-age tale, Prodigal deftly reconsiders everything we think we know about the nature of trust, death, and what we do to each other in the name of love.
THE BONE FLOWER
Literary fiction, 240 pages
Gallic - September 2022
On a grey November evening in Victorian London, Edward Monteith, a moneyed but listless young man, stokes the fire at his local gentleman’s club, listening to its members: scientists, explorers and armchair philosophers discussing their supernatural experiences and their theories of life after death. Edward is taken under the wing of some sceptics and attends a supposed séance where he is captivated by a beautiful young woman selling flowers outside the theatre. What follows is a quintessential Gothic novel, a ghost story, and an uncanny love story.
Soon Edward and Settie, the mixed-race Romani traveller are deeply in love, but their bond is threated by the inescapable class system of Victorian society. When Settie falls pregnant Edward panics. Afraid of their fate if he is cut off by his father, he makes a drastic decision with dire consequences.
Less than two years later Edward is married. His large country house is adorned with orange trees and his young Sicilian wife is awaiting the birth of their first child. But the past he is desperate to forget won’t be laid to rest.
BIRTHRIGHT
Literary fiction, 394 pages
Gallic Books, Dec 2022
Sixteen-year-old Fiona inhabits a privileged world of English affluence, though her relationship with her widowed mother is strained. When she discovers an old newspaper clipping of a woman and her daughter – the little girl a mirror image of her own younger self – she becomes convinced she has a true family elsewhere. Four years later, with the help of charming fraudster Patrick, Fiona drops everything to seek out her doppelgänger in Italy.
Fiona arrives in Rome to find Maddy living hand to mouth with her alcoholic mother. Spooked by the appearance of this strange girl wearing her face and stalking her every move, Maddy wants nothing to do with her. Caught in a surreal push-and-pull, the two are both fascinated and repulsed by the oddly familiar other, each coveting a different life. But they aren’t the only ones trying to control their fate, and the two women will soon learn that people aren’t always what they seem – though blood may still prove thicker than water.
Birthright is a dark, gripping literary thriller for fans of Ian McEwan, Rupert Thomson and Edward St Aubyn