Shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award
Shortlisted for Costa First Novel Award 2018
Prima Magazine Best Books of the Year
The Reading Agency Top Debuts of 2018 âAn important and timely story that explores the ongoing impact of war and how itâs often left to the women to pick up the pieces. The way Hart has made a mosaic of different womenâs experiences, be they British, American or Iraqi, is profoundly moving. Pieces of Me is a love story that will leave you in tatters and yet there is an enduring sense of women making, mending and creating that gives this book a radiance. I will never forget itâ
âTor Udall, author of A Thousand Paper Birds
Emma did not go to war looking for love, but Adam is unlike any other.
Under the secret shadow of trauma, Emma decides to leave Iraq and joins Adam to settle in Colorado. But isolation and fear find her, once again, when Adam is re-deployed. Torn between a deep fear for Adamâs safety and a desire to be back there herself, Emma copes by throwing herself into a new role mentoring an Iraqi refugee family.
But when Adam comes home, he brings the conflict back with him. Emma had considered the possibility that her husband might not come home from war. She had not considered that he might return a stranger.
REVIEWS
âAn astounding debut, Pieces of Me is a beautiful book written with emotion and compassion and will stay with me for a long time. Itâs characters and story tugged at my heart with every turning page'
âNina Pottell, Books Editor, Prima Magazine
âHeart-wrenching and heart-warming in equal measure, Pieces of Me is an incredibly moving tale of love and conflict. A compelling and accomplished debut, Natalie writes with the skill and confidence of a writer who's been published for years. I couldn't put it down'
âHarper's Bazaar
'Pieces of Me is a brilliantly observed and nuanced look at the war in Iraq and how conflict impacts on the lives of everyone involved'
âLaura Kaye, author of English Animals
'I devoured this book, and I feel like I'll carry Emma and Adam with me for a long time. Hart tells this devastating story beautifully'
âLaura Pearson, author of Missing Pieces
âPieces of Me churns with love and rage and hope and terror, as only the best war books can. Natalie Hart writes like a born storyteller, and she uses that gift here to explore how the Iraq War lingers in the dark corners of souls desperate to move on from it. Readers are in for a ride'
âMatt Gallagher, author of Youngblood
âPieces of Me is a quietly powerful exploration of the complex effects of the Iraq warâŚThe novel builds in power and speaks authoritatively on the polarisation of the lives changed forever by conflictâ
âZoe Lambert
âNatalie Hartâs brilliant Pieces of Me isâlike Graham Greeneâs The End of the Affairâa love story set amid the ruins of war. As a British civilian who meets her American husband in Iraq, the narrator, Emma McLaughlin, is a first-hand witness to the ways armed conflict breaks soldiers and non-combatants alike. Her testimony, and this novel, is unforgettably complex and devastatingâas it should beâ
âWhitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant
âNatalie Hartâs vivid novel, Pieces of Me, examines the lives of deployed soldiersâ families and displaced Iraqi civilians, eloquently revealing how even the most tightly knit relationships can unravel under the stress of warâ
âSiobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone and The Confusion of Languages
âBeautiful, moving love story. Set amid the Iraq war, it is quietly impactful, courageous and sublimeâ
âFiona Mitchell, author of The Swap and The Maidâs Room