Everyone has that one summer.

'David Nicholls is that rarest of literary creatures: a genuinely brilliant, genuinely popular novelist.' - Stuart Maconie, in New Statesman's Best Books of 2020

'Triumph ... the sense of nostalgia is visceral and intense, almost time-bending' The Sunday Times

'Pitch perfect ... Exquisite ... Terrific ... Very funny' Telegraph

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

In 1997, Charlie Lewis is the kind of boy you don't remember in the school photograph. His exams have not gone well. At home he is looking after his father, when surely it should be the other way round, and if he thinks about the future at all, it is with a kind of dread.

Then Fran Fisher bursts into his life and despite himself, Charlie begins to hope.

But if Charlie wants to be with Fran, he must take on a challenge that could lose him the respect of his friends and require him to become a different person. He must join the Company. And if the Company sounds like a cult, the truth is even more appalling.

The price of hope, it seems, is Shakespeare.

Poignant, funny, enchanting, devastating, Sweet Sorrow is a tragicomedy about the rocky path to adulthood and the confusion of family life, a celebration of the reviving power of friendship and that brief, searing explosion of first love that can only be looked at directly after it has burned out.

'The wit and real humour of his other books are here in this lovely rendition of what love is. A great read especially in England over the summer' ***** Reader Review

'What a lovely, beautiful book, full of wistful nostalgia' ***** Reader Review

'I loved this book. I've bought more copies to give to friends and family and will be recommending it to everyone I know who has ever fallen in love' ***** Reader Review

'This is a very special novel, both sad and funny at the same time, with such beautiful writing' ***** Reader Review

'A modern classic' ***** Reader Review