Ordinary Hazards

For fans of Celeste Ng comes a transfixing debut novel about how life's
small decisions can ultimately yield the most powerful consequences.


Everyone always wants to know why relationships
fail. It's a spiteful curiosity thing, schadenfreude, but also a
self-preservation thing. People want to understand how to avoid the
fall.


The answer is complicated. There isn't one reason,
one event. It has something to do with smoking cigarettes and drinking
all night. It takes into account thousands of hours of labour on a small
house, projects finished and unfinished. It is late-night conversations
and inside jokes and making love and having a child. The answer is
wrapped up, shrouded and ensconced in prioritization, ambition and work.
Caring about these things is not the problem. Not caring about them is
death.


Emma has settled into her hometown bar for the
evening. It was in this very room that she met Lucas a few years back,
on a blind date. Nine months ago, in unimaginable circumstances, they
divorced.


As Emma listens to the locals' banter, key facts
about her life story begin to emerge and the past comes bearing down on
her like a freight train.


A powerhouse in the business world, why has she
ended up here, now a regular in the last bar on the edge of a small
town? What is she running away from? And what is she willing to give up
in order to recapture the love she has lost?


As Emma teeters on the edge of oblivion, becoming
more booze-soaked by the hour, her night begins to spin out of control
with shocking results.


'Seen through keen eyes and full of deep feeling,
Ordinary Hazards delves into the psyche of a woman grappling with grief,
loss, and the burdens of inheritance. Anna Bruno vividly renders the
messiness of a single human life in all its joy and heartbreak.' -CLAIRE
LOMBARDO, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had


'Crisp, haunting, and intelligent. Beneath the
surface of this booze-soaked, small town, dive bar novel lies a
devastating story of loss, guilt, and grief. Bruno's narrator proves a
dark, funny, unflinching companion as you descend with her, step by
step, towards the revelation of what has led her to the bar tonight.'
-STEPHEN MARKLEY, author of Ohio


'Quiet but emotionally engaging, this atmospheric
novel has a raft of enduring characters who prompt her memories. Bruno
has a gift for observation which she uses to produce a haunting
examination of love, loss and grief.' -Fanny Blake, Daily Mail