Renegade – Jane Austin
ISBN: 9781788649346
£10.99
Justin, a popular Leeds professor, seeks redemption in the ashes of youthful idealism. Holding together his family is already a struggle as his son, Sanjay, is drawn into radical politics by his lover Farida, who joins a Kurdish Women’s militia to fight ISIS. With nerves already frayed, Justin’s wife, Harpreet, is devastated when revelations of his past as an urban bomber come to light, turning his life upside down.
Can love and loyalty prevent this family from imploding?
Jane Austin’s second novel, Renegade is a compelling story of 70s rebellion, revolution in Rojava and a family in a tailspin; a tale that touches the beating heart of our times.
From 1970s violent anarchy in Notting Hill to respectability as a happily married university professor: can Justin come to terms with the guilt of his past? This evocative historical novel also explores the nature of libertarian ideals in the contemporary world. An absorbing read.
Dr Jeremy Worman, writer and critic
Author biography
Jane Austin was born in Liverpool, has a degree in French and lives with her husband in London. She has worked in a number of settings, including schools, adult education and at the University of York.
News from Nowhere was Jane’s debut novel inspired by a collection of letters from three of her family as they served on the Western Front. Jane first read this remarkable collection in 1983, when her grandmother, Elizabeth Dewi Roberts, published them in a slim volume, entitled Witness These Letters. Written to the family in Bangor, North Wales, from 1915 to 1918, the letters vividly describe the torments of the trenches and the battlefield, and life as a prisoner-of-war.
Jane’s short story, ‘Les Petites Curies’, was published in a Cinnamon Press anthology, The Day I Met Vini Reilly, 2016. Renegade is Jane’s second novel.