Steffie spends her days working in a dry-cleaner’s, trying to scrub the world clean one garment at a time. But no matter how spotless the clothes, she can’t rid herself of the guilt and grime she feels inside.
Haunted by what happened to her sister when they were children, large fragments of which she can’t fully remember, Steffie is stuck in a loop of self-destruction, defiance, and shame.
When her violent, bullying father dies suddenly, it sparks a reckoning that cracks open her past. What follows is an unexpectedly redemptive journey of a woman trying to piece herself together in a world that failed to make space for her.
Raw, exhilarating, and full of heart, No Such Thing as Monday confirms Siân Hughes as a masterful chronicler of life lived on the edge, and people at their most vulnerable.
Praise
‘A brutally harsh tale of exploitation and survival, glinting with gallows.’
— Daily Mail
‘You’ll fall hard for this tough-but-achingly-vulnerable heroine.’
— Grazia
‘Hughes – author of the Booker-longlisted and The Authors’ Club Best First Novel, Pearl – will take you from heartbreak to laughter and back again in her story of self-sabotaging Steffie, whose childhood was blighted by a violent bully of a father. Steffie spends her days working at a dry cleaners, but try as she might, can’t erase the stains on her soul until the sudden death of her tormentor. Raw, and darkly funny, it’s a triumph.’
— The Sunday Post
‘A stunningly frank and darkly funny novel of loneliness and resilience. I loved it.‘
— Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry
‘In Steffie, Sian Hughes has created one of the most powerful, highly original and hilarious voices in fiction. What she suffers is almost unbearable and yet her resilience knocks the stuffing out of it. It’s deftly woven, the writing is delicious, and it hit my heart like a hammer blow.‘
— Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
‘I was blindsided by the brilliance of this novel.‘
— Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss
‘Richly absorbing and powerful – a ’read to the small hours,’ novel. Steffie has a unique voice that keeps you glued to her story, and that I absolutely loved.’
— Kate Hamer, author of The Girl in the Red Coat
