Adrian Spratt

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Caroline

Front cover of Caroline, a novel by Adrian Spratt. Features a collage including New York City at night, locks of red hair, a vinyl record, a typewriter and a woman's legs in black tights.Available for Purchase
from publisher IngramSpark

Paperback
(from Amazon)
Audiobook
(from Audible)
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In 1980s New York City, young lawyer Nick Coleman meets free spirit Caroline Sedlak in an evening fiction writing course. A vivacious fixture at a Greenwich Village bar, she remains mysterious about her life until their teacher reads her story submission to the class, and Nick realizes that a darker past lurks beneath her happy-go-lucky exterior. Nick must confront demons of his own while struggling to prove himself to his colleagues as a young blind lawyer at an office that handles appeals for indigent convicted felons.

Nick’s practical, goal-driven approach to life balances Caroline’s quixotic nature, and their friendship soon deepens into something more. For some time, they’re happy together. But as the two become closer, Nick’s reluctance to commit collides head-on with Caroline’s need to be loved and belong. Soon, they realize that Caroline hasn’t left her past far behind after all … and the behavior that Nick once found charming first frustrates, then terrifies him.

As the two spiral toward an inevitable clash, Nick must choose between the life he thought he wanted, and the woman he can’t bring himself to admit he loves.

Read an excerpt from the print or audiobook version


About The Author

Photograph of Adrian Spratt
Adrian Spratt practiced law for twenty years, mainly in consumer protection, before returning to his first love, fiction writing. He graduated from Amherst College and earned his law degree from Harvard. Retinal detachment led to his loss of vision when he was thirteen. Today, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the artist and photographer Laura Rosen.

Reviews and Interviews

“A richly textured portrait of a sometimes luminous, sometimes bleak romance,” featuring “prose that’s psychologically exacting but infused with poetic resonance.”
—Kirkus, February 14, 2022

“Caroline is a subtle and poignant novel in which an impressionable lawyer falls in love.”
—Karen Rigby, Foreword Reviews, December 2, 2021

Read “An Interview with Adrian Spratt” by Elizabeth MacBride in the Washington Independent Review of Books, April 12, 2022

Listen to me discuss Caroline on The Bookshop at the End of the Internet podcast.

On April 26, 2023, I was interviewed about Caroline and other sometimes controversial questions by podcaster Jonathan Mosen for his show Living Blindfully. You can visit his site for the transcript of the show. To skip past some lengthy preliminary material to the interview, search for my name. The 58-minute audio, which begins at the show’s 48th minute, can also be played or downloaded on his site.


Caroline-related Short Essay

“How to Tell a Smile,” in Publishers Weekly


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Press

Press materials can be found here.

For publicity requests, please contact:
Ellen Whitfield
Books Forward
(615) 576-0554
ellen@booksforward.com
www.booksforward.com

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Comments Policy

I am delighted when visitors leave comments, whether observations, criticisms or praise. Requests to withhold identifying information will be honored, but in that case, please give yourself a pseudonym to use in case you leave other comments in the future.

Disclaimer

A lawyer can hardly resist an opportunity for a disclaimer or two. No statement on this website constitutes or is intended as legal advice. Also, resemblance of any person, living or otherwise, to any of my fictional characters is strictly coincidental. Even in my nonfiction, names have been changed and biographical details altered, and often traits of several people are combined into a single character. The exceptions, apart from myself, are inescapably my parents and brother, and I can only hope I’ve done them justice. Any other exceptions are noted.
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