Contemporary Fiction Books

Book Synopsis''THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART is an outstanding debut, a feminist horror novel that tackles big social issues and also delivers the gory origin story of a female serial killer.'' - NEW YORK TIMES''I WAS ENTICED FROM THE FIRST LINE'' - Oyinkan Braithwaite''DARKLY FUNNY'' - Fern Brady''A DARK MODERN FAIRYTALE OF FEMALE VENGEANCE'' - Harriet Walker''VERY CLEVER, VERY WEIRD, BRILLIANT SOCIAL COMMENTARY'' - Abigail BergstromMy Sister, the Serial Killer meets Boy Parts, this literary feminist howl-of-a-debut is going to crawl right under your skin...Ji-won''s life is in disarray. Her father''s affair has ripped her family to shreds, leaving her to piece their crappy lives back together. So, when her mother''s obnoxious new white boyfriend enters the scene, bragging about his flawed knowledge of Korean culture and ogling Asian waitresses in restaurants, Ji-won''s hold over her emotionsstrains. As he gawks at her and her sister around their claustrophobic apartment, Ji-won becomes more and more obsessed with his brilliant blue eyeballs. As her fixation and rage grow, Ji-won decides that she must do the one thing that will save her family... and also curb her cravings.''Violent, gruesome and wildly original'' - NEW YORK TIMES''Utterly fantastic, female revenge horror at its finest. Perfect for readers of Tender is the Flesh'' WATERSTONES''Smartly written, [this is] a fun and nasty debut with real edge to it. A promising calling card from a writer to watch'' THE BIG ISSUE''One of the most assured feminist horror novels I have ever read'' Bookseller''Dark, uncomfortable and addictive... I was hooked from page one. What an exciting debut'' Bookseller''If you love unhinged women and seeing them get their revenge, then you NEED to read this... A very well-written social commentary on misogyny, racism and cultural fetishisation'' Bookseller''Deliciously weird'' - Reader review''Full of teeth clenching tension and satisfying vengeance. This debut is not one to miss!'' - Reader review ''Gross, graphic and hilarious'' - Reader review

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Book SynopsisIn a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth - no, sixth? - child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block.Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions. Dan plans to walk away from his saccharine TV success and finally knuckle down to writing that novel he always felt he had in him. While, for Jada, it''s the opportunity for one last get-rich-quick scheme - ripping off a local airport. When a tragedy occurs, their worlds are brought closer than either could ever have imagined - close enough that it could mean destruction for both of them . . .

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Book SynopsisSabrina is a firebird blazing through 1950s New York: she is a woman daring to enjoy the sexual licence that men have always known. Wearing extravagant outfits and playing dangerous games of desire, she deliberately avoids committment, gripped by the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.

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Book SynopsisWe could tell you the year is 1944, that the main character is called Tyrone Slothrop and that he has a problem because bombs are falling across Europe and crashing to earth at the exact locations of his sexual conquests. But that doesn't really begin to cover it.Trade ReviewThe best seller described as the kind of Ulysses which Joyce might have written if he had been a Boeing engineer with a fetish for quadrille paper * Irish Examiner *Pynchon’s masterpiece. -- John Sutherland * Guardian *Thomas Pynchon gives us 20th-century fiction's finest memento mori. -- John Sutherland * The Times *[A] masterpiece -- Marc Chacksfield * ShortList *I read this at 19 or so and just thought, like, f*ck, wow: this is the marker, the pace-setter for the contemporary novel -- Tom McCarthy, author of 'C'

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Book SynopsisThe unforgettable and achingly tender new novel from Sarah Winman, author of the international bestseller WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT and the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller A YEAR OF MARVELLOUS WAYSTrade ReviewThe writing is powerful and yet understated, whether in Winman's observations about relationships or her evocations of landscapes. With her skilful command of language and deep emotional insight, Winman has produced in the exquisitely crafted Tin Man her best novel to date. * Observer *The writing is powerful and yet understated, whether in Winman's observations about relationships or her evocations of landscapes. With her skilful command of language and deep emotional insight, Winman has produced in the exquisitely crafted Tin Man her best novel to date. * Observer *This is an astoundingly beautiful book. It drips with tenderness. It breaks your heart and warms it all at onceThis is an astoundingly beautiful book. It drips with tenderness. It breaks your heart and warms it all at once[Tin Man] is a marvel, full of love, longing and loss, huge emotions described in such a beautifully understated way that their impact is all the more powerful * Sunday Express (S Magazine) *[Tin Man] is a marvel, full of love, longing and loss, huge emotions described in such a beautifully understated way that their impact is all the more powerful * Sunday Express (S Magazine) *An exquisitely crafted tale of love and loss * Guardian *An exquisitely crafted tale of love and loss * Guardian *It's exquisite. There are stories you just feel privileged to read. Sarah's writing breaks you and heals you, all in the same moment, and I haven't been so moved, and so in love with a book and its characters in a very long timeIt's exquisite. There are stories you just feel privileged to read. Sarah's writing breaks you and heals you, all in the same moment, and I haven't been so moved, and so in love with a book and its characters in a very long timeTin Man may be a short novel, at just 195 pages, but it packs an enormous punch * Independent *Tin Man may be a short novel, at just 195 pages, but it packs an enormous punch * Independent *[Tin Man has] themes of childhood bonds and traumas, and gay love, which she evokes with tender sympathy * The Times *[Tin Man has] themes of childhood bonds and traumas, and gay love, which she evokes with tender sympathy * The Times *A beautifully written novel * Daily Mail *A beautifully written novel * Daily Mail *Heart-wrenching... a short but powerful novel about love and friendship * Woman & Home *Heart-wrenching... a short but powerful novel about love and friendship * Woman & Home *This book is why I read * Prima *This book is why I read * Prima *I didn't think a perfect book could exist, I was wrongI didn't think a perfect book could exist, I was wrongWinman writes with a poetry that makes the impact of Tin Man so much greater than its 200 pages... ephemeral yet powerful... Every fleeting moment is worth repeating, again and again * Stylist *Winman writes with a poetry that makes the impact of Tin Man so much greater than its 200 pages... ephemeral yet powerful... Every fleeting moment is worth repeating, again and again * Stylist *[A] beautiful story about love, loss and longing * Red Magazine *[A] beautiful story about love, loss and longing * Red Magazine *Tin Man sparkles with a timeless beauty that few other authors can invoke... disarmingly lovely and unequivocally heart breaking...Forget every other novel released this month and just read Tin Man, it's the perfect tale of love, loss and life * Culturefly *Tin Man sparkles with a timeless beauty that few other authors can invoke... disarmingly lovely and unequivocally heart breaking...Forget every other novel released this month and just read Tin Man, it's the perfect tale of love, loss and life * Culturefly *Heart-breaking and heart-makingHeart-breaking and heart-makingTin Man is Winman's best novel yet. The playful subversiveness still bubbles away but there's a new candour there, an acceptance of needs and flaws that proves deeply touching. This is storytelling as cruelly kind as fate itselfTin Man is Winman's best novel yet. The playful subversiveness still bubbles away but there's a new candour there, an acceptance of needs and flaws that proves deeply touching. This is storytelling as cruelly kind as fate itselfA beautiful, life-giving book that will constantly surprise you * Attitude *A beautiful, life-giving book that will constantly surprise you * Attitude *'It was beautiful, and occasionally, it hurt,' says Michael - and this exactly describes the wonder of this bruisingly tender book * Psychologies magazine *'It was beautiful, and occasionally, it hurt,' says Michael - and this exactly describes the wonder of this bruisingly tender book * Psychologies magazine *Emotionally charged * Express.co.uk *Emotionally charged * Express.co.uk *

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisFrom multimillion-copy bestselling author Amanda Prowse, comes an emotionally compelling story that asks: what makes you happier the life you're given, or the one you choose?She wants it all. But life has other plansAfter years of hard work, Madeleine's life is very nearly perfect. She's about to move to LA to pursue her dream joband there's a new man on the scene too. But when her mother falls ill, pulling her back to the world she's tried so hard to leave behind, the repercussions of a life-changing decision Madeleine made seven years ago resurface, threatening to jeopardise everything she's worked for. Faced with the promise of her new life, and the pull of her old, she has to ask herself some tough questions: was what she did then right for her family? How do you know when it's okay to put yourself first? And what's the cost of happiness?Heartfelt, provocative and emotional, this is a gripping look at the choices women have to make, and whether we really can have it all

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Book SynopsisDiscover the fantastical Sunday Times bestselling short story collection from the award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life.''Simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world'' Gillian FlynnAs soon as you get to the end, you'll be tempted to just start at the beginning' IndependentFunny and poignant in equal measure, you'll want to read this captivating collection in one mystical sitting.' Daily ExpressWelcome to a world, where nothing is quite what it seems In these pages, you'll meet, among others, a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination in a constantly changing multiverse.Atkinson's first short story collection in twenty years, Normal Rules Don''t Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales.____________Hilarious, breathtaking, horrific, irresistible ... [Atkinson is] always in command ... Heart in mouth, I never wanted this book to end' Sydney Morning HeraldSublime showcases her superb storytelling and the wit of her writing' Good HousekeepingLife in all of its surreal, tragic and comic glory is perfectly captured within these pages' RedDazzling' Reader''s DigestPraise for Kate Atkinson:''Inexhaustibly ingenious'' HILARY MANTEL''A brilliant and profoundly original writer'' RACHEL CUSK''Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill'' FINANCIAL TIMES''One of the country''s most innovative, exciting and intelligent authors.'' SCOTSMAN

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Book SynopsisThe hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of How to Kill Men and Get Away With It and The Murder After the Night Before''I was rooting for Kitty even as she killed more men (oops!). Funny and twisty in the best of ways'' Tasha Coryell***********************************************My name is Kitty Collins and I'm a serial killer.I don't want to kill. It's just so hard to resist. Some men really, really deserve it.Men like Blaze Bundy, an anonymous influencer spreading misogyny online. He's making it very hard for me to control my murderous urges.Meanwhile I'm in the South of France to watch my mother marry a man I've never met. I should be drinking cocktails and focusing on my tan, not plotting a murder.But a woman's work is never done. Surely one more teensy little kill wouldn't hurt, would it?*********************************************''Brent is brilliant at cutting right to the (literal) heart of misogyny, using her trademark acerbic humour'' Amy Beashel''Darkly hilarious Come for the sharp-tongue prose and pitch-black comedy, stay for the careful dismantling of toxic masculinity'' Laurie Elizabeth FlynnFans of How to Kill Your Family and Bad Sisters will love this deliciously dark, hilariously twisted new novel. Readers are obsessed with Kitty Collins:''In a world of toxic masculinity and misogyny, we all need a Kitty Collins'' ?????''A riot from start to finish I''m hopeful that we haven't heard the last of our favourite serial killer'' ?????''Full of dark humour, wit and misogynistic men getting their comeuppance, this is a book that I highly recommend ' ?????Being a man I really shouldn''t like this book. Well I didn''t like it. I loved it! Oh I just couldn''t stop reading this.' ?????How to Kill Men was an absolute treat to read, sending out American Psycho and Promising Young Woman vibes.' ?????AMAZING!!! Where has Kitty been all my life?' ?????

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Book SynopsisThe debut collection from the acclaimed author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Our Share of Night. 'An utterly brilliant measure of deep existential terror... You [will] return home looking pale and haunted' Observer Sleep-deprived fathers conjuring phantoms; sharp-toothed children and stolen skulls; persecuted young women drawn to self-immolation. Organized crime sits side-by-side with the occult in Buenos Aires - a place where reality and the supernatural fuse into strange, new shapes. These acclaimed gothic tales follow the wayward and downtrodden, revealing the scars of Argentina's dictatorship and the ghosts and traumas that have settled in the minds of its people. Provocative, brutal and uncanny, Things We Lost in the Fire is contemporary gothic at its darkest and best. 'The only book that's ever left me afraid to turn out the lights... mercilessly incisive and deeply creepy' Irish Times 'Books of the Year' 'These spookily clear-eyed, elementally intense stories are the business' Helen OyeyemiTrade ReviewBright with brilliance... The stories [create] a sensibility as distinctive as that found in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. They are a portrait of a world in fragments, a mirrorball made of razor blades -- John Self * Guardian *An utterly brilliant measure of deep existential terror ... you [will] return home looking pale and haunted -- ‘Best Summer Books’ selected by Mark O’Connell * Observer *Slim but phenomenal... The spookiness of these 12 stories sets into the reader's mind like a jet stone, sparkling through all that darkness * Vanity Fair *The only book that's ever left me afraid to turn out the lights... mercilessly incisive and deeply creepy -- ‘Books of the Year’ selected by Lisa McInerney * Irish Times *Fiction doesn't get much better than this -- John Ajvide Lindqvist, author * Let the Right One In *Teeming with death, sex and the macabre, this short-story collection by one of Argentina's rising literary talents might best be described as Buenos Aires gothic -- Best Summer Books * Financial Times *[Full of] claustrophobic terror... stylish and compelling -- Luke Brown * Financial Times *Propulsive and mesmerising... I will be haunted for some time by this book * New York Times Book Review *Enríquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read... her fiction hits with the force of a freight train -- Dave Eggers, author * The Circle *Beautiful but savage... [Enriquez] gives the best horror stories a run for their money... This is the best short story collection I have read this year -- Lucy Scholes * National *An utterly brilliant measure of deep existential terror ... you [will] return home looking pale and haunted -- Best Summer Reads * Guardian *Exquisite... unsettling and haunting... engaging and compelling * New Internationalist *These spookily clear-eyed, elementally intense stories are the business. I find myself no more able to defend myself from their advances than Enríquez's funny, brutal, bruised characters are able to defend themselves from life as it's lived -- Helen Oyeyemi, author * Boy, Snow, Bird *It seems wrong, somehow to call this grouping of Mariana Enríquez's stories a collection. There is nothing collected about these stories. These stories unsettle; they disturb; they disquiet. Read them! -- Kelly Link, author * Get in Trouble *Many of us have long looked up to Mariana Enríquez, one of the great talents of the new literature from Argentina. Possibly the most intimate one. Her writing is a prodigious blend which reimagines certain traditions under that dreadful clarity we identify as an author's voice. Sharp and intricate, her genre awareness is deserving of nothing but my admiration. Sharing her work is great cause for celebration -- Andrés NeumanWhen I read Mariana Enríquez's stories, I forget where I am. I miss my subway stop. I hold my breath. Her fiction is that pulse-racingly superb, that electric and original. Mariana Enríquez is an essential voice in contemporary fiction, and The Things We Lost in the Fire will be a sensation -- Laura van den Berg, author * Find Me *Enriquez's stories are not only supremely important, but addictive and joyfully grotesque... Born from the scars of a nation, they will leave a lasting mark on you -- Alan Bett * Skinny *Gripping * Monocle *Enriquez scratches satisfyingly at Argentina's underbelly * Newsweek *A detailed cultural portrait and a blend of realistic fiction and fantasy, the stories feature spirits and murders, marriages happy and sad, friendships and heartaches, all against the backdrop of past and present Argentina... The author picks apart the intricacies of human relationships and lays them out on the page in a manner that is simple, but delicate...A thorough exploration of the human condition, -- Alice Kouzmenko * Storgy Online *

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Book SynopsisWhen Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus's novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in 1997. Widely considered to be the most important feminist novel of the past two decades, I Love Dick is still essential reading; as relevant, fierce and funny as ever.Trade ReviewI know there was a time before I read Chris Kraus's I Love Dick (in fact, that time was only five years ago), but it's hard to imagine; some works of art do this to you. They tear down so many assumptions about what the form can handle (in this case, what the form of the novel can handle) that there is no way to re-create your mind before your encounter with them -- Sheila HetiThe intelligence and honesty and total originality of Chris Kraus make her work not just great but indispensable - especially now, when everything is so confusing, so full of despair. I read everything Chris Kraus writes; she softens despair with her brightness, and with incredible humor, too. -- Rachel KushnerI Love Dick is a classic. Here pain is the aphrodisiac and distance is the muse. Unrequited love is transformed into a fascinating book of ideas. -- Zoe PilgerEver since I read I Love Dick, I have revered it as one of the most explosive, revealing, lacerating and unusual memoirs ever committed to the page ... I Love Dick is never a comfortable read, and it is by turns exasperating, horrifying, and lurid, but it is never less than genuine, and often completely illuminating about the life of the mind. -- Rick MoodyI Love Dick is written in a clear prose capable of theoretical clarity, descriptive delicacy, articulate rage and melancholic longing * White Review *Tart, brazen and funny ... a cautionary tale, I Love Dick raises disturbing but compelling questions about female social behavior, power, control * Nation *For years before I read it, I kept hearing about Chris Kraus's I Love Dick. I mainly heard about it from smart women who liked to talk about their feelings ... I didn't understand exactly what it was, but it had an allure, like whispers about a dance club that only opened under the full moon, or an underground bar you needed a password to get into ... then I read it. I was nearly two decades late to the party - I Love Dick came out in 1997 - but I loved the party anyway. I was finally part of it, and it made me feel even more part of it - part of something ... I was holding white-hot text in my hands -- Leslie Jamison * New Yorker *I Love Dick is one of the most important books about being a woman ... Friends speak of Kraus's work in the same breathless and conspiratorial way they discuss Elena Ferrante's novels of female friendship set in Naples. The clandestine clubbishness that envelopes women who've read and immersed themselves in the texts shows how little female desire, anger and vulnerability is accurately and confidently explored in literature and culture ... the book reveals far deeper truths than standard and uncomplicated love plots tend to. -- Dawn Foster * Independent *This is the most important book written about men and women written in the last century... why is this revolutionary 18-year-old book finding its biggest audience only now? The answer lies in its own pages, when Kraus writes that "who gets to speak, and why, is the only question". In the last half a decade, women have been permitted to speak in a different way than before; women artists who use details of their own lives in their work are not as easily dismissed as they once were. The internet enables hordes of frightened, anonymous men to try to silence women via harassment and shaming, but it has also enabled our voices to be heard on a grander scale, with fewer intermediaries, than ever before. We are able to write our own letters to Dick now, and to publish them widely: to tell Dick exactly what we think of him, whether he likes it or not.This book will only become more relevant. Its time is now - and now, and now, for the rest of eternity. -- Emily Gould * Guardian *This book comes with a reputation, though it's not the one you might expect from the title, which leaps from the gorgeous, faux-innocent cover. Chris Kraus's "novel" was first published in the US in 1997 and has become recognised as both an influential feminist text and a key intervention in the debate over where life-writing ends and fiction begins ... What remains so brilliant about the book is the real, useful thought that Kraus builds out of her romantic fantasy ... You can call it a novel, then, but it's as a philosophical and cultural critique that I Love Dick bites hardest. -- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent *Read this on the bus - we dare you * Sunday Times Style *One of the most important feminist novels of the past two decades - -- Eva Wiseman * Observer Magazine *A joyful riposte to all those stories in which clever women fall victim to the pressures of convention - from The Yellow Wallpaper to The Bell Jar and beyond - and also to the countless books by men in which women are crushed by romantic encounters: from Madame Bovary to Anna Karenina to Laclos's epistolatory Les Liaisons Dangereuses and André Breton's autofiction, Nadja ... What makes now the right moment to publish Kraus's debut novel for the first time in the UK, after 18 years? There is a hint of retrospective gratitude: without Kraus, we might not have had the philosophers in high heels of Zoe Pilger's Eat My Heart Out, or Susana Medina's Philosophical Toys. Without her challenge to what she called "the 'serious' contemporary hetero-male novel ... a thinly veiled Story of Me", Sheila Heti might never have asked How Should a Person Be?, and Ben Lerner might never have written Leaving the Atocha Station. A whole generation of writers owes her ... You can get high on the book's passion, its humour, on the creation of a still-fresh style that not only says new things about female experience, but is able simultaneously to comment, tongue-in-cheek, on how this experience has been written, filmed and made into art. Kraus writes with an elegance that includes enough rough edges to make I Love Dick a game for real. - -- Joanna Walsh * Guardian *A literary must-have accessory, a relentlessly clever-clever book at fits neatly into the radical space recently opened up by semi-autobiographical novelists such as Nell Zink and Elena Ferrante ... It has some hugely arresting things to say about women's relationships with creative self-determination. -- Claire Allfree * Metro *The skill of the book allows the reader to enter into the fantasy (the one sex scene is torturous, but hot) while knowing it's destructive and one-sided. Chris recognises how vulnerable - ridiculous even - infatuation has made her. But she glories in the surrender ... This is a brilliant, experimental rollercoaster of a book ... there's something radical about a woman who pushes herself to the edge, finally to recover. -- Liz Hoggard * Observer *Genre-defying and dare I say it seminal ... It has possibly even more to tell us now than it did on first publication - or perhaps we're just more ready to hear it ... I Love Dick is one of the most important books about the limited ways in which women are permitted to speak. -- Lauren Elkin * TLS *I Love Dick is a wonderful catalogue of contradiction and desire, which benefits from the flexible and imaginative excess of its starting point: infatuation. It's also extremely funny and frantically absorbing. -- Anakana Schofield * Irish Times *A formidable novel of ideas * New Statesman *As important as Mrs Dalloway or The Bell Jar * Elle *What I Love Dick is really about is chaotic female sexuality and the ethics of using your life in your work ... it is soaked in feminist rage -- Hadley Freeman * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisEvan S. Connell''s Mrs Bridge is an extraordinary tragicomic portrayal of suburban life and one of the classic American novels of the twentieth century.Mrs Bridge, an unremarkable and conservative housewife in Kansas City, has three children and a kindly lawyer husband. She spends her time shopping, going to bridge parties and bringing up her children to be pleasant, clean and have nice manners. And yet she finds modern life increasingly baffling, her children aren''t growing up into the people she expected, and sometimes she has the vague disquieting sensation that all is not well in her life. In a series of comic, telling vignettes, Evan S. Connell illuminates the narrow morality, confusion, futility and even terror at the heart of a life of plenty.The companion novel Mr Bridge, telling the story from the other side of the marriage, is also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''A perfect novel ... Its tone - knowing, droll, plaintive, shuttliTrade ReviewIf you have already read it, that's wonderful, for chances are you love it too, and know how brilliant it is. And if you haven't read it, or perhaps have never even heard of it, well, that's wonderful too, because you are still lucky enough to be able to read it for the first time ... A perfect novel ... What writing! Economical, piquant, beautiful, true .... Mrs Bridge is one of those books that can suffuse a room with happiness when someone brings it up -- Meg Wolitzter * The New York Times *This is the first time that I have finished reading something and then immediately returned to the beginning to read it again. It's incredible. It's one of the best books I've ever read -- Ross Raisin, author of 'God's Own Country' and 'Waterline'How it is done I only wish I knew -- Dorothy Parker * Esquire *It is very, very funny, often moving and sad, and written with an uncompromising realism that one rarely comes across. To me the Bridges were a revelation: I cannot recommend them too highly * Daily Telegraph *Written from a kind of tilted, ironic angle, it's often very funny... and if this were all Mrs Bridge was, it would still be one of the sharper novels about mid-20th-century domestic life. But Mrs Bridge is so much more than that...It's a book that is smart and knowing and makes its reader feel as if they're in on a joke, while at the same time gradually coaxing them to feel more and more empathy for its vaguely absurd main character, and ultimately playing them like an emotional Stradivarius * Guardian *Intimate ... affecting ... very funny ... Mrs Bridge is a reflection of you and me, an exemplar of our shared humanity -- Joshua Ferris, author of 'Then We Came to the End' and 'The Unnamed'Connell never mocks or condescends, but wrings every drop of comedy and pathos from his hidebound heroine's predicament * Sunday Telegraph *Evan S. Connell's portrayal of the decline and fall of a 1950s Kansas City housewife charts perfectly the tragedy of the unexamined life * Observer *An exquisite mixture of sympathy and ironic detachment ... Connell's writing has a terse, hard-bitten flavour, but the chapters tend to resolve themselves into resonant, Austen-like aphorisms: "While marriage might be an equitable affair, love itself was not" * Independent *

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Book Synopsis''Consuming and sexy'' The Times''Unusually raw . . . so honest and hopeful'' Financial Times?? ?? ??A girl grows up in the north-east of England amid scarcity, fearing her own desires and feeling undeserving of love. Years later, living in tiny rented rooms and working in noisy bars across London and Paris, she meets someone who offers her a new way to experience the world.But when he invites her to join him in Barcelona, the promise of care makes her uneasy. In the shimmering Mediterranean heat, she is faced with both pleasure and shame, and must find out if she is able to change.''Addictive, immediate, brilliant'' Helen Mort''A sharp and beguiling love story . . . Milk Teeth is a transporting, gorgeous novel'' IndependentTrade ReviewJessica Andrews's first novel, Saltwater, was wonderful. The follow-up, Milk Teeth, is even better. A story of young love and desire that's full of the most gorgeous writing. -- Alex Preston, Fiction to Look Out for in 2022 * Observer *Addictive, immediate, brilliant. Jessica Andrews offers a profound take on the ways our bodies are policed, on class, escapism and losing yourself in others -- Helen MortMilk Teeth spills over with care, truth and desire. Andrews makes the case for a life lived abundantly and ardently, full of sensation and pleasure, risk and safety. -- Yara Rodrigues FowlerHeady, sweaty, sexy, salient. I devoured it -- Abigail TarttelinLike many girls from my generation, raised on a diet of Arturo Bandini's oranges and shiny tinned dreams of post-feminism, I have wasted too many years trying to fit into small, muted spaces. I would rather sit down to eat and think with Jessica Andrews any day: Milk Teeth is a novel about holding space, and the hard work that it takes. It is true and I am so grateful it exists. What a relief it is, finally, to step off the ledge: to choose to adventure, to give and take care. -- Livia FranchiniAndrews's sentences are like plum puddings. Rich. Satisfying. And she often uses verbs - spill, split, bleed, leaks - that suggest a messy life. Our heroine does have a messy life - don't we all - but it's presented here in a way that sees truth pouring off every page. * The Crack *In lyric dispatches, with the condensed cadences of poetry, Andrews' novel brilliantly explores the ways we grow into and beyond the limits of ourselves, and what happens in the gaps in between who we are and who we're expected to be. -- Andrew McMillanMilk Teeth is electrifying. It's an exothermic novel that breathes, seethes and writhes. An intimate exploration of class, precarity, sex, power and, above all, of the fragility and exuberance of love. The prose is vivid, gorgeous and supple. It's immediate and ultra-sensual and has the emotional pitch and intensity of the best gig you've ever been to. A thunderbolt of a book. -- Francesca ReeceJessica Andrews' arresting account of obsessive young love and anxiety, Milk Teeth, more than fulfils the promise of her debut, Saltwater -- Patrick Gale, Big Writers on Their Best Reads of 2022 * Daily Mail *As for a new book that I'm excited about, Jessica Andrews' Milk Teeth - her follow-up to award-winning debut novel Saltwater - would have to be it. Lyrical prose, sticky Mediterranean heat and vivid descriptions make this coming-of-age story transporting, sensual and completely addictive. Themes of loneliness, belonging, identity and love - and how we're ultimately deserving of it - will both break and warm your heart. A must for fans of Sally Rooney. -- Best Holiday Reads by Roxy Kavousi-Walker * Net-a-Porter *Milk Teeth examines what it means to allow ourselves to live. * SheerLuxe *Across its blissfully sprawling passages detailing scenes from different cities, what anchors the novel is its exploration of how hunger, class, desire and gender are interlaced . . . In Saltwater Andrews sought a voice that is her own, something she has truly settled into in Milk Teeth. Addressed in second person to the narrator's lover, the writing is gilded with a vulnerable immediacy, blisteringly honest and visceral. Andrews, already lauded, has come into her own. -- Miriam Balanescu * Irish Times *There aren't many high-quality novels for adults that pay serious attention to eating disorders . . . so it's good to find Andrews writing with such precision . . . Andrews's writing style is sensual . . . consuming and sexy. -- Susie Goldsbrough * The Times *This confidence in her material - in placing centre stage a young, unnamed northern woman living a precarious existence but struggling to carve out more space for herself - makes her work reminiscent of Gwendoline Riley . . . unusually raw . . . so honest and hopeful. -- Alex Peake-Tomkinson * Financial Times *An experience akin to having the hue and saturation slider of your mind moved to maximum . . . a brilliantly hopeful book -- Wendy Erskine * Caught by the River *Astute, gut-wrenching...For a novel that is so sharp and often written with such linguistic utility, it isn't at all sparse. Despite these moments in which the narration is given the control that the narrator so desires, this novel is full. In fact, fittingly, one might say it has real weight. * Lunate *A transporting, visceral second novel... a sizzling novel to read in the heat, when you're hungry for life. * Lucy Writers Platform *A sensual and languid love story. -- Sadhbh O’Sullivan * Refinery29 *A tide of sharply sensuous detail keeps the reader riveted as the book flows by in a series of candidly recounted episodes sustained by voice rather than plot. Andrews takes aim at the cultural pressures shaping unhealthy ideals of femininity without ever seeming to preach. -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *A sharp and beguiling love story . . . languid, elegantly written and dripping with a rich emotional humidity . . . Milk Teeth is a transporting, gorgeous novel * Independent *I liked it very much . . . the language, the prose, is very rich . . . there was a melody to it, I found myself reading passages aloud as if there was a poetry to it. -- Agnès Poirier * BBC Radio 4 Front Row *Andrews' prose is distinctly stylised. It possesses a heightened sensuality which reflects the protagonist's aspiration to live fiercely, "like lightning" - free of restraint . . . Milk Teeth possesses a highly charged and often deliberately uncomfortable intimacy. -- Michael Donkor * i *Andrews's lyrical prose overflows with sweet metaphors and sensuous imagery that . . . remains somehow addictive. -- Ellys Woodhouse * New Statesman *An intimate love story . . . Lazy comparisons to Sally Rooney don't do Andrews' unique writing style justice. Milk Teeth is a must-read. * Reaction.Life *Poignant * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisOn the 20th anniversary of SOPHIE'S WORLD - the world's bestselling book of 1995 - a striking new edition with a fresh jacket look and a foreword by the author.'A simply wonderful, irresistible book' DAILY TELEGRAPHTrade ReviewA simply wonderful, irresistible book * DAILY TELEGRAPH *A unique popular classic * THE TIMES *A marvellously rich book. Its success boils down to something quite simple - Gaarder's gift for communicating ideas * GUARDIAN *Remarkable ... What Jostein Gaarder has managed to do is condense 3,000 years of thought into 400 pages; to simplify some extremely complicated arguments without trivialising them ... SOPHIE'S WORLD is an extraordinary achievement * SUNDAY TIMES *Challenging, informative and packed with easily grasped, and imitable, ways of thinking about difficult ideas * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *A whimsical and ingenious mystery novel that also happens to be a history of philosophy ... What is admirable in the novel is the utter unpretentiousness of the philosophical lessons ... which manages to deliver Western philosophy in accounts that are crystal clear * WASHINGTON POST *A terrifically entertaining and imaginative story wrapped round its tough, thought-provoking philosophical heart * DAILY MAIL *

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Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTA dazzling epic of love, war and the joy of books' GuardianThere is magic in this place You just have to sit and breathe and wait and it will find you'Fifteenth-century Constantinople. Present day Idaho. The future, and humanity's last hope.Across time and space, five young dreamers are bound by a single ancient text. Together, they tell a story of a world in peril; of the power of words, of resilience, and of hope against all odds.The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See returns with a heart-breaking, magnificent epic of human connection and a love letter to storytelling itself.Wonderment and despair, love and destruction and hope all find their place in its sumptuously plotted pages' ObserverIngenious, hopeful and totally absorbing' Financial TimesThis engagingly written, big-hearted book is a must-read' Daily MirrorTrade Review Praise for Cloud Cuckoo Land: ‘Sets him comfortably alongside Tolkien, Rowling and David Mitchell, and he is a much more elegant writer than two of those … Cloud Cuckoo Land is an impressive achievement and a joy to read. Serious novels are rarely this fun.’ The Times ‘There is a kind of book a seasoned writer produces after a big success: large-hearted, wide in scope and joyous. Following his Pulitzer winner All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land is a deep lungful of fresh air – and a gift of a novel’ Guardian ‘A paean to stories as a source of sustenance and solace, and to the sweetness of our shared terrestrial home, Doerr’s narrative is buoyant with humanity and it’s author’s palpable pleasure in invention’ Daily Mail ‘A humane and uplifting book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences. Cloud Cuckoo Land is ultimately a celebration of books, the power and possibilities of reading’ New York Times ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land is a fascinatingly ambitious tale that’s worth the seven year wait’ Stylist ‘Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Doerr’s new novel traverses time and space, unifying his characters through a text written by Diogenes in the first century AD. Cloud Cuckoo Land begins there and sweeps through the millennia in a huge, imaginative arc that celebrates the outsiders, the writers and the keepers of books. An ultimately hopeful and life-affirming novel about the essence of love, literature and art’ Irish Independent ‘This is a dazzling epic of love, war and the joy of books – one for David Mitchell fans’ Guardian ‘Wonderment and despair, love and destruction and hope – all find their place in its sumptuously plotted pages’ Observer

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Book SynopsisWhat if choosing love means breaking a family?Tessa is struggling to run her mother''s beloved book shop and the business is failing. At least she has her dear friend (and accidental heart throb) Manny, to support her. As single parents, they understand each other and their friendship is too important for Tessa to give in to the chemistry between them.With the sudden success of his home renovation show, Manny is appalled to discover just how much the internet knows about him. While he navigates his new and strange life, his feelings only grow for Tessa as he helps her refurbish the bookshop.But when Tessa''s ex-husband returns to Ivy Falls, she must make a decision: should she follow her heart, or does she owe it to her girls to fix their family?An uplifting small-town romance perfect for fans of the Virgin River series.Praise for books in the Ivy Falls seriesA terrific read...There'

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Book SynopsisA mad young coach gathers soccer players from across the country to compete in a series of bizarre challenges in a high-tech colosseum he calls Blue Lock. It''s a no-balls-barred battle to become Japan''s next top striker, in this Squid GamemeetsWorld Cup manga, now available in print! Anime airing now!WOULD YOU DEVOUR YOUR OWN?Thanks to Ryusei Shidou's explosive entrance, the U-20 Japan team has seized the initiative in the second half. Just when things are looking dire for the Blue Lock Eleven, Ego produces his trump card, Shouei Barou. King Barou proceeds to rampage across the field, consuming friend and foe alike, but Rin and Isagi won't settle for supporting roles. Let the clash of leading actors begin!

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Book SynopsisONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2024 ‘An erudite and elegant meditation on modern life and modern love... Asya and Manu could very well be a couple in a novel by Sally Rooney or Caleb Azumah Nelson.' GUARDIAN ​'Immaculately observed... I found myself not wanting The Anthropologists to end.' FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Savaş’ prose is an X-ray – an acute portrait of the tender frequencies that make a life.’ RAVEN LEILANI__________________________________________________________________________________ Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. Removed from the web of family and its obligations, what traditions and rituals should they establish together? As they dream about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentary filmmaker, spends her days gathering footage from the neighbourhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs, anxious to know how people really live. ‘Forget about daily life,’ chides her grandmother on the phone, ‘no one cares about that.’ Meanwhile, life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues – parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up – all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of home-building and modern love, written with Aysegül Savaş’ distinctive elegance, warmth and humour. __________________________________________________________________________________Praise for THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS ‘The Anthropologists is about love, youth, and that most profound and elusive of subjects – happiness. Full of delicacy, wisdom and wit, this is another gorgeous work from one of my favourite writers.’ KATIE KITAMURA    ‘Like Walter Benjamin, Ayşegül Savaş uncovers trapdoors to bewilderment everywhere in everyday life; like Henry James, she sees marriage as a mystery, unsoundably deep. The Anthropologists is mesmerising; I felt I read it in a single breath.’ GARTH GREENWELL   ‘Yet another gorgeous, gorgeous book from Aysegül Savaş: she is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. Savaş knows hope. Savaş knows despair. Savaş knows joy, and malaise, and laughter and curiosity. There are worlds inside of Savaş' prose, and The Anthropologists is both a bright light and a map for how to be. A massively heartening achievement.’ BRYAN WASHINGTON

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Book SynopsisFaber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. When Ray turns up to visit his old university friends Charlie and Emily, he's given a special task: to be so much his useless self that he makes Charlie look good by comparison.But Ray has his own buried feelings to contend with. Decades earlier, he and Emily would listen to jazz when they were alone, and now, as Sarah Vaughan sings through the speakers, he struggles to control everything the sound brings with it.In Kazuo Ishiguro's hands, a snapshot of domestic realism becomes a miniature masterpiece of memory and forgetting.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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Book SynopsisLiz Moore is the author of the acclaimed novels Heft, recently optioned as a feature film, and The Unseen World, which was optioned for television. A winner of the 2014 Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Philadelphia.Trade ReviewIn sparse, urgent prose, Liz Moore delivers a staggeringly beautiful meditation on love, legacy, and the emotional necessities that make life worth living. That lump in your throat? You won’t quite know how it got there?nor believe how long it will stick around once the final page is turned. * Tea Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife *I was so thoroughly engaged with The Unseen World. What a wonderful, fulfilling, riveting read, alive with complex characters, a thrilling story, wit, and, above all, a deep sense of compassion. * Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie *Fiercely intelligent....Moore evocatively renders the remoteness of even our closest loved ones * New York Times Book Review *A cerebral, page-turning thriller … an elegant and ethereal novel about identity and the dawn of artificial intelligence, and a convincing interior portrait of a young woman. * Washington Post *[A] captivating page-turner … a wry, gentle coming-of-age story and an intriguing glimpse into the development of artificial intelligence and virtual reality … It is also an incisive, insightful, and compassionate examination of the complexities of family and identity * Boston Globe *I absolutely love this wise, compassionate novel that challenges our definitions of family, of intelligence, and of love. Equal parts cerebral and heartbreaking, The Unseen World is utterly compelling, and its heroine Ada Sibelius is irresistible in all her thorny vulnerability. Liz Moore has given us a masterful version of our own modern condition, and I cannot wait to place this book in the hands of my most ardent reader friends. * Robin Black, author of Life Drawing *Smart and touching * Good Housekeeping *A striking examination of family, memory, and technology… Mysteries build, and Moore’s gift for storytelling excels. This is a smart, emotionally powerful literary page-turner. * Publishers Weekly *Intelligent and brilliantly absorbing... Filled with achingly memorable scenes and beautifully nuanced writing, Moore's latest is a stunner in its precise take on identity and the compromises even the most righteous among us must make to survive life's challenges with grace. * Booklist *Moore creates a continually compelling drama ... She is masterful at evoking powerful personal connections as well as the intellectual excitement of the dawning computer era. * BBC Culture *

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Book SynopsisA once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith''s Seasonal Quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now. Winter? Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer''s leaves? Dead litter. The world shrinks; the sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. And if there''s ice, there''ll be fire. In Ali Smith''s Winter, lifeforce matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to her sensational Autumn, Smith casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It''s the season that teaches us survival. Here comes Winter.Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith''s new novel, Companion piece, is available to pre-order now.*****''Dazzling . . . Even in the bleak midwinter, Smith is evergreen'' Daily Telegraph ''Graceful, mischievous, joyful . . . Infused with some much-needed humour, happiness and hope'' Independent ''A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit . . . Luminously beautiful'' ObserverTrade ReviewCleverly constructed and elegantly written. It's both an engaging human story and a place for wider topical observations. Bring on Spring * Evening Standard *If Ali Smith's four quartets in, and about, time do not endure to rank among the most original, consoling and inspiring of the artistic responses to 'this mad and bitter mess' of the present, then we will have plunged into an even bleaker mid-winter than people often fear * Financial Times *Smith is a specialist by now in using a quizzical, feather-light prose style to interrogate the heaviest of material...throughout Winter, grief and pain are transfigured, sometimes lastingly, by luminous moments of humour, insight and connection... Even in the bleak midwinter, Smith is evergreen * Telegraph *A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit that you feel Dickens would have recognised...Smith is engaged in an extended process of mythologizing the present states of Britain... Luminously beautiful * Observer *A sparkler...tune in to Spring and Summer to see if art can save the day * Spectator *Graceful... That trademark mischievous wit and wordplay, a joyful reminder of the most basic, elemental delights of reading ... Infused with some much-needed humour, happiness and hope * Independent *A capacious, generous shapeshifter of a novel taking in Greenham Common and Barbara Hepworth, Shakespeare and global migration, it juxtaposes art with nature and protest with apathy, finding surprising alliances in a family riven by feuds. It's a book with Christmas at its heart, in all its familiarity and estrangement: about time, and out of time, like the festival itself * The Guardian *Dazzling second instalment of Ali Smith's seasonal quartet * The Daily Telegraph *A book I can't wait to read for Christmas * The Observer *Relish this instalment * The Times *I would like to be given Winter for Christmas * The Observer *And now looking forward to [Ali Smith's] Winter * Gordon Brown *And the book I'd most like to find in my Christmas stocking is Ali Smith's Winter * The Observer *Finally, under the tree this year I'm hoping to find Ali Smith's Winter * The Observer *It's a brisk, frosty walk under skies that could open at any moment revealing anything but snow * The Observer *A book I'd like to be given for Christmas: Winter by Ali Smith * The Observer *It takes you on a journey through time - Christmases past and present in a Dickensian way, but brings you bang up to the present - how can we live our lives and keep our memories and how do we find the truth? It is uplifting and miraculous with plenty of surprises along the way. It is vintage Smith * Jackie Kay *"Winter" is an insubordinate folk tale, with echoes of the fiction of Iris Murdoch and Angela Carter... There are few writers on the world stage who are producing fiction this offbeat and alluring... [Ali Smith] intends to send a chill up your shanks and she succeeds, jubilantly... Her dialogue is a series of pine cones flung at rosy cheeks * The New York Times *Smith is routinely brilliant, knowing, masterful... The light inside this great novelist's gorgeous snow globe is utterly original, and it definitely illuminates * New York Times Book Review *The only preparation required to savor the Scottish writer Ali Smith's virtuosic "Winter" is to pay attention to the world we've recently been living in...What Smith has achieved in her cycle so far is exactly what we need artists to do in disorienting times: make sense of events, console us, show us how we got here, help us believe that we will find our way through...Smith gives us a potent, necessary source of sustenance that speaks directly to our age...Yet we, like her characters, are past the winter solstice now - the darkest part of the coldest season done. From here on out, we're headed toward the light...It doesn't feel that way, I know. But in the midst of "Winter," each page touched with human grace, you might just begin to believe * Boston Globe *Winter is a stunning meditation on a complex, emotional moment in history * TIME *Ali Smith is flat-out brilliant, and she's on fire these days...You can trust Smith to snow us once again with her uncanny ability to combine brainy playfulness with depth, topicality with timelessness, and complexity with accessibility while delivering an impassioned defence of human decency and art * NPR *The stunningly original Smith again breaks every conceivable narrative rule; reflecting her longstanding affinity for Modernism, what she gives us instead is a stylistically innovative cultural bricolage that celebrates the ecstasy of artistic influence. It demands and richly rewards close attention. [Autumn and Winter] each add to Smith's growing collection of glittering literary paving stones, along a path that's hopefully leading toward the Nobel she deserves. In the interim, we can (re)read "Winter" - and eagerly await the coming of "Spring" * Minneapolis Journal Sentinel *One of the rarest creatures in the world: a really fearless novelist...her prose is melodic, associative, wise, sometimes maddening...'she shares with Mantel and Ishiguro a sense of human caution, a need to understand, a wariness of the high-handedly authorial. All write with the humility of adulthood * Chicago Tribune *The second in Smith's quartet of seasonal novels displays her mastery at weaving allusive magic into the tragicomedies of British people and politics...a bleak, beautiful tale greater than the sum of its references * Vulture *An engaging novel due to the ecstatic energy of Smith's writing, which is always present on the page * Publishers Weekly *A sprightly, digressive, intriguing fandango on life and time * Kirkus Reviews *These individuals converge to confront each other in the big shabby house, like characters in a Chekhov play. At first, hellish implosion looms. Slowly, erratically, connection creeps in. Lux quietly mediates. Ire softens. Sophia at last eats something. Art resees Nature..."Winter" gives the patient reader a colorful, witty - yes, warming - divertissement * San Francisco Chronicle *With Iris and Lux as catalysts, scenes from Christmas past unfold, and our narrow views of Sophia and Art widen and deepen, filled with the secrets and substance of their histories, even as the characters themselves seem to expand. As in Sophia's case, for Art this enlargement is announced by a hallucination - "not a real thing," as Lux tells Iris, whose response speaks for the book's own expansive spirit: "Where would we be without our ability to see beyond what it is we're supposed to be seeing?" * The Minneapolis Star Tribune *

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Book Synopsis**THE LOST LOVE SONGS OF BOYSIE SINGH - THE NEW NOVEL FROM INGRID PERSAUD - IS AVAILABLE NOW**WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2020LONGLISTED FOR THE OCM BOCAS PRIZEAS SEEN ON BBC''S BETWEEN THE COVERSONE OF STYLIST''S BEST NEW BOOKS FOR 2020''A beautiful book. I adored it.'' RICHARD OSMAN''Full of wit and soul.'' TRACY CHEVALIER''Unforgettable'' MARLON JAMES''It made me ugly cry'' JESSIE BURTON''Glorious'' RACHEL JOYCE''Spellbinding'' ANDRÉ ACIMANMeet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household. Happy in their differences, they build a home together. Home: the place keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world until the night when a glass of rum, a

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Book SynopsisThe hotly anticipated third book in the Boys of Avix series by Meagan Brandy,, this angsty New Adult romance is perfect for fans of Elle Kennedy, Colleen Hoover and Monica Murphy.

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Book SynopsisTHE NO. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe Times Popular Fiction Book of the YearA heartbreaker of a book' THE TIMES''Alarmingly relatable'' MARIAN KEYESHilarious and profound' DOLLY ALDERTONThe hottest debut novel of 2023 from Schitt's Creek and Smothered screenwriter and an Observer debut author of the year, Monica Heisey.Maggie's marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she's fine she's doing really good, actually. Sure, she's alone for the first time and can't afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée.As Maggie throws herself headlong into the chaos of her first year of divorce, she soon finds herself questioning everything, including: Why do we still get married? Did I fail before I even got started? And how many 4am delivery burgers do I need to eat until I am happy?Really Good, Actually is an irresistible debut novel about the uncertainties of modernTrade Review‘Heisey’s adroit control of her narrative and wickedly funny turns of phrase mean Maggie can become monstrous as she flails from one disastrous choice to the next, but remains heartbreakingly relatable’ The Times ‘A smart and funny coming-of-divorce novel … with a likeable heroine to root for… full of millennial witticisms and reliably regular deadpan turns’ Guardian ‘Wise and funny … Heisey … announces herself not only as a comic literary voice who articulates the absurdity of finding yourself alone, again, but also as a deft satirist of the many ridiculous trappings of modern life’ Dazed ‘The book’s insistence on friendship being just as, if not more, important than romantic love is itself beautifully rendered… this book will be a balm’ i Newspaper ‘Wry, modern, self-deprecating’ Independent ‘Sharp and fast, the funniest book I’ve read in a long time’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster ‘You will fall in love with this protagonist and you will fall in love with Monica Heisey's writing. I couldn't put it down’ Dolly Alderton, author of All I Know About Love ‘An absolute effing delight … wildly funny and almost alarmingly relatable’ Marian Keyes, author of Again, Rachel ‘I absolutely loved it … Hilarious, heartwarming, wise’ Paula Hawkins, author of Slow Fire Burning 'A rare and delicious treat. Monica Heisey is a genius' Nina Stibbe, author of Reasons to be Cheerful ‘Monica Heisey is one of the most exciting new voices in fiction’ Kirsty Capes, author of Careless ‘Heisey makes me laugh hard and often’ Rob Delaney ‘A smart, funny and warm debut with such a strong voice’ Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone Is Still Alive

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Book SynopsisFull of dark, deadpan humour, Brat is a raucous story of the messy, messed-up business of living, dying and having a family.' Financial Times A moving coming-of-age family story' Observer 'Iconic', Radio 1I was in the waiting room. Then I was in the examination room. Gabriel's skin is falling off. His dad is dead. He owes his editor a novel. His girlfriend won't answer his calls. Tasked by his horribly well-adjusted brother with clearing out the family home for sale, Gabriel's sanity quickly begins to unravel. His parents' old manuscripts appear to change each time he reads them. A bizarre home video hints at long-buried secrets. And there's a hideous man in the garden. Disquieting and hilarious, taut yet lyrical, blisteringly-paced but formally inventive,Bratis a mediation on grief, art and love that will leave you altered, breathless and desperate for more. From a stunningly original new talent, this is a debut novel unlike anything you have read before. This

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Book SynopsisSet over one summer's day in 1946, a beautifully drawn portrait of a country, and a marriage, coming to terms with the past - and poised on the brink of a new era. A modern classic perfect for fans of A Month in the Country, The Hours or Small Pleasures.

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Book Synopsis'As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.'Chris Kraus, author of I Love DickJo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. A house with no walls, a roommate with no boundaries, and a home that seems ever more alive as the days pass. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.This debut novel from a critically adored artist and musician presents a heady and hypersensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.

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Book SynopsisA CRIME STORY. A LOVE STORY. A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON. MORE THAN 7 MILLION COPIES SOLDAugust 30, 1975. The day of the disappearance. The day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence. That summer, struggling author Harry Quebert fell in love with Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard, along with a manuscript copy of the novel that made him a household name. Quebert is the only suspect. Marcus Goldman - Quebert''s most gifted protégé - throws off his writer''s block to clear his mentor''s name. Solving the case and penning a new bestseller soon merge into one. As his book begins to take on a life of its own, the nation is gripped by the mystery of ''The Girl Who Touched the Heart of America''. But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.Translated from the French by Sam Taylor

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Book Synopsis*ORDER YOUR COPY OFTHE DEATH OF US, ABIGAIL DEAN''S STUNNING NEW NOVEL NOW!**The breathtaking new novel from the bestselling author of Girl A*A Times thriller of the yearI couldn't put this down' Stacey HallsWhat really happened on Day One?Everyone has their own version of what happened to the school that day:The survivor, who escaped but is now trapped in a lie.The newspapers, hellbent on turning a tragedy into a spectacle.And the outsider, who claims it never really happened at allThey all want the truth.But who's ready to face it?As events spiral out of control and conspiracies ignite, the true story is revealed. Piece by shocking piece.*Praise for DAY ONE*A devastating, beautiful novel' Jennifer Saint Gripping and beautifully written' Emilia Hart A chilling, thought-provoking read' Shari LapenaA beautiful writer' Adele ParksAn exceptionally skillful book' Clare Mackintosh*What readers are saying about DAY ONE*Abigail Dean has pulled off an incredible feat with this unforgettable, searing but compassionate novel' ?????A gripping read which kept me trying to figure out the larger picture until the very last page' ?????It''s technically so impressive, but most importantly it''s vital and human, and I will think about it for a long time'?????Gripping and insightful'?????As a study of how conspiracies flourish and grow, it is superb. As an examination of loss, it is even better'?????Oh my word this is a book you race through, desperate to know what happens next'?????It's timely, it's moving, it looks at the untruths we tell ourselves and others in an attempt to understand the real horrors of the world it's just brilliant'?????A twisty story with genuine depth'?????This was an exceptionally well written book, both gripping and evocative'?????Gut-wrenching truths are exposed little by little, leading to an agonisingly tender ending'?????This novel moved me to tears and broke my heart'?????

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Book SynopsisFor fans of Children of Men, Years and Years & Station Eleven, a postcard from a future Britain that’s closer than we think.An Evening Standard 'Best New Book'   ‘A beautiful book: thought-provoking, eerily prescient and very witty.’ Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half 'Water courses through its pages, as rising sea levels heighten inequalities, buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation. But there’s also the novel’s prose – its liquid grace and glinting sparkle – and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull.' The Observer ''You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well, if you had, this is what you would have seen: soft woo

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Book SynopsisAs deep and profound as the sea itself Philip Hoare1741. The crew of Vitus Bering''s ill-starred Great Northern Expedition are shipwrecked off a remote, uncharted island. With no hope of rescue, they give in to despair. Until they discover the flesh of a huge marine mammal that feeds in herds on the kelp in the bay.1859. The Russian colony of Alaska is on the brink of collapse. Governor Hampus Furuhjelm takes solace in the quest for a unique artefact: a complete skeleton of what is now known as Steller''s Sea Cow, rumoured to have disappeared a hundred years before.Even extinct, the sea cow will continue to shape lives and destinies, from the woman charged with sketching its likeness from its bones, to the expert egg restorer who will refurbish those same bones a century later.A tribute to an iconic lost creature, and an adventure through three centuries of scientific exploration, Beasts of the Sea charts the unseen consequences of grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what we, in our ignorance, have destroyed.Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

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Book SynopsisThere are strange happenings in the desert. Learn the truth about the Hereditas Expedition in this hair-raising tale of betrayal, devotion and religious fanaticism.

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