Contemporary Fiction Books

Book Synopsis'In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love.' Zadie Smith'Impressive' Observer'A summer must-read' StylistOne of Oprah Magazine's 15 Favourite Books of 2018.‘There is a way to be cruel that seems Jamaican to me.’Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret – Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection of short stories, How to Love a Jamaican, about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and Midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.In ‘Light Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands’, an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In ‘Mash Up Love’, a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother – the prodigal son of the family – stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In ‘Bad Behavior’, a mother and father leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In ‘Mermaid River’, a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In ‘The Ghost of Jia Yi’, a recently murdered international student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in ‘Shirley from a Small Place’, a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother’s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.The winner of the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for ‘Bad Behavior’, Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential young authors.Trade ReviewAlexia Arthurs' How to love a Jamaican is sharp and kind, bitter and sweet. It stays in the yard, delicately attentive to the ways of country folks, and it leaves home with them, too, as they head to 'foreign' - that place across the water where barrels get filled to be sent back home and people are never quite as happy as they expected to be. In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once: some cultivated, some simple, some wickedly funny, some deeply melancholic. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine. In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love. -- Zadie SmithAlexia Arthurs is a writer of beauty, wit, and precision; these stories will grab you by the heart. This is a boss collection. -- NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New NamesI am utterly taken with these gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories. Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last -- Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other PartiesWhat a thrill to recognize myself and the women I love in Alexia Arthurs’ stunning debut story collection, How to Love a Jamaican. This fantastic young writer conjures the fierce wit of Jamaica Kincaid and the deft storytelling of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Entrancing and unforgettable. -- Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird HillAlexia Arthurs is a voice so many of us have been waiting for — funny, achingly specific and wonderfully universal. She explores what it means to belong, what it means to recognize yourself in the most unexpected places, and what humans do with the pain of longing. -- Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie FreemanFrom a world weary Jamaican pop star in desperate need of the restorative powers of home to a queer woman returned to the Island after decades in the US, a host of seekers and sojourners fill the pages of Alexia Arthurs' sweeping debut. This collection is brimming with tenderness, hard realities and an intimacy that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. -- Ayana Mathis, author of the The Twelve Tribes of HattieI really enjoyed this gorgeous collection of short stories from Jamaican-American author Arthurs, which move between Jamaica and the US. Particularly affecting is "Mash Up Love", where a successful elder son still strives to impress his mother although his deadbeat brother is seen as the prodigal son, and "Bad Behaviour", where a wild Brooklyn teenager is sent back to Jamaica to live with her grandmother. Zadie Smith is also a fan. -- Alice O'Keeffe * Bookseller *This absorbing, engaging collection is the kind of book you rave about to your friends because you see so much of yourself, and them, in its characters . . . Arthurs's debut is vivid and exciting, and every story rings beautifully true. * Marie Claire *A must-read this summer * Elle.com *In this exploration of Jamaica and its diaspora, Arthurs masterfully teases out the joys and sorrows of cultural bifurication. The result is a symphony of voices for a generation * Financial Times *In her riveting debut collection of short stories, Arthurs explores a vast range of issues, from race and class to gender and family. A Jamaican immigrant who moved to Brooklyn at the impressionable age of 12, she tells vivid stories that keep readers on their toes. * Essence *While the stories have a rawness to them, exploring topics such as sexual orientation, parental relationships, self-discovery, and drug use, Arthurs also offers a sure feel of the mysticism of the Caribbean . . . Stylistically reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s Paradise, this successful literary debut will appeal to readers of literary and Caribbean fiction. * Library Journal *Jamaican immigrant and return-migration stories told with unsentimental honesty. Eleven short stories examine the immigrant experience through the prism of place, food, gender, and generations . . . thankfully devoid of violin-swelling nostalgia, these stories unravel the knot of being in a place but not quite belonging and the sense of missing but not quite understanding what was lost . . . [a] strong debut collection, which beckons the reader back, again and again. A lovely collection of stories that rewards subsequent readings. * Kirkus Review *Sometimes the best kind of summer reads are those you can dip in and out of in-between dips in the pool. Alexia Arthurs’ debut collection of eleven short stories is a patchwork blanket of tales, voices, emotions and experiences. Dancing between sadness, humour, heartbreak, longing and belonging, Arthurs’ offers up an observant, poignant and lyrical portrait of the lives of Jamaican immigrants and the families they’ve left behind, as well as the nation as a whole. * Culturefly *A timely exploration of multigenerational waves of immigration, the impact separating families has on children and the desire to be included . . . The stories hum with tension and nuance, creating characters desperate to be understood but wary of being defined simply by their race or origins * AP News *As vibrant and full of life on the inside as it is on the outside. You won’t believe that it’s Arthurs' debut * Hello Giggles *A vibrant, wrenching, and expansive short story collection that illuminates the nuances of the immigrant experience * Bustle *This distinctive debut story collection features protagonists of Jamaican descent, on the island and in the U.S, mostly as young people struggling to find themselves in the tangle of their roots. Arthurs infuses these excellent stories with melodic patois, and characters from pop stars and athletes to students segue between immigration and return-migration . . . wonderful * National Book Review *How to Love a Jamaican amplifies a perpetual wrestling between the old world we knew and the new world we know, and how one navigates life’s obstacles with, without or in spite of love * Hazlitt *Vivid, atmospheric and also recommended by Zadie Smith, How To Love A Jamaican has left me hungry for a full-length novel from this debut author. -- Sarra Manning * Red *A cool, savvy, rich and colourful pleasure, delivered by an ‘immigrant’ writer as tuned into Lena Dunham as she is to old-wives’ tales in rural Jamaica. * Big Issue *Beautifully written and absorbing . . . a complex and rich collection of stories that is quite simply unmissable. * Emerald Street *The stories in the collection are searing and deeply moving; Arthurs does not shield the reader from the pain and generational trauma of her characters . . . Arthurs’ stories are tender but unapologetically raw. How To Love A Jamaican is delicate in its storytelling, and powerful in its centring of the voices and narratives of women and girls in an urgent and sensitive critique of inequality. -- Leah Cowan * Wasafiri *Devastating * Oprah Magazine *Zadie Smith has lavished praise on this collection and it’s no wonder – Arthurs’s stories share Smith’s tender and melancholic nostalgia. * Prospect *

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Book Synopsis'In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love.' - Zadie SmithTenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret – these are the tensions at the heart of Alexia Arthurs’ debut book about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Some stories ask big questions about the things that define a person, others explode small moments of deep significance and lasting effect. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City, How to Love a Jamaican offers a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.Vibrant, lyrical and intimate, this collection of eleven short stories shows Alexia Arthurs to be one of the most dynamic and exciting young authors writing today. It includes the story ‘Bad Behavior’, for which she won the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize.Trade ReviewAlexia Arthurs' How to love a Jamaican is sharp and kind, bitter and sweet. It stays in the yard, delicately attentive to the ways of country folks, and it leaves home with them, too, as they head to 'foreign' - that place across the water where barrels get filled to be sent back home and people are never quite as happy as they expected to be. In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once: some cultivated, some simple, some wickedly funny, some deeply melancholic. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine. In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love. -- Zadie SmithAlexia Arthurs is a writer of beauty, wit, and precision; these stories will grab you by the heart. This is a boss collection. -- NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New NamesI am utterly taken with these gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories. Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last -- Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other PartiesWhat a thrill to recognize myself and the women I love in Alexia Arthurs’ stunning debut story collection, How to Love a Jamaican. This fantastic young writer conjures the fierce wit of Jamaica Kincaid and the deft storytelling of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Entrancing and unforgettable. -- Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird HillAlexia Arthurs is a voice so many of us have been waiting for — funny, achingly specific and wonderfully universal. She explores what it means to belong, what it means to recognize yourself in the most unexpected places, and what humans do with the pain of longing. -- Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie FreemanFrom a world weary Jamaican pop star in desperate need of the restorative powers of home to a queer woman returned to the Island after decades in the US, a host of seekers and sojourners fill the pages of Alexia Arthurs' sweeping debut. This collection is brimming with tenderness, hard realities and an intimacy that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. -- Ayana Mathis, author of the The Twelve Tribes of HattieI really enjoyed this gorgeous collection of short stories from Jamaican-American author Arthurs, which move between Jamaica and the US. Particularly affecting is "Mash Up Love", where a successful elder son still strives to impress his mother although his deadbeat brother is seen as the prodigal son, and "Bad Behaviour", where a wild Brooklyn teenager is sent back to Jamaica to live with her grandmother. Zadie Smith is also a fan. -- Alice O'Keeffe * Bookseller *While the stories have a rawness to them, exploring topics such as sexual orientation, parental relationships, self-discovery, and drug use, Arthurs also offers a sure feel of the mysticism of the Caribbean . . . Stylistically reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s Paradise, this successful literary debut will appeal to readers of literary and Caribbean fiction. * Library Journal *Jamaican immigrant and return-migration stories told with unsentimental honesty. Eleven short stories examine the immigrant experience through the prism of place, food, gender, and generations . . . thankfully devoid of violin-swelling nostalgia, these stories unravel the knot of being in a place but not quite belonging and the sense of missing but not quite understanding what was lost . . . [a] strong debut collection, which beckons the reader back, again and again. A lovely collection of stories that rewards subsequent readings. * Kirkus Review *A must-read this summer * Elle.com *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the International Dublin Literary Award'Remarkable . . . a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity.' Sunday Times'Zeniter’s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle' Wall Street JournalNaïma has always known that her family came from Algeria – but up until now, that meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she’s learned from her grandparents’ tiny flat in a crumbling French sink estate: the food cooked for her, the few precious things they brought with them when they fled.On the past, her family is silent. Why was her grandfather Ali forced to leave? Was he a harki – an Algerian who worked for and supported the French during the Algerian War of Independence? Once a wealthy landowner, how did he become an immigrant scratching a living in France?Naïma’s father, Hamid, says he remembers nothing. A child when the family left, in France he re-made himself: education was his ticket out of the family home, the key to acceptance into French society.But now, for the first time since they left, one of Ali’s family is going back. Naïma will see Algeria for herself, will ask the questions about her family’s history that, till now, have had no answers.Spanning three generations across seventy years, Alice Zeniter’s The Art of Losing tells the story of how people carry on in the face of loss: the loss of a country, an identity, a way to speak to your children. It’s a story of colonization and immigration, and how in some ways, we are a product of the things we’ve left behind.Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

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Book SynopsisThe Wench is Dead is the eighth novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series featuring Inspector Morse.That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre-skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse's muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks . . .The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859.At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse – though very much alive – was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.As Morse begins his recovery he comes across an account of the investigation and the trial that followed Joanna Franks' death . . . and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent . . .The Wench is Dead is followed by the ninth Inspector Morse book, The Jewel That Was Ours.

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Book Synopsis'A tender, unsentimental exploration of the bittersweet joys of lifelong companionship' – Daily MailEven the longest marriages have their secrets . . .Jack and Bet have been married for seventy years. Happily so, for the most part. Now, all they want is to enjoy the time they have left together in their small flat. But their son Tommy has other ideas: he thinks they should move out and opt for round-the-clock care in a very different kind of home.When a young Romanian woman, Marinela, enters their lives, Bet thinks she might have found a solution to all of their problems; one that could change Marinela’s life for the better. But doing so would mean confronting a long-buried secret Bet has kept hidden from everyone, even Jack, for decades.An irresistibly moving story about love and loss, Sarah Butler's Jack & Bet is at once a story of unlikely friendship and a tender look at a lifelong struggle to find a place to call home.'Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet' – Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of UsTrade ReviewA tender, unsentimental exploration of the bittersweet joys of lifelong companionship, beautifully capturing the pangs of ageing and the treacheries of time * Daily Mail *Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet -- Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of UsA moving yet unsentimental story about family and love and the secrets we live with -- Paul McVeigh, author of The Good SonWith mounting tension, it demonstrates why it’s never too late to have your world turned upside down -- Oliver Harris, author of A Shadow of IntelligenceSeductive and assured, Jack & Bet is a warm, wise and wonderfully defiant exploration of a long marriage and a short-lived experiment in social housing -- Emma Claire Sweeney, author of Owl Song at DawnI read Jack & Bet with enjoyment and heartbreak . . . wins its place in the burgeoning writing that shines a spotlight on the lives of over seventies in Britain -- Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of The First WomanI loved Jack & Bet. Butler writes from Jack, Bet and Marinela's perspectives with such compassion and understanding -- Susan Barker, author of The IncarnationsA fantastic novel - totally absorbing and full of heart -- Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them

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Book Synopsis**Previously published in hardback as Little Big Man**‘Katy Regan broke my heart and put it back together again with Little Big Love’ - Lucy DiamondLiam Jones is the love of Juliet’s life. He was her brother’s best friend first, then hers, then the father of her son. In those shining weeks after Zac was born, she’d never been happier, and neither had Liam.Until the night he disappeared without a trace.Zac is now ten, and collects facts: octopuses have three hearts; the world’s heaviest man weighed over 100 stone; only three species of animal have a blue tongue. The one piece of information he really wants, though, is the truth about why his father left.His family refuse to talk about that night but when Juliet inadvertently admits to him Liam is the only man she's ever loved, Zac decides to find him and give his mum a second chance at happy ever after.After all, nothing can stand in the way of true love . . . Or can it?‘A big-hearted, brilliantly pitched tale about family, love and finding your place in the world’ - Heat‘Poignant, funny and heartbreaking with a story that stays with you long after you have put it down’- Psychologies‘Beautifully written and brimming with people to love and root for . . . Had me from the first page’ - Lisa Jewell, author of The Family Upstairs.Trade ReviewKaty Regan broke my heart and put it back together again with Little Big Love . . . Humour, poignancy, secrets, love – everything you could ask for from a book -- Lucy DiamondA beautifully written love story, with authentic, compelling characters. You’ll love Katy Regan’s new book -- Clare MackintoshA big-hearted, brilliantly pitched tale about family, love and finding your place in the world * Heat *As uplifting as it is heart-breaking in places, this sweeping story of one boy’s courage will effortlessly win your heart -- Rowan ColemanBeautifully written and brimming with people to love and root for, Little Big Love had me from the first page. Zac's voice is arresting, compelling and completely original – I absolutely loved this book -- Lisa JewellWith exquisitely drawn characters you’ll fall in love with, Little Big Love packs a huge emotional punch * The Sun, Fabulous magazine *Katy Regan's writing is effortlessly emotional and authentic, and Little Big Love had me hooked from the first page. Zac's voice is wonderful – vulnerable and tough and entirely convincing. It's a heartfelt novel about love, family, and self-belief, and I loved it -- Julie CohenSometimes you just need to read a novel that lets you sob. Little Big Love is that sort of novel. And Zac, its brave yet bullied 10 year old narrator, is an absolute TRIUMPH -- Sarah VaughanPoignant, funny and heartbreaking with a story that stays with you long after you have put it down * Psychologies magazine *Delightful, heart-wrenching, poignant, and absolutely real, Katy Regan has created a uniquely brave and beautiful voice. She writes with tremendous acuity and tenderness, with a story that you will not be able to stop reading -- Jane GreenAn extraordinary and wonderful book. A real 'just-one-more-page-before-bedtime' story . . . Lovely, clever and incredibly touching -- Milly JohnsonIt is Zac's bright, observant voice which pulls you into his world and exposes the truth – that love and loss make grown-ups do the silliest things * Sunday Express *A towering achievement: wise, funny, sad, deeply human – a perfectly timed reminder of the fundamental values of love and family . . . A book that provokes tears and sorrow as skilfully as it delivers deep belly laughs. It kept me up all night and will stay with me for years to come -- Rosie WalshFunny, sweet and brilliantly written -- this book totally stole my heart -- Eve ChaseA beautiful story about growing up and keeping those we love close to us . . . A heartfelt tale of courage, grief and familial love * Candis magazine *From the moment I started reading I couldn't put it down and I felt bereft when I finished. It's a beautiful, warm story about love, family and friendships, which will leave you laughing one minute and heartbroken the next . . . I was expecting a good story, but this exceeded all my expectations, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it -- Clare SwatmanConvincing and endearing . . . A compelling, provocative and astute story of families and long-hidden secrets * Daily Express *Juliet and her son Zac lodged themselves in my heart from the very first page, and are still there now. Katy Regan makes friends of her characters, and I couldn’t put Little Big Love down until I’d uncovered all their bittersweet, painfully real secrets, wrapping around their Grimsby family like fishing nets. Regan's writing is smart, funny and full of emotional truths that linger; Juliet’s brave and redemptive lifestory will stay with me for a long, long time. This is a wonderful one-sitting treat of a novel -- Lucy DillonHeartwarming * Bella *A touching, funny and original story of a little man with a big heart, with a cast of authentic characters that’ll have you laughing and crying in equal parts -- Jimmy Rice, co-author of The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me and The Night That Changed EverythingTouching * Sunday Mirror *

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Book SynopsisMatters of the heart can be lethal in Eric Jerome Dickey's latest sensual novel full of tangled love affairs and family tensions.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Delicious’ Nigella Lawson ‘Clever and beguiling’ Guardian ‘Sublime and immersive’ Jojo Moyes Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It’s the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra where she is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever. ‘A surefire summer hit ... At once a blissful piece of escapism and a powerful meditation on art and sexuality’ Observer ‘Heady armchair escapism ... An impressionistic, intoxicating rush of sensory experience’ Sunday Times ‘If summer was suddenly like a novel, it would be like this one. Immaculate’ Andrew O’HaganTrade ReviewSamson is an intensely sensual writer, conjuring up blue skies, the tang of wild herbs, the vivid splash of bougainvillea ... As good as a Greek holiday, and may be the closest we get this year * Financial Times *As dreamily nostalgic as Cohen’s song Famous Blue Raincoat -- Alex Preston * Observer, New Year Highlights *Sleazy, evocative, beautiful and entertaining -- Stuart Turton * Guardian Summer Reading Picks *A thoroughly enjoyable drama of hedonism, enchantment and emotional beastliness * Times Literary Supplement *A coming of age story set among a group of artists and poets, including Leonard Cohen, on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. She is so good at mentally indelible imagery -- Jojo Moyes * Guardian *This well-crafted novel beautifully captures the texture of a halcyon age in which anything seems possible * Mail on Sunday *Spellbinding … An immersive read, steeped in nostalgia. Samson’s poetic prose is so evocative that, by the end, you find yourself googling those entrancing images of Hydra, 1960, just to wallow further in the poignancy of it all * Vanity Fair *The novel has a lightly worn heft to it, as it probes freedom and creativity … By the end of this enjoyable novel, which makes vivid an interesting moment and place, you discover people have paid a price – a heavy one – for that freedom in the sun * The Times *Samson recreates one heady summer there with impeccably ripening prose …This is a slow, deliberately languorous novel that mixes real-life figures with fictional counterparts. It is sunbaked, stewed in alcohol, and wonderfully gossipy * i paper *Intoxicating ... Highly accomplished ... A testament to Samson’s transportive prose * Spectator *A surefire summer hit ... Feels at once like a gift and an escape route ... At once a blissful piece of escapism and a powerful meditation on art and sexuality – just the book to bring light into these dark days * Observer *Heady armchair escapism ... An impressionistic, intoxicating rush of sensory experience * Sunday Times *By the end the reader may be unable to decide whether Hydra enchanted or cursed those attracted by its primitive beauty, cheap rents and easy access to sex, drugs and performance poetry … A novel about the treatment of women by artistic men * The Times *Beautiful ... Perfect if you want to escape the drudgery of another lentil dinner and dream of 1960s Hydra with Leonard Cohen -- Dolly AldertonIt is a grand read and the prose falls translucently like the air ... Superb work and a delightful novel -- Thomas KeneallySuch a lyrical, elegant and beautifully told story -- Joanna CannonSo vivid that you can see the sun-washed white houses and blue seas * Good Housekeeping, Book of the Month *I cannot tell you how much I needed this beautiful book to transport me back to 1960s Greece! Lyrical, sexy, tender and sad in places. Highly recommended -- Erin KellyThis radiant novel will transport you straight to Greece - a blessing at a time when most of us are stuck in our homes * Cosmopolitan *Delicious -- Nigella LawsonThis well-crafted novel beautifully captures the texture of a halcyon age in which anything seems possible * Daily Mail *A coming of age story set among a group of artists and poets, including Leonard Cohen, on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. She is so good at mentally indelible imagery -- Jojo Moyes * Guardian *Dreamily nostalgic * Observer, Fiction to look out for in 2020 *About real people living in Hydra in 1960. Steeped in nostalgia that's both sad and beautiful. It's fascinating, immersive and so MOVING -- Marian KeyesHands down the best book I've read all year. Luminous, immersive, gorgeous, profound -- Joanne HarrisHer best work yet, so evocative and alive with the scents and colours of a Greek summer ... Among the best prose writers of her generation. The writing is just delicious -- Cressida ConnollyI was utterly entranced. It feels entirely true and effortless and compelling – in the way that all great novels do -- Justine PicardieIf summer was suddenly like a novel, it would be like this one. Immaculate -- Andrew O'HaganA seductive story, suffused with nostalgia * Sunday Mirror *This is a sheer delight - I’ve never been to Hydra but this book transports you and miraculously, you are there in 1960 -- Jenny EclairA glorious novel -- Kate MosseA beautifully written, evocative, inspiring novel. I devoured it -- Kathy LettePolly Samson has created such a dazzling evocation of an era and its mindset. Here, the island of Hydra is a geographical place but a psychological one too, populated by beautiful and damaged characters who pull you down into its pages for another café gossip, another moonlit swim, another drink. This book is a bohemian idyll meticulously drawn, and unsparingly exposed. It is like going away to paradise, then coming back rather wiser. You don’t read this book – you live it -- Marina HydeA luscious seduction of a book -- Sofka ZinovieffSamson's story sizzles with the Greek sun and seduction * The i *Praise for The Kindness: ‘An addictive, cleverly structured and intriguing relationship story of lies and flawed communication * SUNDAY TIMES Book of the Week *Annoyingly close to perfection -- INDIA KNIGHT * SUNDAY TIMES *A story that entices you to revel in its languid, beautifully written prose while demanding that you turn the page to discover the secrets it holds * OBSERVER Paperback of the week *Beautifully written, with twists engineered like a thriller -- STEPHANIE MERRITT * OBSERVER Books of the Year *A book to cherish, to recommend, to return to * FINANCIAL TIMES *Brilliant, tender and beautiful -- ANDREW O'HAGANBeautifully written and plotted with serpentine cunning, Samson’s novel is what might be called a love story for adults: unsentimental, at times harsh, but ultimately uplifting * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Gorgeously chilling … Samson seems to write in colours * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *Shining, poetic and sumptuous … Polly Samson is a writer of great insight and sensitivity -- JOANNE HARRISA richly sensory writer … A sumptuous, serious story * DAILY MAIL *Lush, lyrical prose … The Kindness is to be read more than once, not merely to enjoy again the beauty of the writing and the considerable insights into human experience, but to test the earlier narrative with the knowledge of what is to come * INDEPENDENT *Compelling … Atmospheric and vividly told, the book is a poignant examination of love, guilt, betrayal and the deception that can lie at the heart of every relationship * TATLER *Family proves far from idyllic in this poetic, sensual story of betrayal and lies. Writer and lyricist Samson’s prose is dazzlingly evocative, as she explores how relationships are rarely what they seem * GLAMOUR *Secrets and misunderstandings fuel Polly Samson’s involving, melancholy and cleverly constructed second novel … This is a mature and haunting novel about love and loss that asks if we all, in the end, see what we want to see * METRO *This is elegant, witty writing, informed throughout by generosity and wise perceptiveness. Dealing with many kinds of love, and with misunderstanding, betrayal, grief and forgiveness, the novel dares to posit, ultimately, the possibility of redemption. It is a book to cherish, to recommend, to return to * FT WEEKEND *Intensely evocative … Samson treats this difficult subject with candour and compassion … The novel’s effortlessness, its readability, sweeps everything in its wake … This is a book to relax into * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Polly Samson’s mastery of the English language is powerful and impressive * DAILY EXPRESS *Fills the back of your eyes with light like an Aegean sky, and has that rare and lovely quality of making you nostalgic for something you never had ... It perfectly takes the reader into a different world. Which we could all do with -- Louisa Young

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Book SynopsisWhat happens when adults are as lost as the children they're supposed to be protecting? From the author of the Richard and Judy Book Club Pick No and Me ‘Packs a hefty emotional punch. It reminded me of Leila Slimani’s terrific Lullaby’ Bookseller ‘Narrated with punch and pace. You’re kept reading helplessly to the desperate cliffhanger finish’ Daily Mail Thirteen-year-old Théo and his friend Mathis have a secret. Their teacher, Hélène, suspects something is not right with Théo and becomes obsessed with rescuing him, casting aside her professionalism to the point of no return. Cécile, mother of Mathis, discovers something horrifying on her husband’s computer that makes her question whether she has ever truly known him. Respectable facades are peeled away as the four stories wind tighter and tighter together, pulling into a lean and darkly gripping novel of loneliness, lies and loyalties.Trade ReviewThe latest literary sensation * Daily Telegraph *Delphine de Vigan coils these stories together in a taut, intense novel of secrets, lies and the unknowable depths of others * Tatler *Delphine de Vigan’s dark family thrillers are a cult sensation * i Weekend *One of the finest writers of psychological fiction in France today * France Magazine *Short and achingly affecting * Saga Magazine *De Vigan’s sure grasp of the trauma that comes with abuse and the horrible dilemmas that build up around seeking help make this noteworthy fiction * i *It’s a deceptively simple novel, an impression enhanced by the unfussy prose, shorn of literary flourish or artifice, but a powerful, thought-provoking one * Country & Town House *Frighteningly honest, precise and thrilling -- Praise for 'Based on a True Story', Julie Myerson * Observer *The novel casts a spell of enchantment ... Utterly brilliant -- Praise for 'Based on a True Story' * Spectator *

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Book Synopsis'A gorgeous achievement' Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko 'Graceful, poignant and moving' Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer In 1948 Najin and Calvin Cho, with their young daughter Miran, travel from South Korea to the United States in search of new opportunities. Wary of the challenges ahead, Najin and Calvin make the difficult decision to leave their other daughter, Inja, behind with their extended family; soon, they hope, they will return to her. But then war breaks out in Korea, and there is no end in sight to the separation. Miran grows up in prosperous American suburbia, under the shadow of the daughter left behind, as Inja grapples in her war-torn land with ties to a family she doesn’t remember. Najin and Calvin desperately seek a reunion with Inja, but are the bonds of love strong enough to reconnect their family over distance, time and war? And as deep family secrets are revealed, will everything they long for be upended? Told through the alternating perspectives of the distanced sisters, and inspired by a true story, The Kinship of Secrets explores the cruelty of war, the power of hope, and what it means to be a sister.Trade ReviewThe Kinship of Secrets is a beautiful allegory of loss and recovery. Through the parallel growth of two separated sisters, Kim bears witness to the fall and rise of nation and its resilient and generous people. The Kinship of Secrets is a gorgeous achievement * Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko *Nothing is taken for granted in Eugenia Kim’s thoughtful, well-written The Kinship of Secrets … Poignant and richly evocative of both Korea and the immigrant experience, Kim’s insightful novel is based on her own background * Sunday Times *A graceful, poignant and moving portrayal of one family’s struggle to remain a family through decades of war, migration and separation * Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer *Beautifully illuminate[s] Korea’s past in ways that inform our present ... Kim infuses a coming-of-age story about being an outsider with the realities of the war, which forced many family separations, some of which still persist today * Washington Post *Heartfelt ... Will greatly appeal to readers who enjoy the multicultural novels of Lisa See and Amy Tan, stories that enlighten as well as entertain * Booklist *Finely wrought ... A stirring novel about family and the sacrifices made to keep it whole * Publishers Weekly *Elegant ... A valuable window into Korean history as well as to issues like immigration and assimilation that couldn’t be more relevant today * Kirkus Reviews *Kim is a true storyteller, and her latest work is engaging throughout. Readers who enjoy family sagas by Lisa See and Jamie Ford will appreciate this one * Library Journal *I felt as though I had stepped into a graceful story of two countries, South Korea and America, and family ties that survive the challenges of history * Krys Lee, author of How I Became a North Korean *What an extraordinary time to read this heartfelt novel about the bonds of family, set against the backdrop of the Korean War. Eugenia Kim is a masterful storyteller who makes her characters come to life as she spans decades, continents and cultures * Jung Yun, author of Shelter *The Korean War has been called 'the forgotten war' in the West, but Kim’s second novel, a powerful narrative about the ways families relentlessly love and protect each other despite immense challenges, is a story that demands to be remembered, along with its history. The Kinship of Secrets is both a meditation on homesickness and a celebration of homecoming that made me appreciate the complicated bonds between sisters, between mothers and daughters, and the love for relatives that become surrogate parents. A beautiful novel, and a necessary, important story for our times * Yoojin Grace Wuertz, author of Everything Belongs to Us *A gripping story of war and immigration, as well as a tender meditation on what it means to be of a family and of a country * Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of Somebody’s Daughter *Keenly and often lyrically observed ... In quietly recording the arc of a woman's experience from idyllic childhood through harrowing adulthood, Kim mirrors the changing nation -- Praise for 'The Calligrapher's Daughter' * Washington Post *A beautiful, deliberate and satisfying story spanning thirty years of Korean history -- Praise for 'The Calligrapher's Daughter' * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize 2020 ‘An astonishing novel that is beautifully written but underpinned by a quiet simmering anger about injustice and unrealistic expectations of a family – and of life in contemporary India’ Peter Frankopan ‘A shattering study of disaffection and belonging … This is a concise novel of staggering depth …Disturbing, deep and utterly extraordinary’ Bidisha, Observer An Irish Times Book of the Year 2019 Escaping her failing marriage, Grace has returned to Pondicherry to cremate her mother. Once there, she finds herself heir to an unexpected inheritance. First, there is the strange pink house, blue-shuttered, out on a spit of the wild beach, haunted by the rattle of fishermen in their catamarans. And then there is the sister she never knew she had: Lucia, who has spent her life in a residential facility. Soon Grace sets up a new and precarious life in this lush, melancholy wilderness, with Lucia, the village housekeeper Mallika, the drily witty Auntie Kavitha and an ever-multiplying litter of puppies. Here in Paramankeni, with its vacant bus stops colonised by flying foxes, its temples and step-wells shielded by canopies of teak and tamarind, where every dusk the fishermen line the beach smoking and mending their nets, Grace feels that she has come to the very end of the world. But Grace’s attempts to play house prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury and bewilderment of life with Lucia. Luminous, funny, surprising and heartbreaking, Small Days and Nights is the story of a woman caught in a moment of transformation, and the sacrifices we make to forge lives that have meaning.Trade ReviewA shattering study of disaffection and belonging … This is a concise novel of staggering depth … Disturbing, deep and utterly extraordinary -- Bidisha * Observer *Radiantly written … This superb novel from Doshi (Orange Prize-longlisted for The Pleasure Seekers) ranges over family secrets, trying to do the right thing, and the sheer contingency of life in all its richness and uncertainty * Sunday Times *Tishani Doshi brings all her skills as one of the world's best poets to this lovely, beguiling, brilliant novel. Run, don't walk to your nearest bookseller -- Gary ShteyngartPraise for The Pleasure Seekers: 'This is a captivating, delightful novel. I was totally engaged by Tishani Doshi's people and by their world, and the language often rises - when speaking of the great matters, life, death, and above all love - to powerful metaphorical heights -- Salman RushdieBrimming with tender humour ... the novel dances its people across barriers of race and nation * Independent *Intensely charming ... a seductive and lovable novel: it is about pleasure sought and, more importantly, pleasure found * Guardian *Laced with charm, and instantly familiar, this is top drawer comfort reading * Financial Times *

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Book Synopsis'A gripping, fast-paced read stuffed full of atmosphere and murder most foul' Red The second book in the acclaimed new historical crime series following on from the Richard & Judy Book Club 2019 pick, The House on Half Moon Street. It’s been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved, and came closing to losing his own life. Now, more than ever, he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe, without risking those he holds dear. But Leo’s hopes for peace and security are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive at his lodgings: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo’s address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police, he is shocked to discover there a man from his past, a man who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the woman's killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities. If Leo's true identity is unmasked, he will be thrown into an asylum, but if he lies... will he be protecting a murderer?Trade ReviewA gripping, fast-paced read stuffed full of atmosphere and murder most foul * Red *The second novel in the Leo Stanhope series stands alone, and it’s well worth your time … A deeply atmospheric thriller with more twists and turns than the grubby streets of London, and a central character we really care about * Heat *Leo Stanhope was one of the finest literary creations of last year – a fully realised trans amateur detective in Victorian London * i *A gripping tale that twists like the dark back streets of Victorian London to a devastating conclusion, The Anarchist's Club and its colourful cast will not let you go. Leo Stanhope is a wonderful creation, his world atmospheric and terrifying, and his own story as powerful and enthralling as the mysteries he investigates -- Sam Blake, author of 'No Turning Back' and 'In Deep Water'Another class act from Alex Reeve. Leo is a brilliant hero: clever and flawed, infuriating and at the same time someone I root for at every turn -- Stephanie Butland, author of 'Lost for Words'Highly original -- Praise for 'The House on Half Moon Street' * Guardian *Reeve has not only crafted a brilliant crime novel, but has created a character who has made me see the world with new eyes. I await Leo’s – and Reeve’s – return eagerly -- Praise for 'The House on Half Moon Street' * The i *A masterful Gothic mystery full of unsettling twists, riveting turns and characters that would make Dickens jealous -- Praise for 'The House on Half Moon Street', Kaite WelshCreating a genuinely original protagonist in historical crime fiction is difficult, but Alex Reeve has succeeded ... An intriguing murder mystery and a complex portrait of a man isolated by his awareness of who he truly is * Sunday Times *This tense, emotional journey through late-Victorian London has an unusual and memorable young hero at its heart, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders * Sunday Express *

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Book SynopsisOne family’s adventures in LSD: the brilliantly strange new novel from the mind of ‘one of the most inventive, adventurous and accomplished fiction writers in the US today’ (Lionel Shriver) Chosen as a Book of the Year 2019 by the Herald It is Harvard in the early 1960s. Just off campus, Dr Timothy Leary plays host for his PhD students, laying on a spread of cocktails, pizza and LSD. Among the guests is Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology student, and his librarian wife Joanie. Married young, and both diligently and unglamorously toiling to support their son, they are not the sort of people one would expect to be seduced by the nascent drug culture. But their nights on LSD prove so extraordinary – so revelatory, so earth-shattering, so downright seductive – that Fitzhugh and Joanie are soon captive to the whims of the charismatic and subversive Dr Tim. Follow Fitzhugh and Joanie on their quest for transcendence, as sultry Mexican nights at Hotel Catalina give way to a ramshackle mansion in upstate New York, where thirty devotees – students, wives and children – play out the final act of a terrible, beautiful experiment. Join us, won’t you? It’s going to be one hell of a trip.Trade ReviewBoyle offers a cautionary account of those heady days as the Loney family suffers the personal costs of free love and freak-outs -- Jeffrey Burke * Mail on Sunday *A pitch-dark sex comedy -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *The undisputed master … Boyle is brilliant at charting the currents of euphoria and idealism around Leary, the phantasmagorical effects of LSD, and Fitz’s eventual slide into self-destruction. Boyle blurs the boundaries between the fact and fiction, adding a novelistic shimmer and richness to what the histories already tell us … A roller-coaster morality tale of the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom -- Mick Brown * Daily Telegraph *Boyle renders the hypnotic, quasi-academic mood of the commune skilfully, capturing the participants’ initial belief that this was a serious spiritual quest. This moment in the mid-Sixties before the bonkers hippy movement of the west coast took over the counter-culture from the intellectuals from the east, is fascinating … As the story of one man’s descent into madness, and the folly of communal living and doing drugs for breakfast it’s a thrilling read * The Times *A virtuoso performance by Boyle – joyous, mad-scientist slapstick, frightening, profound and even erotic * Herald *By far and away one of the most inventive, adventurous and accomplished fiction writers in the US today ... A mesmerising storyteller -- Lionel ShriverBoyle is a writer who chooses a large canvas and fills it to the edges -- Barbara KingsolverA virtuoso craftsman -- Annie ProulxFunny, but not always in a way you can laugh at. Boyle’s dissections are far too accurate. One moment you’re watching the antics of a narcissistic cast; the next you’re finding it all heartbreakingly human -- M John HarrisonYou don’t feel cheated, reading Boyle – while the head knows there’s manipulation and artifice, the heart thumps * Observer *Boyle has a talent for describing events we may never experience with an arresting matter-of-factness. There is a thrill to this, and to not knowing where he will take us next -- Chris Power * Guardian *A sort of Frank Zappa of American letters … Like the Beat writers before him, Boyle documents American life in the underbelly. Boyle is incapable of writing a boring sentence ... he is a master of the short story form * Financial Times *Thomas Coraghessan Boyle isn’t the first writer to probe the American malaise, but he makes a two-fisted, Technicolor job of it * Sunday Times *Masterful -- Philip Womack * Daily Telegraph *Brilliant … His characters are portrayed with sympathy and internal complexity, even if they’re still crazy * New Statesman *One of our finest chroniclers … Boyle is always going outside himself, jumping into foreign skins … The best of Boyle’s novels warn against the varieties of human extremism: our problems may be grave, he often says, but we make them worse by acting on our unexamined impulses and convictions * Independent *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2020 A love divided. A world torn in two. A return. A redemption. A stirring, exquisitely rendered tale of homecoming; the final instalment in Tim Pears’s epic West Country Trilogy It is 1916. Lottie Prideaux rides the winding lanes of her childhood on her motorcycle, defying the expectations of her class and sex as she trains to be a vet. Meanwhile young Leo Sercombe finds himself a long way from home, hauling coal aboard the HMS Queen Mary in the middle of the ocean. Here life is raw, bloody and vivid, with death never more than a heartbeat away. As Leo and Lottie wander in this strange and brave new world, and as war, loss, violence and betrayal conspire to tear asunder the ties that bind the past, present and future together, can even the most fated of returns – and redemptions – hope to come to pass?Trade ReviewPraise for the West Country Trilogy: 'A gorgeously hypnotic paean to rural England ... Peppered with moments of awestruck wonder at the natural world -- Melissa Harrison * Guardian *This intelligent and moving evocation of life on a country estate just before the First World War is both down-to-earth and magical. There are faint echoes of Alain Fournier’s masterpiece Le Grand Meaulnes, and there’s no higher praise -- Allan Massie * Sunday Herald, Books of the Year *Goodness, Tim Pears writes beautifully … the descriptions of rural life, executed with painterly exactness, are a constant delight. The prose really sings * Mail on Sunday *Tim Pears deserves a place among the best rural writers … Pears is an exemplary historical novelist with a Romantic eye for nature, and this heady walk through the forgotten lanes of England thrums with life. His unsentimental handling of rural poverty precludes any chocolate boxery, yet his evocation of the land’s sounds, smells and tastes are a match for any of the great scribes of the countryside -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *His prose is luminous, drawing in the reader … Pears’ fiction has been likened to Thomas Hardy’s, and the comparison is apposite. As a coming-of-age novel, it is wise and insightful … And as a portrayal of rural Edwardian England, it is powerful, vivid and humane -- Hannah Beckerman * Observer *A classic … Leo and Lottie step out into the world, and twentieth century rushes up to greet them … Knotty and nuanced * Times Literary Supplement *Loud with brilliantly captured voices and vividly drawn characters … A lyrical journey worth undertaking * Daily Mail *Clear-sighted storytellers in the tradition of Rosalind Belben and Flora Thompson (and H. E. Bates, when he was writing about poachers rather than Larkins) know that real life in the country is bursting with politics, mystery, sex and death, and all you need to do is describe it beautifully and carefully. Only a few authors are talented or brave enough to do that, and Pears, in his maturity, is one of them ... As a testament to a forgotten generation of countrymen it is unsurpassed and it goes very nicely indeed with a dark night, rain on the windowpane and a cosy armchair -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *His lyrical but unsentimental portrait of a long-lost rural world, and the characters who are shaped by it, is affecting -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *Pears’s sumptuous but scrupulous descriptions of the countryside are as evocative as Robert Macfarlane’s nature writing and as delicious to savour … The final part of this moving, absorbing odyssey cannot arrive quickly enough * Metro *A triumph … creates clear-eyed portraits of a lost way of life, and of a people whose traditions were disregarded throughout most of the 20th century … Country life used to be populated by these eccentric gypsies, pagans and mystics. The Wanderers invites them into our imaginations once again * Glasgow Sunday Herald *The pleasure of it lies in taking in the language and the setting – the West country, in 1911 and 1912 – and in reading it like a long poem, with each chapter a stanza -- Jane Smiley * Guardian *This book needs to be read with quiet attention to reap its rich rewards * Daily Mail *An assured, slow-burn, lyrical book, a rewarding read in our troubled times * Herald *With hypnotic lyricism, Pears describes this bucolic Devon world and the people who inhabit it, all of them secure in the knowledge of their place in the grand scheme of things ... [A] paean to the pastoral * Mail on Sunday *Neatlycrafted, and compelling * Spectator *A mesmerising book … An evocation of the pre-First World War countryside, sparely written and imagined with exceptional fidelity … A tale beautifully told * Country Life *Magically immediate * Times Literary Supplement *An exhilarating vision, a bittersweet elegy for the innocent certainties of an agrarian world before the industrialised horrors of the 20th century come crashing down * Irish Times *A distinctly compelling pastoral bildungsroman that leaves the reader eager for the next installment -- Lucy Scholes * BBC Countryfile *

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the National Book Award 2019 An Observer, Literary Review and Time Book of the Year 'One of the most affecting novels I have read. Subtle, wise and full of humanity' The Times Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters, deeply divided by race, religion and class. As the characters tell their stories and the mystery unfolds, Driss’s family is forced to confront its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, in all its messy and unpredictable forms, is born. 'A state-of-America family saga told as a slow-burn detective story' Observer 'Exceptionally rich' Sunday Times 'Confirms Lalami's reputation as one of our most sensitive interrogators, probing at the faultlines in family and the wider world' Financial TimesTrade ReviewA rich and mysterious family saga by a Pulitzer Prize–nominated author who always delivers magnificent prose. This story about the death of a Moroccan immigrant explodes into a compelling tale of love, family, race and heartache. Absolutely wonderful -- Elizabeth GilbertThis deftly constructed account of a crime and its consequences shows up, in its quiet way, the pressures under which ordinary Americans have labored since the events of 9/11 -- J.M. CoetzeeA family saga with the suspense of a mystery and, finally, the satisfying resolution of a thriller * Spectator *A writer of uncommon conviction and tremendous insight -- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Sympathizer'A provocative and gripping novel by a gifted writer -- John Boyne, author of 'A Ladder to the Sky' and 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'Confirms Lalami’s reputation as one of the most sensitive interrogators, probing at the faultlines in family and the wider world * Financial Times *A powerful novel of intolerance and compassion, resilience and weakness, love and loss, populated by flawed but sympathetic characters whose lives are rocked by actions and emotions beyond their control * Economist *A moving and exceptionally rich portrait of a modern American community, one that is much more far-reaching than just a saga of immigration * Sunday Times *Rich, polyphonic ... Accumulates a kind of revelatory power, setting aside top-down commentary in favour of side-by-side juxtaposition, a narrative style that ultimately functions as a plea for more listening * Observer *In gentle and stylish prose, Lalami gives us a picture of life as a Muslim immigrant in the USA, a glimpse of the trauma suffered by veterans of war in the Middle East and an account of family stresses familiar in all cultures and countries. It is a most impressive novel * Literary Review *A wonderfully constructed novel, like a musical piece made up of many voices -- Tim PearsI’m going to make a prediction, which is dangerous I know, but nonetheless… I predict The Other Americans is going to create a literary storm. Near enough to faultless, this book is a poignant exploration of grief, love, racism and jealousy that will undoubtedly rank as one of the best books of 2019 * Good Reading Magazine *Lalami packs sibling rivalry, a crime investigation, a love story and family secrets into her propulsive plotline … A masterful and intimate polyphonic narrative -- Ten books to read in 2019 * BBC *A strong successor to her Pulitzer-nominated The Moor’s Account, The Other Americans is a study of race in the wake of the War on Terror intertwined deftly with a love story and the dissection of a family dynamic, in which every character, like the young Moroccan acrobats, contributes an essential part of the whole * The Herald *This may be even better than The Moor’s Account … The Other Americans is a combination mystery, love story and literary exploration of immigrants in America -- Nicholas Kristoff * New York Times *Lalami is in thrilling command of her narrative gifts, reminding readers why The Moor's Account was a Pulitzer finalist … Lalami expertly mines an American penchant for rendering the ‘other' * Kirkus Reviews *Unforgettable -- Picks for 2019 * Bustle *Tremendous and powerful, The Moor’s Account is one of the finest historical novels I’ve encountered in a while. It rings with thunder! -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * Gary Shteyngart *A story with extraordinary power. The Moor's Account is more than a good story, it’s a great one: rich, vivid and gripping; a thoughtful investigation into how we frame the narratives of our own lives -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * Guardian *Lalami has once again shown why she is one of her generation’s most gifted writers -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * Reza Aslan *Lalami has built a remarkable novel -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * Independent *An exciting tale of wild hopes, divided loyalties and highly precarious fortunes -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * New Yorker *Brilliantly imagined -- Praise for 'The Moor's Account' * Salman Rushdie *

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Book SynopsisThe best thing you''ll read this year' KILEY REIDSo beautiful' SARAH JESSICA PARKEROne of those books I will read again and again' JOJO MOYESMoving, absorbing, evocative' SARA COLLINSWonderful ... Compelling ... Very funny' MARINA HYDEA crackling, comical, tender, and highly original novel about mental health, the certainties of medicine, buried trauma, love, death and time lost in the crushing and comical hopes of modern life_______________________________________________________Vita Woods is on the brink. She has a good job and a successful doctor boyfriend, Max, with whom the sex is great and the chat sufficient; a vivacious and charming sister Gracie, her verbal sparring partner and best friend for life; and she's even got a goldfish called Whitney Houston, who brightens her days by showing her she''s not the only one going round in circles. Because it's the days that are Vita's problem. Vita is

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Book SynopsisFirst published as Whatever Makes You Happy, the hilarious and moving novel about mothers and their adult sons, now a Netflix original movie starring Felicity Huffman, Angela Bassett and Patricia Arquette which has now been viewed on over 27 million accounts worldwide Three sons. Three mums. One week. Matt, Daniel and Paul were childhood friends. Now in their thirties, they've lost touch and have only one thing in common: their mothers. Little do they know that, having spent a cardless Mother's Day discussing how their emotionally dysfunctional offspring should be settling down, Carol, Gillian and Helen have decided to pay their wayward sons a visit. On the same day, they turn up on their sons' doorsteps, uninvited and unannounced. Their plan is to reestablish the mother-son bond by moving in for one week. Just a week. Surely that's not a lot to ask...Trade ReviewSharp and witty ... Very well done -- Lionel Shriver * Telegraph *Very funny ... A convincing, moving portrait of an evolving relationship between mother and adult son * Guardian *A charming portrait of fractured families and contemporary mores. … Sutcliffe writes with such sharpness and wit . . . Whatever Makes You Happy is a delight * Mail on Sunday *Everyone in my family, from my teenaged daughter to my husband and mother-in-law, has got something out of it besides laughter -- Amanda Craig * Independent *A moving meditation on miscommunications between sexes, across generations and over dinner tables * Financial Times *Brilliantly observed, howlingly funny and, if you have a son, all too recognisable * Woman & Home *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Prix Médicis Étranger; 'examines America's guerilla war between the haves and have-notes with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities'(Observer) When Delaney Mossbacher knocks down a Mexican pedestrian, he neither reports the accident nor takes his victim to hospital. Instead the man accepts $20 and limps back to poverty and his pregnant 17-year-old wife, leaving Delaney to return to his privileged life in California. But these two men are fated against each other, as Delaney attempts to clear the land of the illegal immigrants who he thinks are turning his state park into a ghetto, and a boiling pot of racism and prejudice threatens to spill over.Trade ReviewThis novel examines America's guerrilla war between the haves and have-nots with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities ... rock'n'roll, full of exciting, vivid American landscapes, utopian, manic * Observer *If Dickens were alive today he would be writing this sort of book -- Rosie Boycott * The Times, Books of the Year *A harrowing, even horrific, tale of an immigrant couple's venture into California, and the shockingly brutal reception they receive ... a remarkable feat of imaginative empathy * Daily Telegraph *Thrilling ... it's the same set up as Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities but Boyle immediately enlivens it * Independent on Sunday *Stirring ... The Tortilla Curtain confirms Boyle's reputation as a novelist of exuberance and invention ... It also adds to his fictional range an open-hearted compassion for those whom society fears and reviles * New York Times Book Review *A bold, strange novel ... a hectic satire on LA liberalism and real estate - Tom Wolfe meets Steinbeck * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *Irresistible ... Boyle is a gifted and empathic satirist, the finest craftsman masked as a pop-literary author current American fiction has -- Bret Easton Ellis * Vogue *Lays on the line of our national cult of hypocrisy. Comically and painfully he details the smug wastefulness of the haves and the vile misery of the have-nots -- Barbara KingsolverA powerful novel ... One of the best books I've read this year * Marie Claire *What makes Boyle's book so good is not only its juggernaut plot, but also the author's keen eye for satire ... He has achieved that rarest of literary doubles - creating a message novel that is also a thundering good read * Esquire *There isn't a contemporary American writer who can top Boyle's vivid prose and ironic style * Newsweek *Relentless ... Boyle is a great stylist, capable of wild and imaginative feats of language and diversion, using irony and humour in a way that suggests nothing is capable of surviving his coruscating wit * Glasgow Herald *A 1990s West Coast counterpart to The Bonfire of the Vanities, and certainly as inclusive in its treatment of the problems of Los Angeles as Tom Wolfe was of New York -- Paul Gambaccini * The Times, Books of the Year *Succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel ... A book to appreciate as we peer at the faces of strangers outside our windows, and wall ourselves in * Boston Globe *

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Book Synopsis_______________________ 'A comedy with teeth ... razor sharp and darkly funny' (TIMES) 'Boyle's prose is so good and his imagination so fertile that after a while you just sit back and are swept along' (TELEGRAPH) 'Surreal, daring and compassionate. Easily one of the best books of the year' (MAIL) 'Superb ... if Boyle was from this side of the pond, this is the book they'd all have to beat for the Booker Prize' (SUNDAY TIMES) It's 2025, and 75-year-old environmentalist and retired eco-terrorist Ty Tierwater is eking out a bleak living managing a pop star's private zoo. It is the last one in southern California, and vital for the cloning of its captive species. Once, Ty was so serious about environmental causes that as a radical activist committed to Earth Forever! he endangered the lives of both his daughter, Sierra, and his wife, Andrea. Now, when he's just trying to survive in a world cursed by storm and drought, Andrea re-enters his life. Frightening, funny, surreal and gripping, T.C. Boyle's story is both a modern morality tale, and a provocative vision of the future.Trade ReviewSurreal, daring and compassionate. Easily one of the best books of the year * Daily Mail *Bursting with imagination and humour ... Very sharp and funny ... Boyle's prose is so good and his imagination so fertile that after a while you just sit back and are swept along regardless * Daily Telegraph *A comedy with teeth from one of America's most consistently inventive novelists ... Boyle's prose is razor sharp and darkly funny. He captures brilliantly all the chaos and compassion of Ty's young and old world * The Times *T.C. Boyle is one of the most inventive and verbally exuberant writers of his generation * New York Times *Superb ... if Boyle was from this side of the pond, this is the book they'd all have to beat for the Booker Prize * Sunday Tribune *Boyle's bleak vision of the future is visibly human, and behind the frenzied articulacy lies a compelx, sentimental yearning that gives heart to our absurd extremes * Observer *

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Book SynopsisCHOSEN AS ONE OF 2019'S MOST ANTICIPATED TITLES FOR BY ELLE, THILLIST, USA TODAY, LITHUB, KIRKUS AND LA TIMES 'Ambitious and dazzling ... entertaining and thought-provoking too' Daily Mail 'Impressive' The Times 'Voraciously intelligent, heartrending ... Amanda Lee Koe is a brilliant writer' Garth Greenwell ________________ When a photographer captures Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Leni Riefenstahl in one frame at a party in Berlin in 1928, no one realizes the extent to which their lives will reflect the tumultuous decades that follow. Marlene crosses the Atlantic to find fame in Hollywood, the town that eats out of the palm of her hand till her wrinkles begin to show. After establishing her position as a filmmaker, Leni watches her fame turn to notoriety following the defeat of Nazi Germany. In 90 per cent of the films she appears in, the side characters played by Anna May must die so the white male lead can be returned to his white paramour on the screen. In the murky world these women navigate, their choices will be held up to the test of time. And the real question is, how much has anything changed? This fierce and exquisite debut about womanhood, ambition, and art, played out against the shifting political tides of the twentieth century, introduces a mesmerizing new literary talent for our times.Trade ReviewIn this swirling, brilliant debut, both the famous and the unknown struggle to navigate the tide of history. Cultures collide, horizons appear, worlds collapse. Filled with hope and desperation, Amanda Lee Koe's novel is a timely and timeless enquiry into what it means to be a woman, and a human being, in a universe that often seems not to care -- Tash AwA sprawling affair, with three flawed, charismatic heroines for the price of one … Richly three-dimensional * Mail on Sunday *An ambitious and dazzling debut that’s entertaining and thought-provoking too * Daily Mail *An impressive debut * The Times *It’s full of so much historical detail and I love the story and the narrative. It’s got great drive to it and it sent me looking for the real stories behind -- BBC Radio 4 Front RowThis is a voraciously intelligent, heartrending novel. Few books have so much life in them, or are so willing to explore the terrors of war and desire, the ruthlessness of genius. Maybe this novel can face the dark so fearlessly because it is itself so radiant, a blazing star. Amanda Lee Koe is a brilliant writer -- Garth GreenwellDelayed Rays of a Star is a big globe-trotting, time-traveling wonder of a novel that made me laugh and in a hundred other ways appreciate the playful brilliance of Amanda Lee Koe. This is writing to be devoured and shared, and a writer's arrival to be celebrated -- Ben MetcalfVivid, fictionalised deep dives into three women who changed cinema * Publishers Weekly *A sweeping sense of history that feels truly alive * Kirkus Reviews *In The Thirty Best Books to Read This Summer * Elle *An empathetic and devastating portrait of women equally defined by their passion and their politics * Lit Hub *This insightful and fascinating study of the ravages of fascism and racism is, somewhat paradoxically, a page-turner. * Brooklyn Eagle *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE BETTY TRASK PRIZE 'A Scarlet Letter for our times' MARGARET ATWOOD 'An extraordinary and disquieting work of imagination, and as original as any novel I’ve read in recent memory' ROB DOYLE Duncan Peck has travelled alone to Dartmoor in search of his cousin. He has come from the city, where the fires are always burning. In his cousin’s village, Peck finds a place with tea rooms and barley fields, a church and a schoolhouse. Out here, the people live an honest life – and if there’s any trouble, they have a way to settle it. They sit in the shadow of a vast wall, inscribed with strange messages. Anyone can write on the wall, anonymously, about their neighbours, about any wrongdoing that might hurt the community. Then comes the reckoning. The stranger from the city causes a stir. He has not been there long before the village wakes up to the most unspeakable accusation; sentences daubed on the wall that will detonate the darkest of secrets. A troubling, uncanny book about fear and atonement, responsibility and justice, and the violence of writing in public spaces, The Last Good Man dares to ask: what hope can we place in words once extinction is in the air?Trade ReviewA Scarlet Letter for our times ... Zamyatin's We meets Lord of the Flies meets de Tocqueville meets cancel culture meets spite and malice meets Jesus. Should words be power? Justice or mercy? What price rage? -- MARGARET ATWOODVividly nasty, recalling the smack-in-the-face technique of early Ian McEwan, and so accomplished that it’s easy to forget this is a debut … McMullan has a sureness with violence that puts him in the company of Sarah Moss and Benjamin Myers… Viciously captivating: frightening to be around, impossible to put aside – a bit like other humans, in fact * Guardian *This is a visceral and disquieting debut novel about the power of words, and should be read by anyone who uses the internet * New Statesman *McMullan makes highly effective use of the rugged landscape, full of unease and portents, in his creepily unsettling debut, a timely tale about the dangers of toxic rhetoric and mob rule * Daily Mail *A brilliantly unsettling parable about how we police our societies through violence, language and shame * independent.co.uk *Innovative and timeless * Irish Times *An extraordinary and disquieting work of imagination, and as original as any novel I’ve read in recent memory ... The Last Good Man makes visible the dark matter of our troubled zeitgeist, and the cruelty that animates moral community -- ROB DOYLEA clean, crackling novel ... McMullan updates Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to today’s sanctimonious climate ... An arresting debut about medieval justice that has plenty to say about the dangers of moral puritanism * Metro *An earthy, gripping piece ... A serious and seriously good book * NB Magazine *McMullan’s skill truly lies in his prose…a startling and evocative tale * Set the Tape *An unsettling and startling work of literary imagination ... A shocking but compulsive read * ON Magazine *Brilliantly eerie * Dystopia Junkie *Eerie and atmospheric * Sunday Post *An essential and commanding slice of folk horror — a wholly successful exercise in world-building that straddles an uncomfortable line between reality and fantasy * Lunate *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE ‘Spellbinding’ i ‘Breathtaking’ Elle ‘Powerhouses of feeling and depth’ Mary Gaitskill ‘Sharp and vital’ Daisy Johnson 'Excellent' Margaret Atwood on Twitter An ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands; a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night; a country music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy; and a young girl's love for her father transcends language. In this stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong. 'There is not a moment off in these affecting stories' Sheila HetiTrade ReviewEvery once in a while, you come across a book with writing so breathtaking that you take note of the author so you can read everything they ever write in the future. How to Pronounce Knife, by Souvankham Thammavongsa is one of those books * Elle *Spellbinding ... A perfect marriage of style and refreshing, surprising substance. Like her characters, Thammavongsa possesses x-ray vision for teetering power structures and those who sit precariously at the top of them. But her writing goes beyond this. It actively, though quietly, works against the invisibility or erasure of migrants living and trying to make a living in the margins. * i *Impressive ... Thammavongsa’s spare, rigorous stories are preoccupied with themes of alienation and dislocation, her characters burdened by the sense of existing unseen ... Thammavongsa’s gift for the gently absurd means the stories never feel dour or predictable ... It is when the characters’ sense of alienation follows them home, into the private space of the family, that Thammavongsa’s stories most wrench the heart * New York Times Book Review *The stories are slender, spare, and slide between your ribs like a super-sharp blade, fast and soundless, before you realize what's happening * Vanity Fair *[Souvankham Thammavongsa's] poignant, affecting debut collection conversationally captures the everyday lives of immigrants and refugees who have moved to the city in the hope of better lives * Daily Mail *In this touching debut, the Thailand-born, Toronto-raised author captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city with universal hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and a desire to belong ... stand-out * Cosmopolitan *This series of short stories brings to life figures that might otherwise not figure on the literary radar ... with enough panache to keep the reader gripped throughout * Vogue *[Thammavongsa] captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees exploring family relationships, escape from the real world and the love that binds us all * Stylist *[Thammavongsa’s] careful dissection of everyday moments of racism, classism and sexism exposes how power and privilege drive success, how work shapes the immigrant identity, and how erasure and invisibility lead to isolation * Washington Post *Exacting, sharply funny short fictions * Oprah Magazine *These stories feel simple but they move within you and it is impossible to let them go. They are sharp and vital. Thammavongsa is a master over the sentence * Daisy Johnson *These poignant and deceptively quiet stories are powerhouses of feeling and depth; How to Pronounce Knife is an artful blend of simplicity and sophistication -- Mary GaitskillI love these stories. There’s some fierce and steady activity in all of the sentences – something that makes them live, and makes them shift a little in meaning when you look at them again and they look back at you (or look beyond you) -- Helen OyeyemiSouvankham Thammavongsa writes with deep precision, wide-open spaces, and quiet, cool, emotionally devastating poise. There is not a moment off in these affecting stories -- Sheila HetiA riveting, subversive collection that alights within us like a shock to the system. I find it miraculous – and liberating and joyful – that language so radiantly exact can be so raw, so brazen. This is a major work and a lasting one -- Madeleine ThienThammavongsa’s radiant debut collection of short stories is full of precarity, strength, uncertainty, messiness and life * Ms. Magazine *The stories here will gut you, as Thammavongsa's insight proves to be razor-sharp * Bustle *

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Book Synopsis***SHORTLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE 2021*** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE AND THE NEW YORK POST 'Extremely obsessed with this book' CHRISSY TEIGEN ‘A riveting summer read’ Entertainment Weekly 'Perfect ... Witty and romantic’ TERRY McMILLAN _________________ Tina wants to feel Indian. Really Indian. Not Indian in the sense of going to yoga in Brooklyn. She wants to know the real India – only whenever she visits, people take her to bars and restaurants and boutiques that could be anywhere in the world. So she jumps at the change to get to know the country when she heads to Delhi for her glamorous cousin Shefali's week-long wedding, with her best friend, her parents and her mother's all-American boyfriend in tow. Navigating a world of Delhi playboys, models, dating agencies for widows, and wedding guests with personal bodyguards, Tina is determined to have an authentic Indian experience. Now if only someone would tell her what that was... ___________________ READERS LOVE DESTINATION WEDDING: 'So funny and entertaining! I loved it from page one' 'A book for all seasons, Destination Wedding will have you laughing till your sides hurt and you can laugh no more' 'The author is a great storyteller and writes beautifully' 'Fast, engaging, intriguing, entertaining' 'This was an incredible read' 'Charming, witty and full of heart'Trade ReviewA riveting summer read * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY *A charming romcom * MARIE CLAIRE, The 2020 Books You Should Add to Your Reading List *Extremely obsessed with this book -- CHRISSY TEIGENA witty and romantic novel perfect for all readers -- TERRY McMILLANLuxurious and extravagant … Think ensemble comedy, in book form * NEW YORK POST *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE An unflinching portrait of contemporary Traveller culture by the award-winning author of The Gallows Pole John-John wants to escape his past. But the legacy of brutality left by his boxer father, King of the Gypsies, Mac Wisdom, overshadows his life. His new job as an ice cream man should offer freedom, but instead pulls him into the dark recesses of a northern town where his family name is mud. When he attempts to trade prejudice and parole officers for the solace of the rural landscape, Mac’s bloody downfall threatens John-John’s very survival.Trade ReviewPig Iron is an important book because it tells a story that has shaped all contemporary Western humans, but is routinely, inexplicably overlooked – the great move from agricultural life to industrial life. The respect in which that shapes human culture and individual humans -- Judge Deborah OrrHis poetic vernacular brims with that quality most sadly lost – humanity * Guardian *One of my best reads this year ... A deeply rural story, a book full of passion for the English countryside and centred on the conflict between the travelling and the settled community. A very fine read indeed, it expresses a life view almost never examined in our narrow literary culture -- Melvin BurgessA novel that resists mere classification as a ‘traveller’ book. This is yet another singular portrait of an outsider from Myers. And delivered through authentic characterisation, a monstrously compelling plot, and frequent humour – a rare combination of such successfully crafted elements – Pig Iron deserves to find itself on many a reading list, if not the National Curriculum * 3:AM Magazine *What a staggeringly powerful book. It held me page by page, totally took me over. If I had to opt for a single word to encompass the experience of reading the book, I’d settle for ‘ferocious’ -- Dominic Cooper, author of The Dead Of Winter and Sunrise.Original and urgent, exciting and uncompromising * Loud & Quiet, Books of the Year *Never has an author caught the sense of dread, denial and defeat in the downward spiral so thoroughly and accurately as this since Hubert Selby Jr.’s masterwork Requiem For A Dream. Myers’ blend of low-life settings and high art conceptions, coupled with a sharp knowledge of North-East regional dialectical inflections and the region’s mapping, are a wonderful throwback to Joyce * Louder Than War *Benjamin Myers’ influences are clear — David Peace’s northern brutalism is evident and there are suggestions of Salinger and Golding but Pig Iron’s savage vision is his alone * Morning Star *

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Book Synopsis‘A moving and direct study of frailty, love and time and luck and grief’ Guardian Edvard Behrends is a diplomat, highly regarded for his work on international peace negotiations. Under his arbitration, unimaginable atrocities are coolly dissected; invisible lines, grown taut and frayed with conflict, redrawn. In his latest post, Edvard has been sent to a nondescript hotel in the Tyrol. High up on this mountain, the air is bright and clear. He confides in no one – no one but his wife Anna. Anna, who he loves with all his heart; Anna, always present and yet forever absent.Trade ReviewA tender and elegant portrait of a grieving individual searching for personal and political peace * Sunday Times *Tim Finch’s elegant and wintry novel has something of the feel of early Kazuo Ishiguro, and a similar acute grasp of both character and situation ... In Behrends, Finch has created a narrator both open and opaque * Observer *There are war stories and there are love stories, but we only occasionally get war stories and love stories braided together … A wonderful novel, tiny and epic both. Laced with humour and sadness, this is an intimate account of what it means to make peace -- Colum McCannA shrewd delight * independent.co.uk *A profound novel about human frailty … In its tone and minor-key approach, Peace Talks is reminiscent of the Julian Barnes of Levels of Life, plus lashings of (duly credited) James Salter … Peace Talks turns out to be a moving and direct study of frailty , love and time, and luck and grief , of what is left when all the noise – of machination, violence and competing stories – is stripped away * Guardian *A feat of telling ... Masterfully rendered * Spectator *As well as shining a light on the conflict resolution industry, Finch plays a canny game with our assumptions about the motives behind Anna’s murder, in a smart tale slyly engineered to warn against the perils of nationalist tub-thumping * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisA New Statesman, Irish Times and Guardian Book of the Year 'A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny' Sally Rooney A young, broke Irish woman narrates her relationship with a successful comedian in New York; two hapless university students take to the stage in a bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher makes her way through a series of dead-end dates, gamely searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin. The characters in these magnificently accomplished stories are haunted as much by the future as they are by their pasts. Urgent and unforgettable, Show Them a Good Time marks the arrival of a strikingly original new voice in fiction. ‘Demands repeated reading' Jon McGregor 'Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness' Sunday Times 'Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent' Financial Times Winner of the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year 2019Trade ReviewHighly addictive * Observer *These stories are very funny, and very sad, usually at the same time. Which, as Flattery shows us brilliantly, is the best time -- Jon McGregorExhilarating. Flattery’s judgments crackle with cruel, clear sight ... Flattery writes with empathy, freedom and virtuosic technique * Financial Times *Smart as a whip, unusual, and very very funny, Flattery's distinctive prose is a real treat -- Claire-Louise BennettFilled with dark, daring and compassionate fables of womanhood * Stylist *Flattery tells the truth but tells it slant, so that from her sentences, to her symbolism, to her zany, often surrealist plots, her stories fizz with humour and surprise * Irish Independent *Reverberates with a strange tension and fine sentences -- Hisham MatarI truly love and admire Nicole Flattery’s writing. Show Them a Good Time is a masterclass in the short story – bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny – and it does full justice to its author’s immense talent -- Sally RooneyA bright new voice in Irish literature. Think early Lorrie Moore, or the stories that launched Anne Enright’s career. Flattery brings the reader through this world with ease, mixing the absurd with the workaday, trauma with humour * Irish Times *At its best, which is often, Flattery’s prose has a thrilling relentlessness and rhythmical snap to it; it pummels and excites * Guardian *Startling, daring and dazzlingly dark -- Colin BarrettFlattery is the latest wave of a recent dam burst of Irish talent, including Sally Rooney, Kevin Barry and Danielle McLaughlin. She has a true storyteller’s ability to make a few words do a lot. The stories in Show Them a Good Time explore difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness * Sunday Times *Like Sally Rooney, Flattery is adept at capturing millennial culture, but her voice is more distinctive in its daring, eccentric intelligence. This is a collection which lives up to its hype * Spectator *Brutal, disorientating and bold … Filled with appetite, anger and compelling characters … Flattery is 29, and the themes that run through the work of many of the young Irish writers currently exhibiting such brilliant form – from Sally Rooney to Sinead Gleeson – also flit through her collection … Some of these pieces reminded me a lot of Deborah Levy, and particularly her earlier stories: brutal, disorientating, filled with appetite, anger and characters who seem to spring from nowhere and everywhere at the same time * New Statesman *There’s laughter in the dark and darkness in the laughter in these fabulously astute stories that are at once surreal and more real than reality. Nicole Flattery is so good -- Melissa Broder, author of 'The Pisces'If tradition is the kitchen sink, Flattery removes it from the wall, smashes it to pieces, and dances all over it with delight. With a literary voice that is as sophisticated and erudite as it is spiky and hilarious, Flattery has taken the short story format into an exciting, energetic, and multifaceted dimension * Sunday Independent *An urgent and exuberant debut short story collection * Guardian *Not only distractingly brilliant, it will make you wild with envy -- Caroline O’DonoghueOne of the best short story collections I’ve read in a long while … Bleakly hilarious, dark, weird. Read it! -- Rhiannon Lucy CosslettThis collection woke me up and sucked me in. By turns absurdist, frightening and funny, Flattery's writing is never less than dazzling -- Julia ArmfieldIrish women writers are on fire, and Nicole Flattery is yet a further brilliant example … Ten smart stories about dating, relationships and the absurdities of modern life -- Ones to Watch * Elle *In recent years a vanguard of Irish writers, mostly women, has emerged to continue an Irish tradition: that of punching above its own literary weight. Flattery is its latest lodestar ... Flattery's work is striking from the get-go: exuberant, absurd, relevant but often oblique ... Tonally, [the stories] are at times reminiscent of the Greek film director Yorgos Lanthimos’ deadpan, uncanny valley absurdism * Totally Dublin *This tour de force lurches into outright absurdism, and is reminiscent of acclaimed US author Nell Zink at her most playful. Flattery is a fresh new voice and I can’t wait to see what she does next * The Crack *The first time I read Nicole Flattery I was captivated - the voice, the word choice, the oddest dramaturgical line. I thought, my god, she could be the Irish Miranda July -- Gavin Corbett * Irish Times *A ridiculously fantastic, funny and daring writer -- John Patrick McHughShow Them A Good Time by Nicole Flattery is enthralling from start to finish … Flattery is assured in her words, her style evident from page to page * Storgy *I first encountered Nicole Flattery's work through the Stinging Fly, and I'm forever grateful I did -- Sally Rooney

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Book SynopsisAN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023_______________''A blade-sharp coming-of-age novel'' SPECTATOR''Confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer'' IRISH INDEPENDENT''In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious'' LOUISE KENNEDY_______________A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol''s Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New YorkNew York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother''s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.Warhol is composing an unconventional

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Book SynopsisAN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 _______________ 'A blade-sharp coming-of-age novel' SPECTATOR 'Confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer' IRISH INDEPENDENT 'In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious' LOUISE KENNEDY _______________ A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol's Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New York New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother's sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment. _______________ PRAISE FOR SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME: 'A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny' Sally Rooney 'Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent' Financial Times 'Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness' Sunday Times 'Demands repeated reading' Jon McGregor A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: THE TIMES * TELEGRAPH * STYLIST * GQ * GUARDIAN * HARPER'S BAZAAR * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * WATERSTONES * i-D * IRISH TIMES * HUFFINGTON POST UKTrade ReviewEvery line seems to thrill and break in an indifferent social space, and the result is very moving * Anne Enright, Irish Times, Books of the Year *[A] blade-sharp coming-of-age debut novel . . . [Flattery] captures the absurdity and the pain, the texture of city streets and the squalid luxury, and brings a deadpan wit to the whole sex and drugs and Pop-art scene * Spectator *A raucously talented young Irish writer ... Flattery is witty, propulsive and darkly delightful to read * Economist *Sixties New York is vividly conveyed, but the triumph is in the capture of moody, prickly, ambitious Mae through whose eyes everything is seen . . . [A] witty and unique coming-of-age novel * Daily Mail *The author of short story collection Show Them A Good Time is one to watch . . . Exploring the rift between their public and private selves, this darkly funny tale draws parallels between 60s New York and today * Stylist *Flattery has a fine ear for dialogue . . . In fitting her complex, heartfelt, vexing characters into the spaces left where the names of Warhol’s typists should have been, Flattery is finally giving those egos, or a version of them, a chance to tell their own story, in their own words * Guardian *The assuredness of her writing belies the fact that Nothing Special – a tale of identity and purpose set in Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory – is her inaugural novel . . . [Nothing Special] does an excellent job of evoking 1960s New York, and balances its ideas of voyeurism and longing expertly * Harper's Bazaar *This debut novel is that rare thing, an original, off-kilter coming-of-age story, in which life and art collide in unsettling ways * Mail on Sunday *Nothing Special is as stylishly written as its predecessor Show Them a Good Time. Indeed there are shades of Saul Bellow, in her rendering of New York that ‘shrieking cartoon hell’ . . . [Flattery] deserves only praise * Sunday Independent *Nothing Special confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer; her observations clear-eyed and cool-headed, never pretentious. Readers may be tempted to underline every other sentence in this striking debut from an exciting new voice’ * Irish Independent *Flattery demonstrates here how she can shape on a larger scale and be incredibly inventive in the process . . . [Her] willingness to be ugly and merciless on the page is what makes her work so relentlessly engaging * Financial Times *A riveting read about fame, myth-making and finding your own identity * Good Housekeeping *Flattery is a keen observer of relational dynamics in groups of women, and how these connections can both support and strangle. Her characters feel complicated and real * Telegraph, Highlights for 2023 *If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over Edie Sedgwick (her biography by Jean Stein is a must-read) then Nothing Special will be right up your street. Set against 60s New York and Andy Warhol’s Factory, this is a coming-of-age story that conjures up the lure of the era * Stylist, Highlights for 2023 *Nicole Flattery's treatment of determined, bewildered young women – as they discover the vast distance between how they are perceived and how they feel themselves to be – is brilliantly gloomy, droll and so out-of-body as to be real . . .They try on and take off their survival instincts like costumes, in a painful, beguiling, apt twist on art for art’s sake. The authenticity of Flattery's work offers its own reassurance that sometimes art is good -- Caoilinn HughesThere are many things to enjoy in Nicole Flattery's debut novel … Mae is an engaging protagonist with a wit about her coming-of-age struggles * Independent *A sharp portrait of New York’s art scene in the sixties and one woman’s place in it. Through inventive prose, Flattery writes into history the under-celebrated voices, and she does it in a masterful way. A superb novel -- Elaine FeeneyIn enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious. Wonderful stuff. -- Louise KennedyAudacious, original and fully achieved – this is a remarkable novel -- Kevin BarryOne of the most exciting releases of 2023 . . . A dizzying exploration of sex, freedom, art and voyeurism, seen through the coming-of-age of 17-year-old Mae. Deftly woven and captivating, it signals the arrival of a new literary talent * Harper's Bazaar, highlights for 2023 *Told with dry wit and sharp observation, Nothing Special speaks in a profound and original way to our age of vacuous consumerism, our empty quests for self-discovery, and our parasitism on celebrity and trend . . . A bold and funny coming-of-age novel about the emptiness of the cult of self, the fetishisation of fame, and the aimless drift of late-stage capitalism -- Imogen Crimp, author of A VERY NICE GIRLFlattery's sentences are astonishing. Their wit and ingenuity, the apt oddness of her metaphors, are addictive and relentlessly delightful, and then all of a sudden her language snaps into an exactness of feeling that knocks you sideways. A special, singular, blazingly original and truly achieved first novel -- Colin Barrett, author of YOUNG SKINSI couldn't put this razor sharp, darkly funny coming-of-age story down -- Louisa Reid, author of THE POETA wry, witty and wonderful novel from a brilliantly captivating storyteller -- Joseph O’ConnorI derive so much energy from Nicole Flattery’s writing. Nothing Special casts such a stylish and transportive spell, perhaps it’s better to dust off adjectives like “marvelous” and “fabulous.” I’ll never again ride an escalator without thinking of this book -- Sloane Crosley

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Book Synopsis'I really, really loved it' - Marian Keyes 'Absolute heaven - I am cackling out loud!' - Nina Stibbe 'The most exciting new heroine I've read in a very long time' - Katie Fforde ‘Blows apart the South African society with one of fiction’s most dynamic heroines’ - Stylist Shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Prize ___________________________ Blessed [pronounced bles-id] The state of being blessed, often referring to a person, usually female, who lives a luxurious lifestyle funded by an older, often married partner Young, beautiful and ambitious, Bontle Tau has Johannesburg wrapped around her finger. Her admirers are falling over themselves to pay for her Mercedes, her penthouse, and her Instagrammable holidays. She’s come a long way, and it's been far from easy. Yes, Bontle gets the blues from time to time. The shrink keeps wanting to talk about a past she's put behind her. But what she doesn't think about can't hurt her, can it? Darkly comic and razor-sharp, The Blessed Girl is an international bestseller about men, mental health, and getting rich by any means necessary...Trade ReviewI really, really loved it -- Marian KeyesThe most exciting new heroine I’ve read in a very long time -- Katie FfordeAbsolute heaven. I am cackling out loud! -- Nina Stibbe

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Book SynopsisThe masterpiece of one of the most important and overlooked British women writers of the twentieth century, with a new introduction by Melissa Harrison; 'Isabel Colegate has no rival' (The Times) 'If you are curious as to why Britain is still ruled by a tiny cadre of not-very-introspective aristo-capitalists, Orlando King is essential reading’ Sunday Times ‘Colegate’s sharp-eyed trilogy about a young man on the make in 1930s London feels particularly resonant right now, given its acute take on male privilege and power’ i paper, Summer Reading Picks 2020 'An extraordinary achievement' Frances Wilson, Times Literary Supplement, Summer Reading Picks 2020 Orlando King is a trilogy about a beautiful young man, raised in a remote and eccentric wilderness, arriving in 1930s London and setting the world of politics ablaze. In a time of bread riots and hunger marches, with the spectre of Fascism casting an ever lengthening shadow over Europe, Orlando glidingly cuts a swathe through the thickets of business, the corridors of politics, the pleasure gardens of the Cliveden set, acquiring wealth, adulation, a beautiful wife, and a seat in Parliament. But the advent of war brings with it Orlando’s downfall; and his daughter Agatha, cloistered with him in his banishment, is left to pick through the rubble of his smoking, ruined legacy. Elegant and muscular, powerful and razor-sharp, Orlando King is a bildungsroman, Greek tragedy and political saga all in one; a glittering exorcism of the inter-war generation’s demons to rival the work of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.Trade ReviewA joy to read * Sunday Times on Orlando King *Colegate’s novels offer readers clear-eyed, illuminating windows onto this now bygone world ... Colegate has no equal ... In shining a light on the past, Colegate also illuminates the present * Paris Review *With impeccable timing, Bloomsbury have republished, in a single volume, Isabel Colegate’s Orlando trilogy ... When I read them as a teenager I had only the thinnest understanding of the rise of fascism or the work of Sophocles and no idea how extraordinary Colegate’s achievement was. -- Frances Wilson * Times Literary Supplement *It will be intriguing to reclaim a writer who was esteemed in the 1980s but who has largely fallen out of print -- Hilary Mantel * Times Literary Supplement *Colegate’s sharp-eyed trilogy about a young man on the make in 1930s London feels particularly resonant right now, given its acute take on male privilege and power * i paper, Summer Reading Picks 2020 *Miss Colegate has before proved herself not only precise in her evocation of periods but also gifted with that sympathy that makes hindsight genuinely more rewarding than topical observation … There is hardly a sentence to fault, or a snatch of dialogue to improve on * Times Literary Supplement on Orlando King *She should be a household name -- Eleanor CattonIt makes a direct impact because it is a succession of clear pictures or striking statements; it has sharply outlined characters, definite situations, dramatic pauses; and its story line leads through a tangle of incidents to a climax that has the weight of inevitability * New York Times on Orlando King *Colegate's instinctive feel for the values and obsessions of the upper echelons of English, society is heightened by the ironic distance she inserts between herself and her conservative yet eccentric cast of characters, the end result has the unstoppable momentum of an upper crust potboiler * Irish Times on Orlando King *Colegate's prose is flowing and unpretentious. She tells an excellent tale * Daily Telegraph on The Blackmailer *Combine the slightly offbeat sensibility of Muriel Spark with the milieu of an Iris Murdoch novel and you’ll have something of an idea about this witty tale -- Lucy Scholes * BBC Culture on The Blackmailer *Subtle and graceful … Miss Colegate is beautifully precise and invests that sticky feverish time with just the right mixture of doomed fun, melancholy and faintly lascivious despair * Observer on Statues in a Garden *She writes so gracefully and with such skill that her “private fable” acquires a truly fabulous quality * Times Literary Supplement on Statues in a Garden *Miss Colegate has found a perfect metaphor for the passing of a way of life * Spectator on The Shooting Party *Poised, wry, lovable, informative … An utterly complete rendering of a way of life * Gail Godwin on The Shooting Party *A beautifully crafted novel, remarkably visual and evocative. The characters are caught in stunning images and tableaux that convey the essence of their natures, the sweep of their emotions * Washington Post on The Shooting Party *A lovely piece of writing, in which subtlety, irony, and close observation abound -- Larry McMurtry on The Shooting PartyStylish, funny, as vivid and brilliant as a painting on glass * Daily Telegraph on The Shooting Party *Threads of romance, social comment, country lore and intrigue both above and below stairs are cunningly worked together to create a brilliant tapestry … I have seldom enjoyed a book so much * Sunday Telegraph on The Shooting Party *Remarkable … I can think of no work of fiction that brings [this period] to life so fully and subtly * Washington Post on The Shooting Party *‘Isabel Colegate is not afraid of ideas nor of using fiction to express them … In this rich and fascinating book, someone is hiding something - possibly everyone is. Time itself obscures the truth. Can the past be known? Or is what we call history the best of recollection, not absolute but consensual, and always subject to interpretation? * LA Times on Deceits of Time *A sonorous and muted masterpiece * The Times on Winter Journey *

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Book SynopsisThe glittering, sharp and sinister work of one of our most incisive and wickedly funny satirists; 'Isabel Colegate has no rival' (The Times) 'What we feel for each other is really a passion for power,' said Judith. 'We want to destroy each other by making the other fall in love with us.' Judith Lane, not-quite-beautiful but charmingly serious, is the young widow of the war hero Anthony Lane, and an editor at the successful if rather rakish publisher Hanescu Lane & Co. Ltd. But one evening the harmonious routine of Judith’s life is interrupted when she receives her first visit from Baldwin Reeves, who reveals that Anthony’s wartime adventures were not quite as glorious as the newspaper reports would have her believe. To protect Anthony’s family from the scandal, Judith reluctantly acquiesces to the repellent but attractive Reeves’s demands – but both blackmailer and blackmailee soon find themselves out of their depth in ways they could not have anticipated. Darkly funny, strangely sexy, and glittering with Isabel Colegate’s scalpel-sharp wit, The Blackmailer is a savage and sinister comic classic.Trade ReviewOught to be a household name -- Eleanor CattonCombine the slightly offbeat sensibility of Muriel Spark with the milieu of an Iris Murdoch novel and you’ll have something of an idea about this witty tale of extortion and romance, all played out against the gin-soaked backdrop of the 1950s London literary scene -- Lucy Scholes * BBC, 10 lost books you should know *As a novelist of English manners, Isabel Colegate has no rival * The Times *Flowing and unpretentious. She tells an excellent tale * Daily Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis‘McCann returns to Ireland with this collection, turning his measured gaze and incisive prose to the country’s recent history with devastating effect’ Maggie O’Farrell 'McCann once again shows why he is one of the best writers in the world … Deeply moving and powerfully written, these are likely to become classics' Big Issue ___________________ One powerful novella, with two thematically linked short stories on either side of it, forms the basis of Everything in This Country Must. Although these are stories about Ireland and the Troubles, they have an almost mythical rather than a political feel. In the title story, four young soldiers help a farmer and his daughter free their horse from a stream in flood, unable to understand that their help will never be anything but an insult. In the novella, Hunger Strike, a young boy and his mother flee to Galway as the boy's uncle succumbs to a hunger strike in a Derry gaol. In Wood, a ten-year-old boy is asked by his mother to make poles for the marching season. ___________________ 'Colum McCann’s stories are brooding, meditative and lyrically controlled to that delicate point where the emotion within them intensifies with each succeeding reading and recognition. The political turmoil of Northern Ireland finds here an answering, subtly respondent voice - wonderfully skilled and deeply felt' Seamus DeaneTrade ReviewThese are powerful stories – gritty, memorable and ambitious. The novella goes straight to the heart, both in terms of its theme and its emotional punch -- Edna O’BrienExcellent – this is a powerful and moving collection * Roddy Doyle *Orwell would have been proud to journey with a writer as good as Colum McCann * Sunday Independent *McCann once again shows why he is one of the best writers in the world … Deeply moving and powerfully written, these are likely to become classics * Big Issue *Captures that peculiar nexus of hormones, deprivation and political imperative on a Northern Irish child coming of age * Los Angeles Times Book Review *Colum McCann’s stories are brooding, meditative and lyrically controlled to that delicate point where the emotion within them intensifies with each succeeding reading and recognition. The political turmoil of Northern Ireland finds here an answering, subtly respondent voice - wonderfully skilled and deeply felt -- Seamus DeaneFull of wild melancholy -- Christopher Hope

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Book Synopsis'Remarkable ... nimble, lyrical and wispy' Sunday Times 'An utterly riveting, frequently moving, and staggeringly well-written book' Daily Mail 'Breathtaking' Guardian ________________________ This novel opens on a battlefield: trudging back from the front through a ravaged and icy wasteland, their horses dying around them, their own hunger rendering them almost savage, the Russian soldiers are exhausted as they reach the city of Ufa, desperate for food and shelter. They find both, and then music and dance. And there, spinning unafraid among them, dancing for the soldiers and anyone else who'll watch him, is one small pale boy, Rudolf. This is Colum McCann's dancer: Rudolf, a prodigy at six years old, who became the greatest dancer of the century, who redefined dance, rewrote his own life, and died of AIDS before anyone knew he had it. This is an extraordinary life transformed into extraordinary fiction by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. One kind of masculine grace is perfectly matched to another in Colum McCann's beautiful and daring new novel.Trade ReviewThe theme of towering celebrity and its attendant vacuity is very well done -- Chris Power * The Times *McCann's remarkable novel … McCann's prose – nimble, lyrical and wispy – does full justice to the tragic story of a dancer who was the glory of his generation * Sunday Times *It's a strikingly original book, and as apparently effortless as one of Fonteyn's pirouettes or Nureyev's leaps into space * Irish Times *An utterly riveting, frequently moving, and staggeringly well-written book -- Wendy Holden * Daily Mail *McCann’s agile, muscular prose creates its own energy and rhythm … he has taken one of the most charismatic characters of the 20th century and created a bold contemporary novel * Daily Telegraph *Like its subject, it spins with virtuoso, charismatic brilliance around a core of wilful mystery * Guardian *Here is an astonishing book. Colum McCann writes with a ferocious eloquence and a masterly sense of narrative … he has given us something wonderful * Spectator *Dancer brilliantly conveys Nureyev’s charisma. He haunted you. You couldn’t shake him off. His eyes were “complicated and blue”, and such is McCann’s skill and intuition, we penetrate that gaze * Daily Express *Employing a multiplicity of narrators, and skilfully interchanging between them … McCann produces a vivid, many-faceted portrait of the man. He succeeds in lifting Nureyev off the page and planting him firmly in the mind of the reader … There are charming vignettes ... The range of wonderfully evoked settings is impressive * Scotland on Sunday *Dancer is an enticing read … McCann has an especially tender way with the human body -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Here is what it feels like to be possessed by the genius of dance. It is the story of something mysterious and intangible, beauty combined with a potentially crude element, the human body … Dancer is an ambitious and thrilling novel * Times Literary Supplement *It is the bleak scenes of everyday Russian life, the school of hard knocks in which the genius was forged, that are the chief glory of a fine book * Sunday Telegraph *McCann takes the germ of an idea – the unknowable icon, the 1970s pinup – and with compassion and an outpouring of imagination, builds a ferociously original tale of that life’s gifts and iniquities * Independent on Sunday *A beautiful, floating novel about Nureyev’s life and art * New York Times Book Review *

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Book Synopsis'An eerily familiar reflection of our current moment ... It continues to haunt me' NATASHA BROWN, I PAPER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'I will go wherever she takes me. A phenomenal book' DAISY JOHNSON 'A brilliant, scalding novel ... sharp, intricately layered, impossible to forget' MEGAN HUNTER 'Stunning ... beautifully written and deeply unsettling' BOOKSELLER, EDITOR'S CHOICE CHOSEN AS A 2021 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR BY OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, EVENING STANDARD, GRAZIA, STYLIST, ELLE THE NATIONAL, FIVE BOOKS AND BURO A couple drive from London to coastal Provence. Anya is preoccupied with what she feels is a relationship on the verge; unequal, precarious. Luke, reserved, stoic, gives away nothing. As the sun sets one evening, he proposes, and they return to London engaged. But planning a wedding does little to settle Anya’s unease. As a child, she escaped from Sarajevo, and the idea of security is as alien now as it was then. When social convention forces Anya to return, she begins to change. The past she sought to contain for as long as she can remember resurfaces, and the hot summer builds to a startling climax. Lean, sly and unsettling, Asylum Road is about the many borders governing our lives: between men and women, assimilation and otherness, nations, families, order and chaos. What happens, and who do we become, when they break down?Trade ReviewAsylum Road is also the work of a literary voice maturing…it is taut and propulsive…masterful and wicked * Daily Telegraph *A caustic, claustrophobic – and distinctly European – reinvention of the road novel ... Sudjic is a cartographer of menace * Times Literary Supplement *Sudjic seems to be writing not with words but somehow with the absences between them. This book feels like the breakdown not only of a character but of, as you read, the reader. I will go wherever she takes me. A phenomenal book * Daisy Johnson *Confident and timely ... Asylum Road shows Sudjic confidently expanding the reach of her fiction, with an unerring instinct for asking timely questions * Observer *A fragmented, unsettling story, and an interesting meditation on modern relationships, families, guilt and what happens when escape starts to feel more like exile * Independent, Books of the Week *Admirable ... A novel pervaded by a genuinely unnerving sense of anxiety, dread and unease ... Reaches a gloriously near-unhinged intensity ... As Sudjic so expertly illustrates, sometimes there’s not a lot of difference between taking and losing control. * Financial Times *Sly, unsettling and supremely accomplished * i news *I adored this beautifully written, powerful exploration of how past trauma is never far from the surface, however deeply one tries to stifle it ... Deep, accomplished and often thought-provoking * Daily Mail *A smart and sensitively layered story ... Sudjic’s novel is full of raw emotion and visceral description ... This is a book about the gaps in our collective experience, and the tension that fills them. It’s about memory and identity and things left unsaid * Spectator *Haunting and haunted ... Sudjic coolly executes a climax as treacherous and unexpected as a hairpin bend. * Economist *An early treat * Independent, The books to look out for in 2021 *Haunting and haunted ... Sudjic coolly executes a climax as treacherous and unexpected as a hairpin bend * Economist *Sudjic’s writing is hers alone and in this unsettling, disturbing and piercing novel, she tells the unravelling of Anya as she faces up to a past she’s tried to run from and a present that demands too much * Stylist, Best New Fiction 2021 *A vivid picture of disintegration and suppressed trauma * Daily Mail *Chilling * Elle, Your 2021 Reading List *Asylum Road is a slick, treacly delight - by turns, blackly comic and heart-shattering. There is often the sense that the real story is happening between the words on the page, like the memory of a dream tucked in some nook of the mind, just out of reach but tantalisingly close if you could just angle yourself correctly to reach it * Culture Whisper *Carries echoes of Deborah Levy and Rachel Cusk. It’sa book about love and history, trauma and identity * Observer, Fiction to look out for in 2021 *The hot summer builds to a startling climax * Grazia, The 30 Best Books We’re Looking Forward To Reading in 2021 *Carries echoes of Deborah Levy and Rachel Cusk. It's a book about love and history, trauma and identity * Observer, Fiction to look out for in 2021 *A brilliant, scalding novel that is both intimate and restless, restrained and unpredictable. Sudjic’s prose is as elegant and searching as ever; her evocation of trauma and longing is sharp, intricately layered, impossible to forget * Megan Hunter *Looks at what happens when love and social conventions collide * Evening Standard, A look ahead to the best new books in 2021 *Sudjic’s writing is hers alone and in this unsettling, disturbing and piercing novel, she tells the unravelling of Anya as she faces up to a past she’s tried to run from and a present that demands too much * Stylist, Best New Fiction 2021 *I can safely say that no one conjures anxiety like Olivia Sudjic. She has written a strange and sophisticated novel, and the experience of inhabiting the mind of her narrator is both terrifying and numinous * Avni Doshi *Looks at what happens when love and social conventions collide * Evening Standard, A look ahead to the best new books in 2021 *This early part of the year is a fertile time for several millennial writers who have already established themselves as names to watch. Olivia Sudjic’s new novel Asylum Road follows her success with 2017’s Sympathy * Financial Times, What to read in 2021 *[A]n impressive novel; Sudjic’s cool affect and sense of detachment provides cover for a growing sense of urgency and alienation * Five Books, Notable Novels of Spring 2021 *The hot summer builds to a startling climax * Grazia, The 30 Best Books We’re Looking Forward To Reading in 2021 *Olivia Sudjic's powerful novel pulses with the strange, fragmented, apocalyptic rhythms of our uneasy present and uncertain future. Visceral and tender, brutal and unspeakably alive, Asylum Road digs into the soft heart of our hard times, into intimacies upended by the anthropocene and pulled taught by omnipresent crisis * Alexandra Kleeman *If positive reviews from the likes of Avni Doshi and Daisy Johnson don’t sway you, Sudjic’s unsettling, but nonetheless brilliant prose should * Buro, Books to look forward to in 2021 *[A] piercingly clear look at a modern world grappling with immigration and history in post-Brexit Britain, through the prism of a couple on the verge of making life-changing decisions. Exploring otherness and the borders between men and women, nations and families, it’s edgy, unsettling and yet incredibly sensitive * The National, Anticipated books to look out for this year *This early part of the year is a fertile time for several millennial writers who have already established themselves as names to watch. Olivia Sudjic’s new novel Asylum Road follows her success with 2017’s Sympathy * Financial Times, What to read in 2021 *Sudjic singularly conveys a feeling so specific to our time – a feeling only her prose can name, and which the reader will instantly recognize. The unsettled, unsettling atmosphere of this book resonates perfectly with its larger states of migration – to or from one's history, one's nation, one's loved ones; away from or towards one's darkest impulses. Smart, edgy and exacting, Asylum Road leaves so much unsaid, and shows us the consequences of that' * Caoilinn Hughes *Chilling * Elle, Your 2021 Reading List *Bold, astonishing and original. Sudjic explores relationships in post-Brexit Britain with her trademark precision and lyricism * Zeba Talkhani *[A] piercingly clear look at a modern world grappling with immigration and history in post-Brexit Britain, through the prism of a couple on the verge of making life-changing decisions. Exploring otherness and the borders between men and women, nations and families, it’s edgy, unsettling and yet incredibly sensitive * The National, Anticipated books to look out for this year *An impressive novel; Sudjic’s cool affect and sense of detachment provides cover for a growing sense of urgency and alienation’ * Five Books, Notable Novels of Spring 2021 *Asylum Road is an exceptionally intelligent, sensitive, and thoughtful novel about 21st century life. With subtlety and control, Sudjic powerfully examines the consequences of Brexit, immigration, and historical trauma. With the energy of a thriller and an emotionally raw finale reminiscent of Elena Ferrante, Asylum Road is a very special book indeed * Julianne Pachico *Writing with the offbeat intensity of Deborah Levy, Sudjic offers a discomforting dissection of one woman’s fractured identity. Atmospheric and unflinching, Asylum Road reveals how the places we seek refuge can ultimately prove to be as toxic as the traumas we flee * Ruth Gilligan *If positive reviews from the likes of Avni Doshi and Daisy Johnson don’t sway you, Sudjic’s unsettling, but nonetheless brilliant prose should * Buro, Books to look forward to in 2021 *A swelter of trauma and neurosis, Asylum Road is a thrilling, bruising read. Sudjic’s prose scythes through political, sexual and class constructs to expose the cruel and fatuous power plays that can undo us at any moment * Shiromi Pinto *Asylum Road masterfully probes the tensions between the identities we inherit and identities we craft. Sudjic’s writing coagulates feelings of anxiety and insecurity into an embodied, wrought and visceral experience. Asylum Road is that rare novel that dares to probe at uncomfortable questions without flinching from the unwelcome answers that are revealed * Alex Allison *Electrifying ... A taut, disquieting story ... In precise, elliptical prose, Sudjic paints a powerful portrait of a psyche damaged by war and family schisms. A meditation on identity and belonging, Asylum Road speaks to our unsettled times * Culture Whisper *

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Book SynopsisLet the magic of J.K. Rowling’s classic Harry Potter series transport you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This Hufflepuff House Edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix celebrates the noble character of the Hogwarts house famed for its dedication, patience and loyalty. Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts is packed with more great Hufflepuff moments and characters – not least the colourful Auror Nymphadora Tonks, whose powers as a Metamorphmagus make her an invaluable member of the Order of the Phoenix. Each Hufflepuff House Edition features vibrant sprayed edges and intricate silver foiling. The Order’s iconic phoenix symbol rises from the flames at the very centre of the front cover, framed by stunning iconography of that grand hive of industry, the Ministry of Magic. In addition to a bespoke introduction, the book also includes new illustrations by Kate Greenaway Medal winner Levi Pinfold, including an arresting portrait of Hufflepuff student Justin Finch-Fletchley. All seven books in the series will be issued in these highly collectable, beautifully crafted House Editions, designed to be treasured and read for years to come. A must-have for anyone who has ever imagined sitting under the Sorting Hat in the Great Hall at Hogwarts waiting to hear the words, ‘Better be HUFFLEPUFF!’

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Book SynopsisLet the magic of J.K. Rowling’s classic Harry Potter series transport you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This Slytherin House Edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix celebrates the noble character of the Hogwarts house famed for its pride, ambition and cunning. Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts is packed with more great Slytherin moments and characters, including Harry’s eventful Occlumency lessons with Severus Snape and the inauspicious arrival of Professor Dolores Umbridge … Each Slytherin House Edition features vibrant sprayed edges and intricate silver foiling. The Order’s iconic phoenix symbol rises from the flames at the very centre of the front cover, framed by stunning iconography of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, the historic Black family residence. In addition to a bespoke introduction, the book also includes new illustrations by Kate Greenaway Medal winner Levi Pinfold, including an imposing portrait of Slytherin alumna Dolores Umbridge. All seven books in the series will be issued in these highly collectable, beautifully crafted House Editions, designed to be treasured and read for years to come. A must-have for anyone who has ever imagined sitting under the Sorting Hat in the Great Hall at Hogwarts waiting to hear the words, ‘Better be SLYTHERIN!’

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Book Synopsis'A wise, intimate tale that is by turns joyful, sorrowful and explicit' Observer 'The author delves deep into Lottie’s psyche, shying away from nothing, to create a rounded and gripping portrait of a woman on the edge of change’ Daily Mail Lottie Kristin is independent from the start. Born in the middle of the century to a middle-class family in the very middle of America, Lottie is set apart by her smarts and sensuality. A girl who'd rather carry out dissections on a snowy back porch than join her family for Christmas dinner is a strange and exotic artifact in the town of Sleeping Bay. But by her early twenties, Lottie finds herself trapped in a marriage gone stale, with a daughter she adores but whose existence jeopardizes her place in the lab and her dream of becoming a scientist. How can a young woman make her way in a world determined to contain her brilliance, her will, and her longing to live? Bravely and wisely written, Artifact is an intimate and propulsive portrait of a whole woman, a celebration of her refusal to be defined by others’ imaginations, and a meditation on the glorious chaos of biological life.Trade ReviewA wise, intimate tale that is by turns joyful, sorrowful and explicit * Observer *Lottie … encapsulates the dichotomy of her life. She’s a smartly realised character – bright yet naïve, determined and single-minded ... Heyman handles her subject lightly, lacing it with humour * A Life in Books *The author delves deep into Lottie’s psyche, shying away from nothing, to create a rounded and gripping portrait of a woman on the edge of change * Daily Mail *A heroine for our times * Publishers Weekly *Praise for Scary Old Sex: Lusty, tough and life-affirming -- Elaine Showalter * Guardian *Hits the reader in the psyche, the gut and the groin with the force of a precision-aimed slingshot … Shocking, mesmerising and truthful -- Rowan Pelling * Sunday Telegraph *Both funny and eye-wateringly explicit -- Joan Bakewell * Independent *Rueful and funny and observant ... Heyman is an enlightened observer across many aspects of life ... These men and women are busily and blissfully humanizing themselves, the kind of bliss that lifts right off the page * New York Times *A terrific story collection ... Heyman is frank in her descriptions, but never cruel or unfeeling ... a tender, perceptive work * Wall Street Journal *So stylish, earthy and funny -- Deborah Moggach[An] impressive collection ... Heyman takes on the brutal intimacy of death and aging and provides new ways of seeing and experiencing these stages of life * San Francisco Chronicle *Heyman’s frank tales ... feel paradoxically taboo on the page, all the more so for their fierce candour * New Yorker *Sensual and sometimes shocking … Heyman writes with such intimacy and precision that she frequently makes you feel like a trespasser -- Imogen Lycett-Green * Daily Mail *Bold, hilarious and intelligent ... Heyman is upfront and her characters are richly internal * Irish Times *Delivers a shock of taboo desire that is lusciously sensual -- Michèle Roberts * Independent *Though her characters’ flaws, fears and phobias feel all too real, Heyman’s treatment of them is honest, human and kind * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD What would you do if you lost someone the world never knew was yours? For three years, Ana has been consumed by an affair with Connor, a client at her law firm. Their love has been consigned to hotel rooms and dark corners of pubs, their relationship kept hidden from the world. So the morning that Ana’s company receives a call to say that Connor is dead, her secret grief has nowhere to go. Desperate for an outlet, Ana seeks out the shadowy figure who has always stood just beyond her reach - Connor's wife Rebecca… 'Utterly gripping' RODDY DOYLE 'A triumph – crackling with psychological and sexual ambiguity' JULIE MYERSON, OBSERVER 'This book is just sublime… I loved every page’ CAITRIONA BALFE 'Unmissable ... Incredible' STYLIST ‘Amazing ... I read it in one sitting, completely swept up in Ana’s fragmented narrative' EMMA HEALEY 'Dark, riveting, powerful' ELIZABETH DAY Trade ReviewAmazing ... I absolutely love the form, which breathes new life into a familiar story making it both more elegant and more brutal. I read it in one sitting, completely swept up in Ana’s fragmented narrative -- EMMA HEALEYExcellent ... An eviscerating account of modern marriage * INDEPENDENT.CO.UK *Sex, work and motherhood all come under the microscope in this vivid portrait of the agony of being "the other woman" * DAILY MAIL *This lyrical account of an adulterous affair and its brutal aftermath is all the more effective and affecting for the spare, sparse style and I expect it to win as many awards as Sarah Crossan’s YA fiction has done * RED *I absolutely gobbled it up: dark, riveting, powerful ... Delivers on a whole new level -- ELIZABETH DAYA stunner * Good Housekeeping *Raw, emotional and wistful * Woman & Home *I read this stunning book standing up in two hours. An eviscerating take on marriage and adultery -- ERIN KELLYA beautifully crafted sucker punch of a read. Sarah Crossan has always had an exquisite way with words and in this she uses poetic prose to craft an honest and oftentimes gritty exploration of two intertwined marriages, slowly unravelling. Painfully believable, passionate and occasionally heartbreaking, Here is the Beehive provides further proof that Sarah Crossan is an infinitely gifted writer. We're lucky to have her -- JAN CARSONA searing portrait of addictive love and grief and the devastation human beings can wreak on each other ... It is an addictive read, painful, unsettling, full of uncomfortable truths, yet the work itself resounds with its own unique bleak beauty -- LISA HARDINGDevastatingly honest, heartbreaking and tender ... This is the most extraordinary novel I have read in years in form, ambition and scope - an incredible achievement and an instant classic. I will read it again and again -- JANE CASEYHere is the Beehive is an unflinching take on the destructive power of obsessive love. It is also a highly original study of the grief that dare not speak its name – the grief of the other woman -- CHRISTINE DWYER HICKEYI couldn't put it down. I just loved it. The prose is clean yet rich, her dialogue ear-perfect -- LOUISE KENNEDYHow does she get so much emotion into so few words? Sarah Crossan is a miracle worker ... Utterly meaningful, original and accomplished -- SINEAD CROWLEYPRAISE FOR SARAH CROSSAN: ‘One of our most original writers. Sarah has almost created an entirely new form of writing in her novels that is hers and hers alone -- JOHN BOYNECompelling and beautifully wrought * SUNDAY TIMES *The princess of pacing … Crossan always finds humour and humanity in the darkness; it’s impossible not to read it in a single gulp * THE TIMES *Truly remarkable * IRISH TIMES *There are familiar flavours and notes and moments of powerful sweetness, but she complicates them with such power and subtlety, in a way that doesn't alienate the reader. The tang of fire is in there, always, leaving a unique aftertaste. You wouldn't mistake it for any other writer, and you won't soon forget it -- DEIRDRE SULLIVANUtterly sublime -- CECELIA AHERN

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Book Synopsis'I loved this book' Daily Mail Strangers come together to run. Angela and Brendan are racing towards a wedding day that is increasingly tainted by doubts. Yana runs to free herself from the darkness of the past and to remember her missing brother. Cathy thinks about the secret she has been unable to share. Running takes Maurice past his daughter’s house, the place he is not allowed to enter. Over the nine weeks unexpected friendships are forged, challenges faced and by the time of their final run together all will grasp a new commitment to life itself.Trade ReviewOne of Ireland's great novelists -- Roddy DoyleI loved this book: short, moving, funny, positive and beautifully written. It made me want to take up running myself. Almost * Daily Mail *A writer’s writer … Park is to be commended for his great skill with language and emotion -- John BoyneEvery sentence in Park’s book is felt -- Claire Kilroy * Guardian *It is time to call David Park what he is – a very great writer -- Frank McGuinnessExtraordinary and beautiful -- Lisa McInerney

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Book SynopsisBy the author of Ducks, Newburyport, shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, Goldsmiths Prize and Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award Bach, sculpture, plastic surgery, public speaking and a New York love story like no other - this is Lucy Ellmann's most extraordinary work of art to date 'Bolshy, life-affirming, feminist and energetic. It makes you long to chuck your job, gulp oysters and run naked through the surf' Sunday Times 'A wildly hilarious, modern film noir in fiction form' Sunday Telegraph It’s Christmas Eve in Manhattan. Harrison Hanafan, noted plastic surgeon, falls on his ass. So far, so good. ‘Ya can’t sit there all day, buddy, looking up people’s skirts!’ chides a weird gal in a coat like a duvet - Mimi! She kindly conjures for him the miracle of a taxi. Recuperating in his apartment with Schubert, Bette Davis, and a foundling cat, Harrison adds items to his life’s work, a List of Melancholy Things (Walmart, puppetry, Velcro, whale eyes, shrimp-eating contests...). But when he receives a dreaded invitation to address his old school, Mimi reappears, with all her curves and chaos. She and Harrison fall emphatically in love. And, as their love-making reaches a whole new kind of climax, the sweet smell of revolution is in the air.Trade ReviewBolshy, life-affirming, feminist and energetic. It makes you long to chuck your job, gulp oysters and run naked through the surf * Sunday Times *A wildly hilarious, modern film noir in fiction form * Sunday Telegraph *A true original * Financial Times *Neurotic, crazy and fun, with a love story, too * Vogue *A call to arms that is light-hearted and playful but also practical … Almost as much a tract of female wish fulfilment as Fifty Shades of Grey * Literary Review *Mimi is ringing with love and rage and hope. Ellmann’s best sentences are so springy and rhythmic, they make you think of a Slinky coursing down the sweet spot of a staircase, happy as Larry * Independent *Funny, angry, sarcastic and utterly individual * Observer *Feels like Woody Allen reading Dr Seuss … The writing is exquisite and it has a cinematic momentum and enviable self-belief that sweeps you up and carries you along … I loved every minute * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis'As good as any modern fiction you will read this year' Sunday Times, Best new short story collections A wife compulsively digs in her garden. Two brothers, long estranged, reunite for a terse, heady summer. A woman flies to Krakow to see her adult son. At dusk, a teenage girl pushes her dying mother out into the sea. A small boy sits on his own in the cinema, entranced by the cowboys who light up the screen. With these short stories, Tim Pears illuminates a series of blazing moments in quiet lives – the tragic, strange, funny and beautiful fragments that make and unmake us – and shines a light into the gulfs that lie between us and those who should know us best.Trade ReviewThe stories have a strong sense of the reality of rural life and its underbelly, the curious dynamics of families, and an almost mystical feel for mortality. These are unforced and spacious pieces, totally sure-footed in their telling and as good as any modern fiction you will read this year * The Sunday Times, The best new short story collections for June 2021 *At the heart of his collection lies Chemistry, a compelling portrait of family and migration * Tablet *He heads into the contemporary world and the moments that can darken or illuminate a life … These stories … are all given the same wise consideration, and described with an unerring, kindly exactitude * Daily Mail *Lyrical and gentle, with a theme of familial interplay * Country Life, Book of the Week *PRAISE FOR TIM PEARS: Goodness, Tim Pears writes beautifully … the descriptions of rural life, executed with painterly exactness, are a constant delight. The prose really sings * Mail on Sunday *This is it. This is the real thing. This is whatever I mean by the work of a born writer … Comic and wry and elegiac and shrewd and thoughtful all at once. Please read it -- A S ByattHis prose is luminous, drawing in the reader … Pears’ fiction has been likened to Thomas Hardy’s, and the comparison is apposite ... Powerful, vivid and humane -- Hannah Beckerman * Observer *Tim Pears deserves a place among the best rural writers … An exemplary historical novelist with a Romantic eye for nature ... This heady walk through the forgotten lanes of England thrums with life * The Times *A gifted storyteller, steeped in country lore and the beauty of ordinary events. Like Thomas Hardy whose kindred spirit quietly animates these pages, he is concerned with the dignity of work, the force of destiny and the consequences of human passion * New York Times *Reminiscent of Faulkner and García Márquez, the writing retains a very English scale … Sensitive, heart-warming and hallucinatory * Financial Times *The writing is so genuine. Nothing is posturing or romanticised. The characters really touched me. There's so much talent here -- Barbara TrapidoIt is most beautifully written, hypnotic as Proust, very funny and full of love that doesn't cloy … It is a dreamy, easy, wonderful read -- Jane GardamMakes it quite possible to believe in magic -- Sunday TimesHighly atmospheric … It had an intoxicating, magical quality which completely beguiled me -- Jeremy Paxman * Independent *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022 'Absolutely dazzling' MARIAN KEYES 'On every page there are little shimmering bombs' LISA TADDEO 'Quietly devastating . . . Reminded me repeatedly of Shuggie Bain' OBSERVER Being Tommy’s mother is too much for Sonya. Too much love, too much fear, too much longing for the cool wine she gulps from the bottle each night. Because Sonya is burning the fish fingers, and driving too fast, and swimming too far from the shore, and Tommy’s life is in her hands. Once there was the thrill of a London stage, a glowing acting career, fast cars, handsome men. But now there are blackouts and bare cupboards, and her estranged father showing up uninvited. There is Mrs O’Malley spying from across the road. There is the risk of losing Tommy – forever. AN OBSERVER, GRAZIA, IRISH TIMES AND IRISH INDEPENDENT HIGHLIGHT FOR 2021 Trade ReviewThe stakes in Harding’s Bright Burning Things are stark and terrifying . . . Harding [makes] a well-worn narrative shine with a heroine whose dogged triumphs accumulate over the course of this fast-paced and intensely lucid novel * New York Times *A heady mixture of heartbreak (“I swallow, I soothe, I sleep”) and hope, that the cycle will break: “tomorrow – there’s always tomorrow” * Times Literary Supplement *[A] moving story of a mother battling addiction . . . Bright Burning Things joins Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Shuggie Bain as a portrait of female wreckage. Harding’s fine and affecting novel can hold its own respectably in the company * The Times *A tour de force of anguish made bearable by glimmers of redemption * Kirkus *Hard on the heels of last year's Booker winner Shuggie Bain comes this pungently propulsive heart-wrencher about another single mother battling the booze, this time in modern-day Ireland . . . We root desperately for her to pull through, in an alarming yet tender portrayal of the slow-burn impact of long-repressed grief * Daily Mail *A scorching read – heart-breaking but ultimately hopeful * The Mail *A novel of extraordinary intimacy and vividness, a uniquely disquieting account of a mind sinking into the depths and rising again, full of such powerful love and fear -- Megan Hunter, author of 'The End We Start From'A tense, unflinching, immersive mapping of a pitted track of addiction and recovery . . . I lived every scene as I read, and I know that these characters will be with me for a long time -- Donal Ryan[Harding's] writing is taut, and there is such an intensity, an urgency about the narrative that you find yourself turning the pages as if you fear Sonya might race out of sight . . . A contemporary, zeitgeisty read and very satisfying * Sunday Independent *The novel . . . has the feel of a monologue, held together by Sonya’s mesmerising voice, a glorious mix of barely-held-together sanity and unbridled honesty … Sonya is a beautifully realised character * Irish Independent *Absolutely dazzling . . . While the subject matter is dear to my heart, I’d have loved it even if I knew nothing about addiction. It’s instantly engrossing. Sonya’s emotional interiority is fascinating and compelling. I really cared about her and Tommy – they felt very real to me -- Marian KeyesDelves into territories which are as devastating as they are illuminating * Refinery29 *Well-crafted… It’s a wild ride, culminating in a scene that combines hope, fear and beauty * Observer *On every page there are little shimmering bombs. Like Room, where parenthood is at once your jail and your salvation, it is almost claustrophobic – but in the most glorious way -- Lisa Taddeo, author of 'Three Women'Startling, urgent and intimate, Bright Burning Things is a meticulous portrait of a life unravelling, and of the painstaking, heartbreaking work to put it all back together -- Lisa McInerneyAn unsentimental, blackly funny novel about motherhood and addiction * Metro *Tender and electric, Bright Burning Things interrogates the raw edges of love and addiction with an honesty that made me ache. It captures the fragility of our fractured minds and illuminates our power to break legacies of hurt -- Jessica Andrews, author of 'Saltwater'Lisa Harding is a vivid and original stylist and a gifted storyteller. This is a fabulous novel -- Kevin BarryA fearless, fully compelling and illuminating look at one young woman’s journey through addiction towards a greater understanding of herself and the richness of parenthood. I was both shaken and completely absorbed -- Jane UrquhartA shattering portrait of the divided self. Bright Burning Things walks the razor’s edge between addiction and recovery in prose that is searing, sensual and merciful -- Paul LynchDisturbing and often uplifting, Bright Burning Things is a powerful tale of addiction and recovery as experienced by a young, single mother and her five-year old son. Written with honesty, courage and no shortage of talent, this is one of those novels that stays in your head long after you’ve finished reading it -- Christine Dwyer HickeyUnputdownable: infuriating, nerve-wracking and hugely enjoyable -- Roddy DoyleA gripping, atmospheric and deeply truthful novel from a writer whose work I love -- Joseph O’ConnorA gritty, uncomfortable and profoundly moving read, Bright Burning Things captures all the manic sadness and fallout from the past, of how we try to cool fires that rage . . . I couldn’t put it down -- Elaine Feeney, author of 'As You Were'Once again, Lisa Harding’s compelling and singular writing draws you into its tenuous world of a life gone awry and the missteps often necessary in finding a way back from the brink. A paean to resilience and compassion; to healing and renewal; to one woman’s determination to reclaim her life before it all implodes. Bright Burning Things is an absorbing study in make-or-break, an achingly honest examination of fall from grace, a riveting will-she won’t-she redemption tale, and I loved it -- Alan McMonagle, author of 'Ithaca' and 'Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame'

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Book Synopsis‘I would compare her to writers like Helen Dunmore, Elizabeth Strout, Jon McGregor’ BBC Radio 4 ‘Harding achieves a weighty sense of silence and things not said in this unsettling book about the aftershocks of trauma and the burdens of bearing witness’ Sunday Times 'A masterly achievement, illuminating with wisdom and compassion the darkest corners of the human heart' Guardian A farm in Norfolk in the 1970s. A Japanese girl comes to visit her English lover in the house where he was born. She arrives on a day of perfect summer, stands with his mother in a garden filled with roses, watches as his brother walks fields of ripening wheat. But between the two brothers lies the shadow of their father’s violent death almost twenty years before, the unresolved narrative of their childhood – a story that has gone untold, a story that began in the last war. In the presence of the girl, the old trauma begins to surface as the work of the harvest begins. ‘Taut and unsettling ... A fine meditation on war’s long reach’ Mail on SundayTrade ReviewLuminescent … Organic and vital … Remarkable … Harvest is a work of delicate, devastating beauty, proof that Harding is a writer of rare insight who deserves to be read more widely * Financial Times *Harding moves fluently between each character … The payoff is devastating * Daily Mail *Harding’s cycle of books stand as a masterly achievement, illuminating with wisdom and compassion the darkest corners of the human heart * Guardian *Harding achieves a weighty sense of silence and things not said in this unsettling book about the aftershocks of trauma and the burdens of bearing witness * The Times *So deeply engaging, so threatening, so mild, so controlled — at every stage it seems as if desperate damage is about to be done, and then bit by excruciating bit you realise it was done long, long ago, and nobody you’re looking at now can do anything about it. What a writer! -- Louisa Young, author of My Dear I Wanted to Tell YouHarvest is an old-fashioned novel in the best possible sense ... The rewards are many. The heartbeat of the book continues to echo long after the last page has been turned’ * Times Literary Supplement *Taut and unsettling, this fine meditation on war’s long reach follows on from Land Of The Living but more than satisfies as a stand-alone * Mail on Sunday *An absolutely exceptional novel … She has a deeply humane and developed sense of what it means to be a woman, and also what it means to belong -- Clover StroudStaggering … An unparalleled masterpiece * Lunate.co.uk *

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Book SynopsisYou Don't Know Me, the adaptation of Imran Mahmood's brilliant debut thriller, is currently one of the most screened series on Netflix! LONGLISTED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER 2022 An impossible crime. A witness no-one wants to believe. 'Unforgettable ... A searing take-down of privilege, our unequal society and indeed of traditional crime whodunnits' GILLIAN MCALLISTER 'Highly original and deftly plotted, delivering a gut-punch of an ending' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'A mesmerising thriller - don't miss this one' T. M. LOGAN ________ A woman strangled in a Mayfair flat. A man fleeing the scene. Xander Shute saw it all – but the police won’t believe someone who lives on the streets. Determined to find justice for the murdered woman, Xander searches for answers. But as his recollection of the crime comes under increasing scrutiny, he is forced to confront other memories, including those from his long-buried, troubled, wealthy past. How much will he risk to understand the brutal truth? ________ 'Intelligent, imaginative and meticulously plotted, this is an author at the top of his game - simply sensational' M. W. CRAVEN 'A deftly written and nerve-jangling thriller' HERALD 'Clever, mercilessly addictive and deeply thought-provoking, I Know What I Saw blends a dynamite plot with heartfelt characterisation' CHRIS WHITAKER 'A white-knuckle ride through the tortuous labyrinth of human memory' CHRIS BROOKMYRE 'Mahmood gets deep into the psychology of a damaged man in this unusual novel, and the ending is like a blow to the gut' SUNDAY TIMES 'Heart-wrenching and jaw-dropping, I held my breath until the final word' HOLLY SEDDON 'Mahmood, following his innovative, breakout hit, You Don’t Know Me, once again delivers a twisting narrative full of surprises and blind alleys' VASEEM KHAN 'Every bit as fantastic as everyone says. Utterly gripping' THE SECRET BARRISTER 'Smart, atmospheric, poignant, and will keep you hooked' SAIMA MIR 'A tense literary thriller about the lies we persist in telling ourselves and our inability to escape our damaged pasts - packed with moments of pathos and unexpected humour' SARAH VAUGHAN 'Intelligent and thought-provoking, it marks a welcome return for a supremely talented writer' ABIR MUKHERJEE ‘What an astonishing voice Imran has created for Xander, at once intelligent, resourceful and yet also deeply flawed. I thought the complex plot was handled masterfully, and that double punch at the end was superb’ JAMES OSWALD READERS LOVE I KNOW WHAT I SAW: 'I was absolutely gripped from start to finish' 5***** review 'A fantastic rollercoaster of a read' 5***** review 'I absolutely LOVED this book ... I could not put it down, and read it all in one delicious day-long gulp! A must-read for sure' 5***** reviewTrade ReviewA mesmerising thriller - wonderful writing and a brilliantly gritty, street-level perspective. Don't miss this one -- T. M. LoganEvery bit as fantastic as everyone says. Utterly gripping -- The Secret BarristerMahmood gets deep into the psychology of a damaged man in this unusual novel, and the ending is like a blow to the gut * Sunday Times *With pace and fineness, I Know What I Saw brings together an impossible crime, a witness no one wants to believe and an unflinching study of life on the streets. Intelligent, imaginative and meticulously plotted, this is an author at the top of his game - simply sensational -- M. W. CravenIt’s a truly Hitchcockian thriller ride, a white-knuckle ride through the tortuous labyrinth of human memory -- Chris BrookmyreMahmood, following his innovative, breakout hit, You Don’t Know Me, once again delivers a twisting narrative full of surprises and blind alleys -- Vaseem KhanMahmood has a rare gift for combining hypnotic prose with a page-turning pace. A gripping and beautiful read -- Ayisha MalikSpectacular – an absolute treat -- A. A. DhandI stayed up way past lights out last night to finish what was in short a quite phenomenal novel. Having absolutely loved You Don't Know Me, I was fairly certain this one would be good too, but it was far better than I could have hoped. What an astonishing voice Imran has created for Xander, at once intelligent, resourceful and yet also deeply flawed. I thought the complex plot was handled masterfully, and that double punch at the end was superb. I thoroughly enjoyed it. -- James OswaldUnforgettable ... I didn't think Mahmood could top You Don't Know Me but he most certainly has. A searing take-down of privilege, our unequal society and indeed of traditional crime whodunnits. Mahmood writes sympathetically and intelligently about people who live on the fringes of society -- Gillian McAllisterSmart, atmospheric, poignant, and will keep you hooked -- Saima MirThis complex mystery (set on the streets of London) took my breath away. Themes of memory, privilege & identity - it’s a book that that pulls you in deep. Gripping & utterly immersive. Mahmood is a master storyteller -- Will DeanA tense literary thriller about the lies we persist in telling ourselves and our inability to escape our damaged pasts - packed with moments of pathos and unexpected humour. I believed completely in Xander Shute -- Sarah VaughanI Know What I Saw takes us on a tense, nerve-jangling journey into the world of Xander Shute who believes he’s witnessed a murder, but also makes us question our own preconceptions towards people who’ve fallen through society’s cracks. Intelligent and thought-provoking, it marks a welcome return for a supremely talented writer -- Abir MukherjeeClever, mercilessly addictive and deeply thought-provoking, I Know What I Saw blends a dynamite plot with heartfelt characterisation. Wonderful -- Chris WhitakerI was a big fan of Imran Mahmood's first book, YOU DON'T KNOW ME, and his second, I KNOW WHAT I SAW, is every bit as gripping, insightful and beautifully written. [...] I was absolutely captivated -- Simon LelicAn intense, complex mind-bender of a book, told through eyes you can’t always trust. As compelling a tale as I’ve ever read; you won’t put it down until you know the truth -- Tony KentAs a portrait of vulnerability it’s sympathetically rendered and the resolution surprisingly disturbing * The Times *Not only a deftly written and nerve-jangling thriller, but also a multi-layered and unflinching portrait of life for those marginalised on the fringes of society * Herald *Heart-wrenching and jaw-dropping, I held my breath until the final word -- Holly SeddonEvery bit as fantastic as everyone says. Utterly gripping -- The Secret BarristerThe violent narrative inexorably grips the attention … it’s the examination of the mental state of his intelligent protagonist caught in a downward spiral that affirms his talent * Financial Times *Elegantly constructed, educational, involving and moving, this is a terrific novel * Literary Review *I Know What I Saw consolidates [Mahmood’s] position as an unpredictable crime writer able to tell a complex fast-paced story and keep readers hooked * Eastern Eye *Highly original and deftly plotted, delivering a gut-punch of an ending * Sunday Express *

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Book Synopsis**NOW A MAJOR HULU ORIGINAL SERIES, AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON DISNEY+** THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION ‘One of the biggest reads of the summer, and for good reason’ INDEPENDENT ‘Enormously fun . . . A joyous thrill ride of a book’ VOX ‘Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie crossed with Jordan Peele’s Get Out . . . Slick and addictive’ METRO _________________________ Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and the micro-aggressions, she's thrilled when Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events cause Nella to become Public Enemy Number One and Hazel, the Office Darling. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella's desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW. It's hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realises that there is a lot more at stake than her career. Dark, funny and furiously entertaining, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist. _________________________ THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT: ‘One of the books of the year . . . Will blow your mind’ STYLIST ‘Super-smart, dryly funny’ RED ‘Page-turning, toe-curling, thrilling. You won’t put this one down’ BLACK GIRLS BOOK CLUB FOR REFINERY29 ‘Sharp, satirical and fun’ DAILY MAIL ‘Bright and funny . . . You will turn page after page in your eagerness to unravel this novel’ OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE, NEW YORK TIMES ‘The funniest, wildest, deepest, most thought-provoking ride of a book’ ATTICA LOCKE ‘The year’s most buzzed-about debut more than lives up to the hype’ i ‘Very, very funny and acutely observed’ ELIZABETH DAY ‘It should be at the top of your summer reading list’ WASHINGTON POSTTrade ReviewPart office satire, part thriller with a twist, this is a fresh and original take on race and class in the publishing industry … A satire that uproots the insidious ways race and class merge in office dialogue and politics, and a thriller with echoes of the great science fiction writer Octavia Butler * Guardian *Zakiya Dalila Harris has written one of the books of the year. Piercing and funny . . . The book builds up to a climax that really will blow your mind * Stylist *Weaving in important discussions around race, navigating white spaces and the corporate world, this is a vital piece of literature that will have you howling and wincing at the same time * Refinery29 UK *[This] stunning debut . . . flies into uncharted territory as a racially charged thriller/horror mash-up and perfectly sticks its unpredictable landing . . . Timely and timeless * Sunday Times *A horror-style take on what it means to be black in America today. … Harris builds tension like no other – you’re hugely invested in Nella’s success, and the twist at the end is simply brilliant (read: terrifying) * Independent *Bright and funny . . . You will turn page after page after page in your eagerness to unravel this unique tale -- Oyinkan Braithwaite, New York TimesA bitingly satirical novel about race and the workplace * Independent *Comparisons to Raven Leilani's Luster wouldn't be unfounded, but prepare for this novel to veer in an unexpected direction it's part-psychological thriller, part-satire, part social-takedown * Irish Times *Packed full of shrewd observations on power struggles and strength, this is unputdownable * Cosmopolitan UK *I loved it! This is one of the cleverest books I’ve read for years . . . The subtlety of Nella’s character is incredible . . . so brilliantly fine-tuned. I fully expect to see this book sweeping all the prize lists -- Natasha PulleyBoth a captivating thriller and a smart look at race, power and office politics * i *The funniest, wildest, deepest, most thought-provoking ride of a book -- Attica LockeIdeal for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or dismissed in the workplace * Fortune *Witty, inventive and smart . . . A brilliant combustion of suspense, horror and social commentary that leaves no assumption unchallenged and no page unturned -- Walter Mosley

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