Contemporary Fiction Books

Book SynopsisIn the northern Slovenian city of Murska Sobota stands the renowned Hotel Dobray, once the gathering place of townspeople of all nationalities and social strata who lived in this typical Pannonian panorama on the fringe of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Due to its historical and geographical particularities, the town had always been home to numerous ethnically and culturally mixed communities that gave it the charm and melos of Central-European identity. But now, in the thick of World War II, the town is occupied by the Hungarian army.Franz Schwartz’s wife, Ellsie has for the past month been preparing their son Isaac, a gifted violinist, for his first solo concert, which is to take place at Hotel Dobray. Isaac is to perform on his bar mitzvah and his 13th birthday on April 26, 1944. When the German army marches into town and forces all Jews to display yellow stars on their clothes, Ellsie advises her husband that the family should flee the town and escape to Switzerland. Schwartz promises her he will obtain forged documents, but not before Isaac performs his concert at the hotel.A year later, in March 1945, Schwartz returns, on foot, from the concentration camp as one of the few survivors.

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed author Richard Tood has a bad case of writer's block. When his publisher sends an attractive young editor to help him with his latest book, the inevitable happens. This chance meeting changes everyone's lives – in ways they never expected. But Richard's troubles are only beginning. Hearing voices in your head is rarely a good thing, and having an assassin walk into your life whenever he wants, is definitely bad news. Will Richard be able to get his head straightened out before things run away from him completely? A remarkable portrait of a modern midlife crisis, which combines the best aspects of historical and psychological fiction, THE GARFIELD CONSPIRACY is a superb novel by a major new voice in Irish fiction.Trade ReviewA plot full of cunning, sly naming of characters, a brilliant wind-up. * Saga Magazine *A remarkable, disturbing portrait of a middle-aged man torn between his carefully constructed life and new adventures which may beckon, in the present and the past, from one of Ireland’s most exciting emerging authors and based on original research into a little-known period in US history. * Senior Times *

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Book Synopsis'Charming but unsentimental, Spirit Level is a hilarious and genuinely moving story about grief and friendship' IRISH TIMES'It's touching, intriguing and GAS! About friendship and anxiety and ghosts and being a man. I enjoyed it very much' - Marian Keyes'Spirit Level is an outrageously bingeable read. It is surprising, warm, inventive and a lot of fun' - Louise Nealon'One of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Buy it now and cackle your way through the summer' - Killian Sundermann'Craven pulled me in with his brilliant humour, only to make me feel genuine emotion. I'll never forgive him for this' - Seán BurkeDanny Hook is a directionless twenty-something year old fresh out of therapy. Dealing with his disappointed family and dead-end career, he's sure things couldn't get much worse, until a drink-driving accident leaves hi

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Book SynopsisLiving in Picinisco, Italy a er World War II brought enough societal challenges, never mind having to find the means to feed 19 other mouths. It is up to Mamma Matilda to make the needed sacrifices to ensure her family’s survival.With another baby on the way and the older siblings looking towards their future, tension begins to seep through the cracks. Upholding tradition, during a time of Italian poverty, death and lack of opportunities, is fading further away in the children’s minds.But Mamma Matilda will do what she must to protect what she loves the most – her family.A fictional story inspired by a real gravestone inscription ‘An Exemplary Mother of Nineteen Children’, this book tells the story of struggling to support a large family, but the harsh realities one must face when it comes to deciding to follow your footsteps or continue down the path of tradition.What truly is the importance of family? Does one’s dreams come before or after it? How would Mamma Matilda cope with an empty nest? In the end, it is family that has driven her all these years.Trade ReviewPoignant but life-affirming ... Crolla clearly understands that she needs to strike a balance between idealising the Italian peasant way of life and acknowledging its hardship ... Her prose has a warmth and simplicity that complements its characters' lives, conveying an affection that could convince you she was writing about her own family, and an ambivalence that reflects their feelings about a land they love but are no longer certain has anything to offer its young. THE HERALDA great document of a simpler life for so many Scottish Italians. A great read! GOODREADS USER on DomenicaYou expose the human cost of war beyond the battlefield in a depiciton of love and grief, pain and union... It has allowed me to see more clearly where I come from. RICHARD DEMARCO on Serafina Crolla

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Book SynopsisFrom the remote forests of northern Ontario to a Neolithic burial chamber on the coast of north Wales, from a frozen lake in the Canadian wilderness to a mysterious Welsh heath, Shattercone takes the reader on a strange, compelling and sometimes heart-breaking journey through the blurry junctures that bind together landscapes and lovers. Including buried elephant bones, explorers gone astray, hidden histories, secret islands, loves found and lost, these subtly linked stories explore the curious and delicate threads that weave together places and people.

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Book Synopsis'Finch has written a blood-soaked historical epic to rank with the best' Anthony Riches, author of Storm of WarThe throne of England is under threat, but one lad’s battle is much closer to home.Storm clouds gathering at England’s shores…Autumn, 1066. Saxon England, a realm at peace for fifty years, unknowingly enjoys its last peaceful harvest. For a Viking horde, led by the dreaded Harald Hardraada, circles off the north-eastern coast, while William of Normandy, a wolf in human guise, waits in the south, greedily sizing up the wealthy kingdom.…will change a young man’s future…Seventeen-year-old Cerdic, as second in line to the earldom of Ripon in northern England, is being trained for a future in the Church. But croziers and catechism do not fire Cerdic’s soul. He longs instead to be a warrior, like his brother Unferth, and ride to battle in defence of his lands.…and unseat his whole worldBut as the invasion fleets sail, Cerdic finds himself caught in a maelstrom that will utterly reshape the life he used to know. A catastrophic war is coming to England, and Cerdic’s wish for battle looks set to come true…Sunday Times bestselling author Paul Finch’s first historical novel is an edge-of-your-seat coming-of-age adventure in early medieval England, perfect for fans of David Gilman and Bernard Cornwell.Praise for Usurper 'Usurper is an action-packed, coming-of-age, adventure set against the upheaval and battles of 1066. Finch gives us Cerdic, a troubled hero thrown into the maelstrom of events outside of his control, and we follow him breathlessly as he deals with brutal Vikings, familial rivalries, unrequited love, invading Normans and more!' Matthew Harffy, author of the Bernicia Chronicles'Usurper propels the reader from the very first page through a dark and desperate age when Britons fought for their survival. Fearsome battles, believable characters, uncommon valour. A relentless page turner' David Gilman, author of the Master of War series'The grim world of Anglo Saxon England is brought evocatively to life by master storyteller Paul Finch as he thrusts the reader deep into the cold and mud and blood of a country teetering on the brink of a devastating war for survival. Usurper is a must-read for any lover of history, capturing all the rich detail of a turbulent time and stitching it through with powerful emotion' James Wilde, author of the Hereward Chronicles'An authentic and vivid depiction of life in England in 1066, and a brutal, blood-soaked thriller that will be loved by fans of Cornwell's Last Kingdom' Alex Gough, author of the Imperial Assassins series'Finch brings 1066 to life in new and vivid ways. Packed with blistering battle scenes and believable characters, this is a superb historical novel' Steven A. McKay, author of the Druid series

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Book SynopsisA woman grows increasingly annoyed by her husband's emails, offering advice and reminders even months after his death... A taxidermist dreams of preserving one of his clients after she takes him out for a coffee... A grieving nurse is troubled by her daughter's fascination with The Iron Lady... In Safely Gathered In, Sarah Schofield probes at the heart of what forms us and what we, in turn, form. The stories collected here expose the spaces that words often fail to reach and examine how objects - both manmade and natural - can reflect the darkest manifestations of grief and disconnection. From the child acting out a family betrayal in the comfort of her dolls house, to the sister making wind-up toys from the dead birds she finds on her doorstep, this debut collection ventures into the surreal and delivers a sense of unease that leaves us questioning why we gather the things we do. Sarah Schofield's narrators venture into spaces that language can't reach; we meet characters who create taxidermy pets to stave off loneliness or wind-up birds to deal with loss, and children processing family secrets through their dolls house or imitating Margaret Thatcher after the death of their father. Schofield also pushes the boundaries of literary fiction into science-fiction, with an architect preserving her bactogarden in a time of extreme climate crisis, and one man mistakenly creating an app to fix people's problems while they dream. In this powerful and touching debut collection, Schofield introduces a new and exciting voice to the canon of women's literary fiction.Trade Review"This is a deliciously wry Black Mirror-esque collection that provokes and disturbs. A bold and brilliant debut." - Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them; "Schofield's collection comprises finely inventive stories, astute in their side angle swipes on reality. A memorable and distinctive debut." - Kiare Ladner, author of Nightshift; "Sarah Schofield is a writer with tremendous rage and inventiveness, who takes the short story to new places" - Naomi Booth, author of Exit Management; "Sharp, insightful and haunting, these stories are not safe reading. An astounding debut." - Angela Readman, author of Something Like Breathing; "An enchanting, vital collection. Strange, incisive and compelling." - Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch; "This collection will feed you; savour it." - Tania Hershman, author of Some of Us Glow More Than Others and My Mother Was An Upright Piano; "Schofield's stories are so well-observed and quietly intense that reading them means becoming more awake to the everyday world around us." - Claire Dean, author of The Museum of Shadows and Reflections

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Book SynopsisThe ending was mind-blowingI cannot say enough good things about this book.' ????? Reader ReviewLoving him might be the last thing they doStevie Gordon is lonely, filling her time by stalking her ex-boyfriend, James Cowley. He might be married, but neither his wife nor his girlfriend knows as much about him as Stevie does.But when James' latest mistress is brutally murdered, her body carefully posed amongst the bluebells of Thamespark, Stevie is as shocked as anyone. But with her troubled childhood taking a toll on her mind, and her heavy drinking leading to frequent blackouts, can Stevie really know she is innocent?DI Sebastian Locke and the Thamespark squad are drawn into an urgent murder case, but as they delve deeper, they find links to a previous victim, with all the clues pointing back to James. As another innocent is targeted, Stevie becomes increasingly terrified that her own mind is betraying her.But, is s

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Book SynopsisCan she hide the secret that could ruin her reputation?After becoming pregnant out of wedlock, Kathy feared for her future until her mother agreed to raise the baby as her own.While Kathy causes consternation for her family, everything changes after she meets handsome RAF pilot, Alisdair. They grow close, but when their relationship is threatened, Kathy runs away from heartbreak by joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service.Kathy's new life in Yorkshire is a world away from the Glasgow tenement she grew up in, but she finds friendship with women who know nothing of her past, and spends her evenings at dances with charming soldiers.But despite being surrounded by new faces, Kathy can't get Alisdair, nor her secret child, out of her mind...A romantic and gritty World War Two Scottish saga that fans of Rosie Meddon and Rowena Summers will adore.Readers are loving Kathy''s Courage:''This series j

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Book SynopsisPretty Little Liars but in the eerie English countryside.' Meera ShahA layered, twisty story about toxic friendshipsI loved it.' Sarah ClarkeA compulsive, read-into-the-night book.' Emily FreudWelcome to the hen-do from hellAs friends gather for a hen weekend in the remote Dartmoor countryside, they are all smiles, but cannot hide the web of tension that bubbles beneath the surface.The group was forever broken by the devastating loss of their childhood friend, Becca. The prettiest and most powerful of them all, her absence lies at the heart of this fractured friendship.Now, decades later, someone wants to expose the truth about what happened, and will stop at nothing to reveal the secrets long since buried.As a dark storm gathers out on the moors, dangerous secrets and accusations threaten to explode between the group.Will they all survive the fall-out

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Book SynopsisAs wedding bells ring out, joy will be found amidst the tensions of warAt RAF Fenthorpe, instrument repairer Thea is helping her sister, Pearl, plan her wedding alongside fellow WAAF and maid of honour Jenny. A misfit amongst the women on the base, though, Thea is struggling to get others onboard.When Flight Sergeant Fitz makes a point of befriending and standing by her, sparks fly between the two. And when Fitz's crew member, Jack, faces being stripped of his rank due to cowardice, Thea throws herself into seeking justice and support for him.Just as she begins to be accepted by her fellow WAAFs, a shadowy figure from her past has returned and is determined to ruin not just Thea, but also Pearl's wedding. Will Thea''s reputation be marred once more? And will she face this struggle alone?A page-turning and feel-good Second World War saga, for fans of Johanna Bell, Daisy Styles an

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Book SynopsisThe Usurpers, Willa Muir's fourth novel, was written in the early 1950s and was based on the diaries she kept in Prague in the period 1945-1948, when her husband the poet Edwin Muir was the Director the British Institute in Prague, the lecturing and teaching arm of the British Council there. Under the guise of Utopians in Slavomania, The Usurpers offers acute, humorous and sometimes acerbic observations on relations among the British themselves in Prague (the city is never named) and between them and their Czech friends and those in the Czechoslovak establishment who were suspicious of the British presence, and depicts, largely through the actions and conversation of its characters, a deteriorating political environment in which the lives of many Slavomanians and even some of the Utopians are increasingly under threat in the lead-up to the Communist coup of February 1948. The Usupers was ready for publication in 1952 and was submitted to a number of major UK publishers under the pen-name Alexander Cory. The publishers were nervous. There was some concern about libel suits and perhaps also about the political sensitivity of the contents. Then, when she was publicly revealed to be the author, Willa Muir withdrew it. The typescript, from which this edition has been prepared, has long been in the care of the Library of the University of St Andrews and over the years a number of critics and Willa Muir enthusiasts have read it, among them Jim Potts, who brought it to the attention of Colenso Books and who has provided the Introduction. The non-publication of the The Usurpers in the 1950s may have been partly due to political pressure, at a time when the UK government’s grant-in-aid to the British Council was being called in question.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vi Introduction by Jim Potts vii-xiii Epigraph and Disclaimer by Willa Muir 1 26 untitled chapters 3–290

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Book Synopsis''Beautiful, incredibly painterly and full of breathtaking details. A devastating portrait of a particular place, which draws you in with its brutality and beauty'' CARYL LEWIS, author of DRIFT''Incredibly assured, carefully observed, full of heart. A quietly devastating read which lingers long after the final page'' JAN CARSON_____________Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine, the village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet, sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface, tensions simmer, hearts ache, and painful truths threaten to emerge.Sixteen-year-old Catrin Bone knows only what she has been told. Now, she is beginning to question her small world, and a version of the past that seems to entrap and embitter her reclusive mother, Mary.Mary had a sister once, a girl of unparalleled beauty. Why did she disappear from the village in a shroud of shame all those years ago - and where is she now?<

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Book SynopsisThe eighth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin's best-selling San Francisco saga.''Perhaps the most sublime piece of popular literature America has ever produced' Salon____________________A touching portrait of friendship, family, and fresh starts, the City by the Bay welcomes back Mary Ann Singleton, the beloved Tales of the City heroine who started it all. A new chapter begins in the lives of both Mary Ann and Michael Mouse' Tolliver when she returns to San Francisco to rejoin her oldest friend after years in New York City the reunion that fans of Maupin's beloved Tales of the City series have been awaiting for years.Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in a sexually-liberated San Francisco. The result is a glittering and addictive

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Book SynopsisThe ninth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin's best-selling San Francisco saga.''Wonderful. . . . As compulsively readable and endearing as all the previous novels have been' Booklist (starred review)____________________Now ninety-two, Mrs. Madrigal has seemingly found peace with her logical family' in San Francisco. Some members of that family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art community in Nevada's Black Rock Desert but Anna has another destination in mind: a lonely stretch of road outside of Winnemucca where the 16-year-old boy she once was ran away from the whorehouse he called home. There she journeys into the dusty troubled heart of her Depression childhood to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams and attend to some unfinished business she has long avoided.Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barba

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Book SynopsisThe fourth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin's best-selling San Francisco saga.A consummate entertainer who has made a generation laugh.... It is Maupin''s Dickensian gift to be able to render love convincingly' Edmund White, Times Literary Supplement____________________When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby than meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbour, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakes was the first piece of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in 1970s San Francisco. The result

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Book SynopsisThe stories and History of 'Britain's most elegant and intriguing city'. Sometimes in Bath is a captivating story-tour through the city's history conducted by Charles Nevin, the award-winning journalist, national newspaper columnist, author and humorist.

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Book SynopsisShiori knows that she was destined to sing - even if she is completely tone-deaf. Forced to give up her dream of becoming a travelling troubadour, she moves to Tokyo at eighteen to forge a career in music, whatever the cost. But she quickly becomes isolated in this vast new city, and even the people she calls friends take advantage of her naivety. Then one day, she is entrusted with a secret of enormous power. If she chooses to, she can take revenge on the world. Shot through with dark irony and a playful sense of the absurd, Mysterious Setting is a propulsive and gloriously strange story of innocence and experience.

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Book SynopsisLisa Scottoline, the #1 bestselling author of What Happened to the Bennetts, presents another pulse-pounding domestic thriller about family, justice, and the lies that tear us apart.

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Book SynopsisEmergency is a novel about the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth. Stuck at home alone under lockdown, a woman recounts her 1990s childhood in rural Yorkshire. She watches a kestrel hunting, helps a farmer with a renegade bull, and plays out with her best friend, Clare. Around her in the village her neighbours are arguing, keeping secrets, caring for one another, trying to hold down jobs. In the woods and quarry there are foxcubs fighting, plants competing for space, ageing machines, and a three-legged deer who likes cake. These local phenomena interconnect and spread out from China to Nicaragua as pesticides circulate, money flows around the planet, and bodies feel the force of distant power. A story of remote violence and a work of praise for a persistently lively world, brilliantly written, surprising, evocative and unsettling, Daisy Hildyard's Emergency reinvents the pastoral novel for the climate change era.Trade Review‘Hildyard doesn’t offer the narratives of therapy, social criticism or self-development to be found in other English pastoralists (Helen Macdonald, Ronald Blythe or Adrian Bell). Her style is more reminiscent of such contemporary poets as Kathleen Jamie and Alice Oswald, with their quiet and attentive watchfulness to a non-human reality they only half-understand. Her prose calls for, and frequently earns, the same respectful attentiveness from its readers.’ — Dr Nikhil Krishnan, Telegraph‘Daisy Hildyard has confronted our new nature and, bravely, compellingly, makes our shared emergency visible.’ — Claire Pettitt, TLS ‘Rich and unflinching, this writing expands our sense of what it means to live, as we do, in a time of crisis. It leads us beyond rational climate debates into the deeply sensual, and sometimes nightmarish, places where our inner and outer worlds make contact.’ — Katharine Kilalea, author of OK, Mr Field‘In this powerfully attuned novel, the world presses in on all sides, refusing to become background. From the discarded plastics of the narrator’s childhood, now circulating microscopically in the world around her as an adult, to the journey of grass through the bodies of animals and back out to the field as fertiliser, Emergency shows us the cost, as well as the conflicted splendour, of a world that is “fatally interconnected”. Its prose is bewitching and uncompromising, alive to the enmeshing of cruelty with care that articulates our shared – human and nonhuman – existence.’ — Daisy Lafarge, author of Paul‘Emergency is an incisive kaleidoscope of past and present, nature and industry, stillness and pace, collapsing all into a tapestry of consciousness.’ — Aysegül Savas, author of Walking on the Ceiling‘Hildyard’s writing stretches the mind.’ — Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun‘Emergency is a strange and luminously original novel. Daisy Hildyard writes about childhood with a kind of ecstatic detachment, dissolving the boundaries between past and present, and between human and animal life. I find her work exhilarating and subtly provocative. There is, as far as I'm aware, nothing else quite like it in contemporary English-language fiction.’ — Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse‘Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency is a pastoral novel for the age of dissolving boundaries…The slowness and gentleness of the text, its pace and its language, make you consider its title. There are emergencies and ruptures, but less of the urgent kind. More at play is a slow, steady and inevitable unfolding – of emergence.’ — Abi Andrews, Irish Times‘Past and present, nature and humanity, life and death intermix, ebbing and flowing in a stream of prose that carries the reader on an exhilarating and frequently provocative and violent ride.’ — Philippa Nutall, New Statesman

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Book SynopsisThe Kamanga Kings, a Khartoum jazz band of yesteryear, is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime when a surprise letter arrives inviting them to perform in Washington, D.C. The only problem is . . . the band no longer exists.Rushdy is a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King. Determined to see a life beyond his own home, he sets out to revive the band. Aided by his unreliable best friend, all too soon an unlikely group are on their way, knowing the eyes of their country are on them.As the group moves from the familiarity of Khartoum to the chaos of Donald Trump''s America, Jamal Mahjoub weaves a gently humorous and ultimately universal tale of music, belonging and love.

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Book SynopsisA middle-aged novelist devoid of inspiration alights on material in the form of an obsessive pet-shop worker from Cincinnati. A pregnant mother of two finds herself increasingly in thrall to her help, Nat. For Joad, the discovery of a haunting type-written document in an old desk in need of restoration is overwhelming. And when Roxanne rescues her sister from an institution, she comes to realise how vulnerable they both are.Each of the seven stories in Total is a full world, painted with vivid strokes. From the comforting mundanities of motherhood to a technologically infected near future that mirrors our present with dark prescience, each life captured in this collection is unforgettable.Deftly navigating the fault lines of relationships - new, established or remembered - Total is a powerful collection of brilliantly imaginative stories, and eloquent proof of Rebecca Miller's writing prowess.Trade ReviewWit and coolly slaying wisdom are constant delights in these emotionally complex stories . . . cinematically vivid * * Observer * *Miller knows and is playing with . . . all the ways stories and lives infinitely repeat. You've never quite seen them inhabited by these versions of these characters, nor at the tenor of these sentences, with these deftly deployed layers of surprise * * New York Times * *Miller's new collection shows her in many moods and modes, from wistful to comedic to speculative. What a pleasure! -- JEFFREY EUGENIDESA "cinematic prose style" is often a critical cliché, but in the case of Rebecca Miller, no other descriptor suffices . . . [a] captivating, coolly spare new collection * * Oprah Daily * *The characters in Total are instantly recognisable - they are privileged, deluged by memories and in situations fraught with anxiety, but Miller manages to offer a fresh perspective on old conundrums * * Daily Mail * *In Miller's alluring collection, protagonists search for connection and pleasure in strange, sometimes destructive ways . . . Miller brings a cinematic eye to her descriptions (a parking garage's "final floor" offers a "vivid sky") and plenty of drama to the situations. These stories are full of surprises * * Publishers Weekly * *The seven brilliantly knotty and piercingly intimate stories in Total depict characters undone, temporarily or irreparably, by obsessive love * * Lit Hub * *Slim but powerful . . . [Miller] adeptly encapsulates these women's experiences . . . Recommended for fans of Joyce Carol Oates and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go * * Booklist (starred review) * *Praise for Rebecca Miller: Miller is a luminous writer -- OLIVIA LAINGMiller is an excellent novelist -- KATE ATKINSON

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Book SynopsisClinton, founder and head of a firm of international engineers, arrives in India to build a dam, bringing with him his young wife, Helen, and a strong team of aides and skilled men. They are faced with a formidable challenge, which involves working in daunting mountain and jungle terrain, within a time schedule dictated by the extreme tropical weather. Setbacks occur which bring into focus fundamental differences in the attitudes to life and death of the British bosses and the Indian workers. A timely reminder of the British contempt for Indian lives and for nature.Trade Review'An absorbing tale about mechanical strength and spiritual weakness, physical certainties and moral doubts. It is set in modern India, but the conflict of values at its heart is universal' John Masters, author, Bhowani Junction

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Book SynopsisAn Unfortunate Woman, An Unforgettable Journey was the final book written by Richard Brautigan before his death in 1984 and lay unpublished for sixteen years.Originally written in the 160 pages of a loose-leaf notebook, the narrator of the book is trying to come to terms with the death of a friend by going on a personal odyssey which zigzags through time and landscapes, from Oakland to Hawaii, and the wilds of Montana.An Unfortunate Woman, An Unforgettable Journey walks a fine line between fiction and memoir, between dark introspection and a lust for life, and in the last pages in particular, marks a gut-wrenching, intense, and ultimately tragic exit from fiction and life itself for the troubled author.Trade ReviewAchingly elliptical and sometimes stunning . . . It is heavy with introspective reflection and dark themes, yet remains buoyant with lyrical nature poetry and brilliant, electric humour. * * Herald * *He was an absolute original who found cause for celebration in the most unlikely places * * Guardian * *One of the last of the beat genertion, Brautigan's frequently autobiographical work [contains] strikingly poignant childhood memories and even the occasional foray into magic realism . . . quite wonderful. * * The Times * *Richard Brautigan's An Unfortunate Woman is not only vintage Brautigan but is among his best, filled with breathtaking insights about our life now. * * Jim Harrison * *

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Book SynopsisIt was the middle of the nineteenth century when Lafanu Brown audaciously decided to become an artist. In the wake of the American Civil War, life was especially tough for Black women, but she didn't let that stop her. The daughter of a Native American woman and an African-Haitian man, Lafanu had the rare opportunity to study, travel, and follow her dreams, thanks to her indomitable spirit, but not without facing intolerance and violence. Now, in 1887, living in Rome as one of the city's most established painters, she is ready to tell her fiance about her difficult life, which began in a poor family forty years earlier. In 2019, an Italian art curator of Somali origin is desperately trying to bring to Europe her younger cousin, who is only sixteen and has already tried to reach Italy on a long, treacherous journey. While organizing an art exhibition that will combine the paintings of Lafanu Brown with the artworks of young migrants, the curator becomes more and more obsessed with the life and secrets of the nineteenth-century painter.Weaving together these two vibrant voices, Igiaba Scego has crafted a powerful exploration of what it means to be "other," to be a woman, and particularly a Black woman, in a foreign country, yesterday and today.Trade Review'A testament to the possibilities of liberation that rest in every act against injustice, and in every moment of artistic creation' [Maaza Mengiste]; 'In its reckoning with racism and colonialism. The Colour Line explores the potential for artists to reclaim line and colour in the name of justice' [Selby Wynn Schwartz]; 'An engrossing tale of ambition, survival, and love' [Publishers Weekly]; 'An intense and evocative book about the lasting traumas of racial injustice, the healing power of creativity, and the importance of representation in history' [Ruth Ben-Ghiat]

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Book SynopsisWhat is the sound of a voice that is alienated from itself? How can one truthfully represent the creative process of an artist? Oona, an artist-in-the-making, lives in an affluent suburban culture of first-generation immigrants in New Jersey where conspicuous consumption and white privilege prevail, and the denial of death is ubiquitous. The silence surrounding death extends to the family home where Oona is not told while her mother lies dying of cancer upstairs. Afterwards, a silence takes hold inside her: her inner life goes into a deep freeze. Emotionally hobbled, she has her first encounters with sex, drugs and other trials of adolescence. Lyons’ first novel gives voice to a female character on her fraught journey into adulthood and charts her evolution as an artist, as her adolescent dissociation is thawed through contact with the physical world, the materials of painting and her engagement with Irish community, culture and landscape. Set during the era of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath, this is a resonant story conveyed in an innovative form. Written entirely without the letter ‘o’, the tone of the book reflects Oona’s inner damage and the destruction caused by hiding, omitting and obliterating parts of ourselves.Trade ReviewOona, a book without an ‘o’, is an ingeniously crafted marvel’ -- Anne Cunningham * Irish Independent *An intriguing, innovative story of loss and acceptance. -- Sarah Gilmartin * Irish Times *The novel (with the exception of its title and one short intermezzo intentionally headed ‘– o –’) is wholly bereft of the round vowel, whose hermetic glyph can articulate surprise, lyric utterance, sexual pleasure and, of course, elegiac grief. -- Tom Treacy * Totally Dublin *Oona is exactly the type of book to read if you want to restore your faith in writing and new and experimental approaches to fiction. Its beautiful descriptions of place and sparkling use of colour are so incredibly vibrant it feels at times more like a painting than a novel. A plot that sounds very simple and familiar, what you could call a fairly standard coming-of-age story, becomes an original and very special read in Lyons’s masterful hands. -- Laura King * Books Ireland *Calculated though its constraint may be, dictatorial in its Oulipian demands, there is nothing cold or soulless whatsoever in Oona: it is all verve, all vitality. -- Mackenzie Warren * Splice *‘A virtuoso work … a delight to read’ —EOIN MCNAMEE ‘Oona is bildungsroman unlike any other, a documentation of an artist’s growth in which each lacuna, each silence, and each erasure reveals the depth of its subject. Exceptional.’ —DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA ‘In a voice and tone that never falters, Alice Lyons has delivered something extraordinary. On the rare occasions I noticed the absence of the letter ‘o’, it was to briefly marvel at the care and innovation it has taken to pull this off. For all her struggles, Oona fizzes with life and hope.’ —LOUISE KENNEDY ‘A study of grief and recovery through the lens of art, colour, and landscape. Lyons charts a compelling journey towards wholeness, full of vivid imagery and astute observations. Moving and wise, few portraits of grief are so life-affirming.’ —JESSICA TRAYNOR‘A virtuoso work … a delight to read’ —EOIN MCNAMEE ‘Oona is bildungsroman unlike any other, a documentation of an artist’s growth in which each lacuna, each silence, and each erasure reveals the depth of its subject. Exceptional.’ —DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA ‘In a voice and tone that never falters, Alice Lyons has delivered something extraordinary. On the rare occasions I noticed the absence of the letter ‘o’, it was to briefly marvel at the care and innovation it has taken to pull this off. For all her struggles, Oona fizzes with life and hope.’ —LOUISE KENNEDY ‘A study of grief and recovery through the lens of art, colour, and landscape. Lyons charts a compelling journey towards wholeness, full of vivid imagery and astute observations. Moving and wise, few portraits of grief are so life-affirming.’ —JESSICA TRAYNOR

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Book SynopsisSET IN DUBLIN'S LIBERTIES, Estelle Birdy's explosively original debutRavellingchannels the energies and agonies of young men let loose in the city, where they balance their hopes with the harsh realities of their present. Hurtling between friendships, feuds, drug-deals, family and brushes with the law, this is modern Dublin as never before portrayed.

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Book Synopsis''A riveting tale gripping' The Irish IndependentAn incredibly gripping and entertaining page-turner' The Irish Times----- Two mothers. Two daughters. Two sides to the story.When Sara leaves her high-flying London life to move to Dublin, her only concern is her nine-year-old daughter, Lexie. For Lexie''s sake she tries to get to know other mothers at the school gates, but they appear uninterested - particularly their leader, the beautiful and charismatic Vanessa, whose daughter rules the playground.After a simple misunderstanding between Vanessa and Sara, none of the other kids at school want anything to do with Lexie. Desperate to mend fences, Sara offers to look after Vanessa''s daughter one afternoon. But when the playdate ends in catastrophe, Vanessa is convinced that what happened wasn''t an accident.With allegations flying in all directions, Sara is forced to ask herself what she

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Book SynopsisBestselling and award-winning Irish author, Nuala O'Connor, returns with the intimate and thrilling portrayal of the life of 18th-century Irishwoman, Anne Bonny.

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Book SynopsisOf Myths and Mothers by Kenzie Millar, Gaynor Jones, Sascha Akhtar, Clayton Lister and Helen Nathaniel-Fulton; Folklore and futurism: these stories question everything from the guest worker economy to childbirth as the world collapses. Follow hairpin turns into the remote hillsides of North Yorkshire, where two boys take a holiday with their besom-wielding, rabbit-skinning granny. Disappear into dark caves on Philippine islands and scale sheer limestone cliffs with men who search for the world's most expensive animal product: prized nests woven from a mysterious bird's saliva, rumoured to make one live forever. Feel sand under your feet in the middle of the night as you search for love beyond limits. You will long to hold a child, even when that instinct has been erased from your body and mind. Of Myths and Mothers will make you see some of our most accepted customs in a new light and fill you with wonder, as the best stories do.Trade Review"Jones has created an unsettling, near-the-bone world in May We Know Them, with taut, vivid prose that grips the reader. A triumph of short fiction; this is the type of piece that the genre was made for." - Catherine Menon, author of Fragile Monsters; "Helen Nathaniel-Fulton's electric combination of the visceral and compassionate invites the reader into her memories of post-war Germany where, as a student worker. she competes with immigrants for a range of appallingly brutal and mind-numbing jobs. She witnesses overt racism towards and among the immigrants, and must endure sexism towards herself. The deceptively calm tone draws the reader in, as though these stories are being related over a cup of coffee - but watch out for those narrative swerves! It's a riveting read and belongs on your bedside table." - Sandra Hunter; "Given that two of my biggest blindspots are historical fiction and epistolary fiction and I still loved her story, I must put that down to Kenzie Millar's silky prose and the thrilling wonders she teases out of the depths." - Nicholas Royle, Writer, Editor and Judge of the Manchester Fiction Prize

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Book SynopsisLike her bestselling THE GLASSBLOWER OF MURANO, Marina Fiorato's fifth unforgettable historical love story is set in Venice. For fans of Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Alison Weir.1576. Five years after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto, a ship steals unnoticed into Venice bearing a deadly cargo. A man more dead than alive, disembarks and staggers into Piazza San Marco. He brings a gift to Venice from Constantinople. Within days the city is infected with bubonic plague - and the Turkish Sultan has his revenge.But the ship also holds a secret stowaway - Feyra, a young and beautiful harem doctor fleeing a future as the Sultan's concubine. Only her wits and medical knowledge keep her alive as the plague ravages Venice. In despair the Doge commissions the architect Andrea Palladio to build the greatest church of his career - an offering to God so magnificent that Venice will be saved. But Palladio's own life is in danger too, and it will require all skills of medico Annibale Cason, the city's finest plague doctor, to keep him alive.But what Annibale had not counted on was meeting Feyra, who is now under Palladio's protection, a woman who can not only match his medical skills but can also teach him how to care.Trade Review'[Fiorato's] knowledge of the city and its history shines through on every page' * Choice Magazine *'I absolutely loved this story' * debrasbookcafe.blogspot.co.uk *'If you like historical fiction and/or medical dramas, you should really give this a try. Fiorato writes with a deft hand and creates a whirlwind world that is excitingly beautiful and uncertain' * http://bcfreviews.wordpress.com *Praise for Marina Fiorato:'Fiorato creates her own masterpiece' * Booklist *'Captures the scents, passion and vigour of Italy' * Books Quarterly *'A great read' * Best *'A great holiday read with solid historical substance' * Historical Novels Review *

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Book Synopsis'Lindqvist is Sweden's answer to Stephen King' Daily MirrorThey only stopped watching her for a couple of minutes. That was all it took. It was a beautiful winter's day. Anders, his wife and their feisty six-year-old, Maja, set out across the ice of the Swedish archipelago to visit the lighthouse. There was no one around, so they let her run on ahead. And she disappeared, seemingly into thin air, and was never found. Two years later, Anders is a broken alcoholic, his life ruined. He returns to the archipelago, the home of his childhood and his family. But all he finds are Maja's toys and through the haze of memory, loss and alcohol, he realizes that someone - or something - is trying to communicate with him. His return sets in motion a series of horrifying events which exposes a mysterious and troubling relationship between the inhabitants of the remote island and the sea.Trade Review'A magician of genre fiction' Independent. * Independent *'Emotionally forceful and superbly plotted' Big Issue. * Big Issue *'Lindqvist is Sweden's answer to Stephen King' Daily Mirror. * Daily Mirror *'This is a third consecutive masterpiece from an author who deserves to be as much a household name as Stephen King' SFX. * SFX *'a gripping portrayal of the devastating effect that the loss of a child can have on a parent' British Fantasy. * British Fantasy *'A very scary tale indeed' Financial Times. * Financial Times *'Eerily good' Marie Claire. * Marie Claire *'A magician of genre fiction' Independent. * Independent *

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Book SynopsisA literary odyssey along the highways at a time when a new form of superintelligence has emerged.Autodrive is a work of literary fiction that melds techno-scientific inquiry and storytelling, critical theory and comedy, speculative fiction and satire. It is a road novel of sorts, an odyssey along the highways at a time when a new form of superintelligence has emerged. This new form of artificial intelligence is not entirely distinct from the characters in the narrative—it is ingrained in the machines they already use, the vehicles they already take, the systems they are already part of, but cannot fully see. The human character who is typically at the center of the fictional world gives way to an eccentric cast of performers—an ensemble of people and machines.

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Book SynopsisA manuscript found near the remains of an old house that mysteriously went up in flames details the life of John Richard Le Perrowne, whose troubled childhood makes him susceptible to a dark existence as a vampire.

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Book Synopsis"There was something so unreal about the neat Georgian houses opposite and the laurel ball trees in front of them that once again I saw England as a piece of antique porcelain. As something no longer used or displayed due to its unfashionable appearance and propensity to crack..." June 2016, and world-famous cellist and former "sexiest classical musician" Allegra Le Clef is suffering from a compound wrist fracture. Europe also crumbles... From the initial break in London, to the crisis in Athens, to trying and failing to patch things up in Amsterdam Allegra traverses the continent to the accompaniment of a Late Romantic soundtrack (plus Vangelis via Nigel Havers). When not sending emails to a BDSM obsessed catfish, or wondering whether a piece of Nazi jewellery might "lift one of my more sombre evening gowns," she attempts to ease her conscience by volunteering at a refugee centre known for its Syrian cuisine, yet remains oblivious to the numerous other personal and political disasters that are looming. Shocking, camp-and shockingly camp-My Other Spruce and Maple Self is nevertheless a profoundly sad book about a woman unable to come to terms with her own declining status, as well as that of the West.Trade Review"Early on you are assailed by an image so potently repellent, so graphically horrible that it squats in your brain and refuses to be dislodged." Jonathan Meades ---------- "Susan Finlay has a staggeringly beautiful prose style that belies a devastating viciousness. And, what's more, she knows how to tell a story." Anouchka Grose ---------- "Clinical and subtle, but also pulsing with raciness and heat ... Horrifyingly brilliant work" Manchester Review of Books ---------- "Splendid... A winner." Book of the Month at Le Document ---------- A Burning House Books' Book Club Recommendation ---------- "A fantastic political allegory about a disintegrating Europe ... Clever, darkly funny, unsettling and twisty." The Bobsphere

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Book Synopsis"I'm embarrassed when I remember Les. Anything but him, with his crisp and coleslaw breath, his tongue slipping inside my mouth - a mouth much too small. A tongue prising the shell away from the outer membrane of an egg, while a blueish, angular embryo wriggles underneath, uncomfortable, fearful at being prematurely exposed to the light..." Shae wants to stop shagging other women's husbands and be a proper queer. Plus, she's bored of only ever getting to use her new strap on a pile of cushions. The answer seems simple enough: come out, go out, and finally get it on with the fit bird at Dyke Night. Or it would be if Evaline, a wayward silicone mistress from the future, wasn't jealous.... A surreal, dirty little book that falls somewhere between Derek McCormack, David Cronenberg, and the tentacle porn you 'accidentally downloaded', Silicone God is for those who like it very, very weird.Trade Review"Victoria Brooks has served up a literary mille-feuille, with deliciously wicked cream spread between sickly sweet layers. Dark, disturbing, and deeply sensual all at once, you'll devour every page." Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle ---------- “Compelling, enrapturing, and gorgeous.” Stoya, adult actress and author of Pussycats and Porn ---------- "Something is grotty in the fractal fucking: A disturbance in the octopussy portal, as the Singularity of Silicone God births horny bish whorror. #Bookgasm" Jack Skelley, author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker ---------- "Imaginative, intelligent and delightfully sexually explicit. A post porn masterpiece!" Annie Sprinkle, ecosexual artist and author ---------- "As unmoored from convention as it is sizzlingly hot." Alison Rumfitt, author of Brainwyrms --------- "A roller coaster of a novel which will leave you dizzy with its fabulous and undulating ride ... of queer pleasure and illicit redemption." Sarah Law, author of Thérèse ---------- "In Silicone God, an out-of-this-world sexual encounter is at once sensual, ridiculous, epiphanous and transformative… As any great fuck should be. A truly exciting debut!" Brad Beau Cohen, author of Sugar Water ---------- "Strap On! Slide In! Bliss Out! Victoria Brooks' Silicone God fills that yearning hole left by your earliest and most affecting weird-lit-porno crushes." Jamie Sutcliffe, author and publisher at Strange Attractor ---------- "All the makings of a queer cult classic. Joyfully perverse and perverted." Laura Kaye, author of English Animals ---------- "Reading like a collaboration between Angela Carter and Kathy Acker, this is the kind of pornosophical book we need more of in the world." Jonathan Kemp, author of London Triptych ---------- "A slick, hot, pleasure-filled journey about the possibilities of transformation and the healing the future could hold." Saskia Vogel, author of Permission

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Book SynopsisSix weeks of friendship. A lifetime paying for it.They were the cool girls. Two years older, oozing glamour. She could prove herself worthy of their friendship. She could do the dare.Twenty-five years later, Lucy has a perfect life. She is still friends with the cool girls. All except one. Maddie. The one they never saw again after the dare. They don''t talk about her. They don't think about her. It is as though she never existed untilLucy gets a text from an unknown number. Why didn''t you tell them where I was?The past hurtles into the present and secrets push their way to the surface.Who is the message from? Is Maddie back? Or is someone else set on exposing the truth and seeking revenge?A gripping domestic psych thriller perfect for fans of Shari Lapena, S.E. Lynes and Lisa Jewell.Praise for The Summer Dare:I absolutely LOVED The Summer Dare

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