Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Nobility
Book Synopsis
£7.59
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Running From Roswell
Book Synopsis
£12.59
Everyman The Bascombe Novels
Book SynopsisA trilogy of brilliant novels-The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land-that charts the life and times of one of the most beloved and enduring characters in modern fiction.When we meet Frank Bascombe in The Sportswriter, his unguarded voice instantly wins us over and pulls us into a life that has been irrevocably changed-by the loss of a marriage, a career, a child. We then follow Frank, ever laconic and observant, through Independence Day and The Lay of the Land."In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous god, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems. Shaded lawns lie still and damp in the early a.m." - Independence DayTrade ReviewWith a mastery second to none, Richard Ford has created a character we know as well as our next-door neighbors. Frank Bascombe has earned himself a place beside Willy Loman and Harry Angstrom in our literary landscape, but he has done so with a wry wit and a fin de siècle wisdom that is very much his own * The New York Times Book Review *
£19.00
Everyman Elizabeth Bowen: Collected Stories
Book SynopsisA brilliant and much admired novelist, Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) surpassed herself as a writer of short fiction: 'the supreme genius of her time', writes John Banville in his introduction; 'There is not a story in this substantial volume ... that is not brought off beautifully.' A substantial volume indeed, Including 79 stories written over four decades, ranging in setting from the County Cork of the author's Anglo-Irish childhood to bomb-ravaged London where she coolly sat out the War, evoked with vivid and impeccable artistry. She has a disturbing sense of the uncanny, an acute eye for social comedy and her often emotionally secretive characters are depicted with penetrating psychological insight. She is good at houses, ghosts, children, animals ... 900 pages of sheer delightTrade ReviewShe is a major writer; her name should appear on any responsible list of the ten most important fiction writers in English on this side of the Atlantic in this century. She is what happened after Bloomsbury ... the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Irish Murdoch and Muriel Spark. -- Victoria GlendinningBowen's stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and mystery of the human soul. -- Anne TylerBowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them. -- V. S. Pritchett
£17.09
Everyman The Gold Bat
Book SynopsisWhen O'Hara and Moriarty, two boys at Wrykyn School, tar and feather the statue of a pompous local MP, O'Hara mislays at the scene of their crime a tiny gold bat borrowed from Trevor, captain of the school cricket team. The plot revolves around the fate of this bat and attempts to retrieve it, but the real focus of the novel is a vivid portrayal of school life. Though the setting is an English public school in the years before World War 1, so sharp is Wodehouse's ear for the way children talk that everyone will recognise familiar characters and situations, whatever their place of education.Trade ReviewThe Everyman edition promises to be a splendid celebration of the divine Plum * The Independent *A handsome, collectable hardback edition -- Lynne Truss * The Times *The incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes -- Kate Mosse
£13.50
The Lilliput Press Ltd Youth
Book SynopsisYouth dives into the lives of four teenagers in Ireland's most diverse town, Balbriggan. Angel is about to finish school and discover if Drill music and YouTube fame can deliver on their promises. Princess is battling to escape her claustrophobic surroundings and go to university and Dean is ready to come out from under his famous father's shadow, while Tanya, struggling with the spotlight of internet infamy, is still posting her dream life for all of her faithful followers. Isolated and disorientated by the white noise and seemingly insurmountable expectations of adolescence, our protagonists are desperate to find anything that helps them belong. Oblivious to one another's presence, potential and struggles, they pass each other on the street as strangers. But when their paths cross, the connections they make will change the course of their lives. Twenty-first century life - hyper-sexualized, social media saturated, anxiety-plagued - is here. Living inside its characters' heads, and negotiating their interior landscape, this book is a love song to the possibilities of youth. Using insights gained from the young people he works with, Curran's evocative writing yields the authenticity this novel demands. With instinctive affection and admiration for his characters' strengths and complexities, Youth is a journey through streets less travelled.Trade Review'Kevin Curran's twenty-first century ... is a thrilling dispatch from life lived amid the ruins of idealism.' ROB DOYLE ; 'Kevin Curran ... [writes] with confidence and brio.' COLIN BARRETT ; '"The isolation of whole communities can be glimpsed through stories of marginalised individuals." Kevin Curran exemplifies this idea.' SALLY ROONEY ; '[Curran has] some big things to say about Ireland, past and present.' THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST ; 'Brings an edge of hard-won resolve to his tale while keeping mindful of broader social issues.' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ; ‘Here’s a rasping book, full of the kick and verve of the inner city. Loved the dialogue, the vernacular of working-class Dublin and all the minor and major concerns of youth. It’s easy to forget what it is to be young when looked at from the other end of life but Kevin made me remember the fine line between triumph and disaster with his great writing and love for his characters. Great book.’ KIT DE WAAL
£15.20
Little, Brown Book Group Time After Time
Book SynopsisFROM THE AUTHOR SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE'A considerable achievement' GUARDIAN'Highly recommended' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'Excellent entertainment: an absorbing book' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Durraghglass is a beautiful mansion in Southern Ireland, now crumbling in neglect. The time is the present - a present that churns with the bizarre passions of its owners' past. The Swifts - three sisters of marked eccentricity, defiantly christened April, May and Baby June, and their only brother, one-eyed Jasper - have little in common, save vivid memories of darling Mummy, and a long lost youth peculiarly prone to acts of treachery. Into their world comes Cousin Leda from Vienna, a visitor from the past, blind but beguiling - a thrilling guest. But within days, the lifestyle of the Swifts has been dramatically overturned - and desires, dormant for so long, flame fierce and bright as ever.Trade ReviewA considerable achievement * Guardian *A joy to read * Spectator *Highly recommended * Sunday Telegraph *Excellent entertainment: an absorbing book * Times Literary Supplement *In jugular-poised wit and hilarity: a brilliant comic novel * Kirkus Reviews *A considerable achievement * GUARDIAN *A joy to read * SPECTATOR *Highly recommended * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *Excellent entertainment: an absorbing book * TLS *
£9.49
Saqi Books The Ice People
Book SynopsisIt's the middle of the 21st century, and the next Ice Age has suddenly sent global warming into reverse. Saul is one of the Ice People, the threatened peoples of the northern hemisphere, who, watching their world freeze over, try to move south towards the equator. 'Set in the near future, it imagines not a globally warmed world, but an earth slowly returning to aridity and cold. A universal freeze has also descended upon relationships between men and women, who live in morbid segregation, with feathered robots as sexual partners. In a neat reversal of First World-Third World assumptions, Africa's relative warmth offers a last hope to northerly survivors as the novel charts one man's struggle to rescue his alienated son and bring him to where the sun shines' - Rose Tremain.Trade Review'A fantastic book.' Mariella Frostrup; 'Excellent... intelligent, driven, imaginative, obsessive yet still gracious, one of our best.Exciting stuff.' Fay Weldon; 'Up there with Orwell and Huxley.' Jeremy Paxman; 'A gem of a book.' Rose Tremain; 'A rattling good page-turning yarn.' George Melly; 'Maggie Gee is one of our most ambitious and challenging novelists.' Sunday Times; 'She writes elegantly, unsentimentally, expertly.' The Independent; 'Mordandly witty, unsparing, politically savvy, a beautifully clear and bracing nasty vision.' TLS
£7.99
Alma Books Ltd Men In Space
Book SynopsisSet in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of Communism, "Men in Space" follows a cast of dissolute Bohemians, political refugees, football referees, deaf police agents, assassins and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon's melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters' ellipses and near misses as they career vertiginously through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional and metaphysical. What emerges is a vision a world in a state of disintegration.Trade Review"McCarthy is fast revealing himself as a master craftsman who is steering the contemporary novel towards exciting territories." THE OBSERVER"I, for one, am glad that the independent publishing house Alma Books is brave enough to back such idiosyncratic work." Alastair Sooke THE DAILY TELEGRAPH"Men in Space is a compelling and imaginative philosophical novel" Dan Fox FRIEZE MAGAZINE"a confident and intelligent meditation on failed flights of transcendence." Toby Lichtg TLS
£8.54
New Island Books The Lonely Sea and Sky
Book Synopsis'Myles Foley gripped my soaked jumper. Before his ship sank he was a Nazi: now he's a drowning sailor. Out here, we are all sailors. Your father and grandfather understood that. Are you going to disgrace their memory?' Part historical fiction, part extraordinary coming-of-age tale, The Lonely Sea and Sky charts the maiden voyage of fourteen-year-old Jack Roche aboard a tiny Wexford ship, the Kerlogue, on a treacherous wartime journey to Portugal. After his father's ship is sunk on this same route, Jack must go to sea to support his family swapping Wexford's small streets for Lisbon's vibrant boulevards: where every foreigner seems to be a refugee or a spy, and where he falls under the spell of Katerina, a Czech girl surviving on her wits. Bolger's new novel is based on a real-life rescue in 1943, when the Kerlogue's crew risked their lives to save 168 drowning German sailors - members of the navy that had killed Jack's father. Forced to choose who to save and who to leave behind, the Kerlogue grows so dangerously overloaded that no one knows if they will survive amid the massive Biscay waves. A brilliant portrayal of those unarmed Irish ships that sailed alone through hazardous waters; of young romance and a boy encountering a world where every experience is intense and dangerous, this is Bolger's most spellbinding novel, and the work of a master storyteller who is one of Ireland's best-known novelists, playwrights and poets.
£10.79
Everyman The Raj Quartet - Vol 1
Book SynopsisPaul Scott's epic study of British India in its final years has no equal. Tolstoyan in scope and Proustian in detail but completely individual in effect, it records the encounter between East and West through the experiences of a dozen people caught up in the upheavals of the Second World War and the growing campaign for Indian independence. Book one, The Jewel in the Crown, describes the doomed love between an English girl and an Indian boy, Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. This affair touches the lives of other characters in three subsequent books, most of them unknown to Hari and Daphne but involved in the larger social and political conflicts which destroy the lovers.On occasions unsparing in its study of personal dramas and racial differences, the Raj Quartet is at all times profoundly humane, not least in the author's capacity to identify with a huge range of characters. It is also illuminated by delicate social comedy and wonderful evocations of the Indian scene, all narrated in luminous prose.Trade ReviewNot many of E. M Forster's readers could have imagined then that his book's theme -- relations between Europeans and non-Europeans -- would soon become an acute human and literary concern. The topic has recurred often enough in fiction since then, but never, to my knowledge, has it been treated as brilliantly as it is in Paul Scott's novel, The Jewel in the Crown * The New Yorker *
£17.00
Kaya Press Where We Once Belonged
Book SynopsisA bestseller in New Zealand and winner of the prestigious Commonwealth Prize, Sia Figiel's debut marks the first time a novel by a Samoan woman has been published in the United States. Figiel uses the traditional Samoan storytelling form of su'ifefiloi to talk back to Western anthropological studies of Samoan women and culture. Told in a series of linked episodes, this powerful and highly original narrative follows 13-year-old Alofa Filiga as she navigates the mores and restrictions of her village and comes to terms with her own search for identity. ”A story of Samoan puberty blues, in which Gauguin is dead but Elvis lives on.” –Vogue Australia ”A storytelling triumph.” –Elle Australia
£12.34
Diffusion Barcelona Away: What comes first, football or
Book SynopsisMatt loves going to the pub to watch football and drink with his mates. Actually being in the stadium when the action kicks off is even better. But after a match the crowd can get violent, and soon Matt will have to decide between his love for the game and his love for his daughter. SERIES INFORMATION This page-turning story is part of the Diffusion books range, written especially for older teenagers and adults who want to improve their reading skills. Easy-to-read, with short chapters, the books in the series enable learners to improve their reading confidence and tackle longer stories. They are also a brilliant choice for anyone learning English as an additional language. The books also include discussion and reflection questions that help readers to understand the story and to reflect on their own lives and relationships. Buying this book will support our project to help people in prison improve both their reading skills and their life chances. To find out more visit https://spckpublishing.co.uk/diffusion-books
£7.59
Cranthorpe Millner Publishers If You Don't Know...: An Act Of Love Betrayed
Book Synopsis'If you don't know, I don't know...' 'Things not discussed can never be recorded and therefore have never taken place.' Those were the last words Michael Butler said to his younger son, Jeff, on a Saturday evening in August before Jeff left on holiday. Jeff could not have imagined that events would unravel so fast from there, starting with the suicide of his father by hanging in their garage later that night and leading to a surprising trip to Hungary, where his father had been working for an international organisation and had become involved in investigating the trafficking of Roma girls into the sex trade. As far as Jeff was concerned, the act of suicide causes such indescribable pain for those left behind that for anyone to even contemplate the act was inexcusable. An act of love betrayed. But was his father really responsible for taking his own life?
£9.49
Canelo Blood Roses
Book Synopsis''Jackson''s hero is the natural heir to Bernie Gunther'' Andrew Taylor, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ashes of London''One of the UK's finest crime writers' Ben Kane, Sunday Times bestselling author of Napoleon's Spy''A remarkable crime debut'' Maxim Jakubowksi, Crime TimeAs the Nazis roll into Warsaw, a serial killer is unleashedSeptember 1939. A city ruled by fear. A population brutalised by restrictions and reprisals. Amid the devastation, another hunter begins to prowl. What are a few more deaths amid scores of daily executions?Former chief investigator Jan Kalisz lives a dangerous double life, forced to work with the occupiers as he gathers information for the fledgling Polish resistance. Even his family cannot be told his true allegiance.When the niece of a Wehrmacht general is found terribly mutilated, Jan links the murder to ot
£9.49
Canelo In the Shadows of Love
Book SynopsisA truly remarkable ride through a Pakistan I never knew with one of the foremost talents in the genre.'' Imran MahmoodA life hiding her heartbreak. A message that will change her world.To strangers that pass her on the streets of Lahore, Mona Ahmed lives a life to be envied. Married to wealthy businessman Bilal, with happily married children and living in a vast home with staff to attend to her every desire, she seems to want for nothing.But behind the gilded exterior lies a past of secrets and heartbreak. While they may have weathered the storm of Mona's infidelity, with Bilal embracing the child born out of that secret love affair, their marriage remains shaky.While Mona's heart is broken with memories of her lost soulmate, she hides her pain behind becoming the perfect wife, hosting glamorous, high-profile gatherings for the rest of Lahore's high society, keeping up appearances for fear of inviting gossip.Each d
£9.49
Cornerstone Runaway Wife
Book SynopsisROWAN COLEMAN is the Sunday Times bestselling and award winningscreenwriter and author of sixteen novels including THE MEMORY BOOK, THE SUMMER OFIMPOSSIBLE THINGS, THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW and FROM NOW UNTIL FOREVER.Rowan lives in Scarborough with her husband, large family and three dogs.
£9.49
Cornerstone The Other Sister
Book Synopsis'A writer I'd follow anywhere' Katie Fforde'It's so lovely to find an author you love' Marian Keyes 'Such a brilliant writer' Jill Mansell_________________________Willow and Holly are identical twins. As close as two sisters can be. But whilst Holly has seemingly breezed through life as the good twin', Willow has always seen herself as less than perfect. And though she puts on a brave face to the world, she's been hiding her unhappiness for too long. When secrets from the past threaten catch up with her, Willow realises it's finally time to face her fears head on. And with her sister's help learn to laugh, and live, once more. ___________________________Praise for Rowan Coleman's bestselling novels:I've always loved Rowan's writing' Lucy DillonBeautifully written' Daily MailThere is a lovely smooth glow to the writing' Matt HaigEpic . . .' Red MagazinePainfully real and utterly heartbreaking wonderfully uplifting' Lisa JewellStupendous' Lucy DiamondUtterly life affirming' Jen
£9.49
Troubador Publishing A Murderous Affair
Book SynopsisSet in London, Norfolk's Blakeney, and Suffolk's Southwold, Orford and Aldeburgh, A Murderous Affair? is a scandalous, thrilling, and humorous tale written from a mistress's perspective which recounts her relationship, the changes in social and sexual habits around her and so much more.The protagonist describes her relationship with the man she has fallen in love with, who cheats on her as well as his Tory MP wife, over twenty years in the eighties into the noughties. The mistress offers ridiculous, funny, painful anecdotes and vignettes as she recounts the start of their relationship and how it blossomed even as she was being betrayed. Along the way, she muses on the loneliness of being a mistress, what it is like to be the third person in a marriage and in turn what it feels like to be cheated on, as well as aging and other musings about life in general. As the years push her to the edge, does she casually and unwittingly take what she might think is her revenge, only to discover her lover or even his wife has been one step ahead of her?
£10.44
Troubador Publishing Ltd Downhill Without Brakes
Book SynopsisDownhill Without Brakes is set in newly democratic South Africa, as the shine is wearing off Mandela's rainbow nation'. The country grapples with rampant AIDS, mass unemployment and huge racial inequalities.Social change impact's the two main characters and their relationships, as each struggles to stay afloat in turbulent times.Ezekiel Mabuza, popular doorman at Durban City Hall, he has lost one son to AIDS, the other in township violence and his wife to cancer. He firmly believes that he will lose his daughters next.Ben Gallagher, city museum director, is trying to hold on to a shaky marriage and keep the museum going in straightened circumstances, while training for the Comrades marathon and fending off a municipal workers strike. A visit by wealthy Swedish grant-givers is disrupted by a startling incident between Ezekiel and Ben, with drastic consequences.Downhill Without Brakes is a poignant novel that traces how one fateful incident changes the lives of both men forever.
£10.44
Troubador Publishing Coming Clean
Book SynopsisA political thriller in which a Bulgarian maid discovers career-destroying secrets about the likely next British Prime Minister. Can she reveal the truth about him, without coming clean about her own life?
£9.49
Seagull Books London Ltd Pathologies
Book SynopsisOne of the first novels to openly explore gay love and eroticism, Pathologies is a lost classic that is now translated into English for the first time. At the start of the twentieth century, Jewish anti-Zionist Jacob Israël de Haan led an eventful life as a poet, journalist, teacher, and lawyer in the Netherlands. His autobiographical novella Pipelines caused a storm of controversy in 1904 with its portrayal of a subject that was considered scandalous at the timea romantic relationship between two young men. He lost his teaching job, and the entire print run was pulped. In his iconic 1908 novel Pathologies, he once again openly and radically explored the topic of homosexuality. The story centers around adolescent Johan, who lives a secluded life with his father and their elderly housekeeper in a large house. For a while, Johan has been plagued by erotic fantasies about his classmates. When, to make matters worse, he finds himself feeling attracted to his fatherfirst in a dream,
£18.04
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Mystery of Haverford House
Book Synopsis''A delicious Big House mystery mirrored from one timeline to the next I was swept along in this seductive story sewn together with Shakespeare and secrets!'' Amanda Geard, author of The Midnight House and The Moon Gate''I was swept away, desperate to unlock the mystery... I really couldn''t have enjoyed it more... gorgeous... atmospheric... page-turning plot... it might just be Rachel Burton''s best novel yet!'' Jenny Ashcroft***A captivating and moving tale of love, the true meaning of home, and the haunting secrets that can bind generations. 1933. Annie Bishop is sixteen years old when she first climbs the steps of Haverford House ready to take service as a maid. She knows her place until, during a summer of high society, she crosses paths with wealthy America heir, Thomas Everard. In his arms, Annie dares to dream of a different life. Until she vanishes without a trace.<
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Man Who Lost His Shadow
Book SynopsisIn this remarkable novel, Fathy Ghanem follows the life of Yusif Abdul Hamid who, by fate or bad intentions, inflicts misery on everybody he touches.The Man Who Lost His Shadow tells the story of a struggling journalist through the eyes of the people whose lives he ruined.Muhammad Nagi: a newspaper editor who is preparing himself for a life-changing promotion until Yusif steals it right from underneath him.Mabruka: a young peasant girl pressured to marry Yusif''s father before being left abandoned to support her son alone.Samia: an aspiring actress who is drawn into a relationship with Yusif but ultimately forced to miss her final chance at stardom.As his victims'' lives overlap in unexpected ways, Yusif remains unwittingly at the very centre. It is only as their revenge draws closer that we finally hear his own side of the story...''[Yusif is] an enigmatic blend of idealism and cunning hypocrisy.'' N
£15.29
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Illuminated
Book Synopsis'One of the best books for 2023' Cosmopolitan Against a rising tide of fundamentalism in India, a mother and daughter lose the most important man in their lives. Shashi, fifty-something and suddenly widowed, tries to contact her only daughter, Tara, to break the news, but cannot reach her. As Shashi confronts her loss, she finds, amidst grief, unexpected new freedoms. Meanwhile, Tara, a spoiled but brilliant university student, has retreated to Dharamsala to deal with the fall out from an ill-advised relationship. Her self-imposed solitude makes contact near impossible, so by the time she learns of her loss, the funeral is already over. Without the man that bound them, Shashi and Tara struggle to reconcile. But his absence also makes them a target for an emerging religious group determined to put women in their place, and Shashi and Tara individually prepare to defend their independence. If mother and daughter are to come together, they must find a way to understand both their new world, and each other. But can you ever emerge from an eclipse unscathed? 'Lyrical throughout yet so deceptively easygoing... an extraordinary novel' André Aciman 'Powerful, evocative and accomplished – it's hard to believe The Illuminated is a debut' Alice Ryan 'Gives voice to a new generation’ BBC Radio 4Trade ReviewAn extremely elegant work, an interesting take on the universality of feminism from a uniquely Indian perspective.’ * Irish Independent *A clever nuanced debut novel * Platinum Magazine *'One of the Best Books for January 2023!' * Cosmopolitan *'Lyrical throughout yet so deceptively easygoing... The Illuminated is an extraordinary novel' -- André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name'A novel of such self-assurance one can scarcely believe it is the author's first' -- Shanta Gokhale'An incisive portrayal of the abusve and exploitation that thrives as duty, perhaps even attraction, in relationships' -- Shubhangi Swarup'Sad and funny and wise, The Illuminated is one of those books that will make you hug your loved ones tight' -- Akhil Sharma‘Powerful, evocative and accomplished – it’s hard to believe The Illuminated is a debut.’ * Alice Ryan *One of the best debuts, a must-read for 2023! * Harper's Bazaar Australia *
£9.49
Granta Publications Ltd Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
Book SynopsisA HAUNTING COLLECTION OF STORIES THAT WEAVES HAWAIIAN MYTHOLOGY WITH A RICH SENSE OF PLACE This wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonisation. This is a Hawai'i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth. A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman's fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase. Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.Trade ReviewIn Every Drop is a Man's Nightmare, the enormously talented Megan Kakimoto gives us her Hawai'i, as bright as blood, as dark as blood. It's a book about beauty and brutality, love and threat, home and estrangement, as original and fearless a book as I've read in years. It does not pull its punches; it's altogether a knockout. Eleven knockouts, one KO for every story -- Elizabeth McCracken, author of THE SOUVENIR MUSEUMKakimoto's bold and haunting stories are brilliant on the mysterious and potent languages of the body, and on the enduring power of the stories that shape us. Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare is a stunning debut -- Laura van den Berg, author of I HOLD A WOLF BY THE EARS and THE THIRD HOTELMegan Kakimoto is an extraordinary writer - compassionate, insightful, fiercely funny and super-smart - and Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare thrums with intelligence, wisdom and wild originality. A tremendous debut by a writer who, lucky for us, has only just begun -- Molly Antopol, author of THE UNAMERICANSLyrical collisions of superstition, folktales, and modern Hawaiian culture saving itself in the face of cliches. Desire and confusion are rarely far apart in these powerful coming-of-age stories that prove it is possible to be many things, all the time, all at once -- Amy Hempel, author of SING TO ITMegan Kakimoto is one of those rare writers who has mastered both story and sentence. The women in this story are audacious, resilient, and unforgettable-they have my whole heart -- Kimberly King Parsons, author of BLACK LIGHT
£11.69
Granta Publications Ltd The Hole
Book SynopsisA woman moves to live with her in-laws in the Japanese countryside in this haunting and surreal novel featuring a mysterious relative, an elusive hairy creature, and lots of strange holes - from the author of Weasels in the Attic
£11.69
Bonnier Books Ltd Better Left Unsent
Book Synopsis'Laugh-out-loud, heartwarming tale' BETH O'LEARY'Pure romance magic' CHRISTINA LAUREN 'Beyond wonderful, so funny, so sweet' LINDSEY KELK Millie Chandler is known at work as the nice receptionist who got dumped by the company hotshot, and ever since then, she has vowed to keep everything to herself - her feelings, her hopes, and especially her fears. But Millie does have an outlet: her emails. From sarcastic replies to her rude boss, rants to friends about their terrible taste in men to a five-hundred-word love declaration to her ex, who three years on, is about to marry someone else. Millie's reality lives in her drafts until the morning she discovers that they are somehow in her sent folder. The truth is out.As every dark secret she's worked so hard to keep password protected is released, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused.Will Millie find the strength to open b
£9.49
Pushkin Press Overstaying
Book SynopsisAn isolated woman clashes with an enigmatic visitor in this funny,jagged parable about alienation,difference and hospitality.
£10.44
Canongate Books Awaydays
Book SynopsisI am the product of a blank generation. I live for kicks. I live for me.Birkenhead, 1979. The Pack, a violent mob of Stanley-knife-wielding football hooligans, follow their team across the Northern wastelands to their away games - earning a reputation as the nastiest crew in the Third Division. For the young working-class men with no way out, their lives revolve around the fashion, the music and the mayhem. But for two of them, Carty and Elvis, escaping towards a different future might mean leaving each other behind.Quickly gaining cult status when first published, Awaydays is both a powerful evocation of a time and a culture, and a poignant coming-of-age story about finding your identity, escaping your circumstances and the unspoken intensity of male friendships.
£9.49
Les Fugitives Nativity
Book SynopsisStudded with five gouache drawings by Louise Bourgeois, this erudite, witty fable by the acclaimed author of Now, Now, Louison (2018) considers the ambiguous figure of the baby Jesus and its representation in the artistic canon.' 'One day in 2007,' recalls Jean Fremon about a visit to artist Louise Bourgeois's studio, 'I discovered an entirely new series of drawings.... silhouettes of women with embryos in their wombs, drawn with a brush full of water and red gouache. These drawings were, for me, the most poignant of her long career.'Trade Review'How should one paint the baby Jesus? This deceptively innocent question runs the length of Jean Fremon's Nativity, a fictional work that takes as its subject the first painter to represent the saviour of humankind without his swaddling clothes. The book is a miniature portrait in itself, running for fewer than 50 pages and punctuated by a series of evocative drawings by the artist Louise Bourgeois. With the bells of Christmas ringing faintly in the distance, Nativity offers a stylish, expressive new study into artistic representations of Christianity's founding story.' - The Arts Desk; 'Fremon's decision to focus on a painter and his mission brings something very personal to the history encompassed within this short essay (...) [t]he five paintings by Bourgeois are made up of red brushstrokes, and depict the more human side of the Christmas story: a child swelling in the womb, a birth, a hungry newborn (...) The reflections are compelling and lucidly composed; in contrast the representations offered by Bourgeois are carnal, showing that for all the divine wonder of the Nativity, it is also the story of a first-time mother giving birth in extraordinary - and probably terrifying - circumstances.' - Helen Vassalo, Translating Women; 'A perfectly pitched medley of fact and fiction' - Times Literary Supplement; 'The nativity that Fremon's work is deeply indebted to and preoccupied with is that of artistic ideas - the naissance of a way of thinking, of seeing, of representing - and the cultural precedent they subsequently set in motion. (...) Fremon's inclusion of Bourgeois' drawings not only speaks directly into art history's marked exclusion and omission of women from this tradition, but also rights it by having Bourgeois have her say on birth and motherhood.' - Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou, Lucy Writers; Praise for Jean Fremon: 'Jean Fremon is a wholly singular artist, a writer who lives in the radiant zone where poetry, philosophy and storytelling meet.' (Paul Auster); 'Like all the most urgent poetry, it is "fragile and momentary, but momentarily invincible.' (John Ashberry); Praise for Now, Now, Louison (Les Fugitives, 2018): 'A truly wonderful book... The spider woman, the intellectual, the rebel, the sly enchantress, and the good girl sing together in this exuberant, lithe text beautifully translated by Cole Swensen. There is something uncanny at play in this small book, something I don't fully grasp, but I suspect that elusive, haunted excess may be exactly why I love it.' (Siri Hustvedt); 'A sensitive portrait of a woman whose struggle for self- definition came to drive her artistic practice.' (Financial Times (Best Books of 2018, Translated Fiction)); 'A perfectly pitched medley of fact and fiction.' (Times Literary Supplement); 'Perhaps life, this life, any life, is best preserved in its many bits, just as it was lived.' (Frieze); 'This enchanting short book (...) is simultaneously a love letter, an elegy, a poem, a novel, a fictionalised biography.' (Michele Roberts, for The Tablet's Best Books of 2018); 'A compulsive, daringly perceptive, sometimes astringent exploration of the role, power and symbolism of maternity, fertility, sublimation and reality, ecstasy and happiness, silence and the overcrowding bustle of belonging; of hysteria and emotionality, of how to give material substance to presence, to nothingness and the void.' (Bookanista); 'Cole Swensen's greatest accomplishments in Now, Now, Louison stem from her complex engagement with the relationship between fidelity and translation.' (Asymptote); French reviews: 'Jean Fremon brings Louise Bourgeois close up into a fascinating and moving proximity.' (ArtPress); 'The life of Louise Bourgeois is rendered in ellipsis, quick brush strokes, and a mix of associations of ideas and of sensations waltzing with chronology. A highly original, sensitive text.' (Liberation).
£10.44
Les Fugitives Poetics Of Work
Book SynopsisI was trying not to think about looking for work, which is immoral, I wasn't hoping to earn a living, which is pretty unusual, I couldn't have cared less about the cash, which is reckless in these times of very grave threats, but I was scraping a living already, which was repugnant, on the miniscule royalties from a thickwit novel, which is scandalous, which I'd created from the stories of a brilliant and brittle grand dame of theatre, survivor of a romance full of stereotypes, which makes you think though I don't know what about.' Sparring with the spectre of an over-bearing father, torn between the push to find a job and the pull to write, the narrator wanders into a larger debate, one in which the troubling lights of Kafka, Kraus, and Klemperer shine bright. Set against the backdrop of police brutality and rising nationalism that marked the state of emergency following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, Poetics of Work takes a jab at the values of late capitalism. Hence these ten 'lessons to today's young poets' - a blistering treatise of survival skills for the wilfully idleTrade Review‘Poetics of Work by Noemi Lefebvre, translated by Sophie Lewis, is set against the backdrop of terrorist attacks and rising nationalism in France. It takes the form of exploratory reflections on philosophy, poetry, language and work, interspersed with conversations with the narrator’s Socratic “superego” father. The narrator finds relevant insights in Kafka, Kraus and Klemperer, only to slam against the brick wall of her father’s gruff, everyman logic. It’s a neatly-made point: perhaps civilisation, with all its nuance and complexity, is too easily out-muscled by simpler arguments, even wrong ones. The book’s propositions are refreshingly low-tech. We are spared facile arguments about the role of the internet in all this, in favour of considering the deeper roots of societal darkness and its palpability in real life.’ - Ronan Hession, Irish Times; 'A smart, timely, and novel manifesto for poetics in the age of personal and political patriarchy.' -Joanna Walsh, author of Break.up; 'This experimental novel is partly a tongue-in-cheek manifesto for poets and partly a Socratic dialogue with a superego called Papa, who thinks poetry is pointless. An unnamed, genderless narrator wanders around Lyon, smoking joints and questioning society's ideas of usefulness. ... They read obsessively about the Third Reich and see echoes in the xenophobic tenor of contemporary France, hinting that capitalism and fascism share a disregard for anything considered unproductive.' - New Yorker; 'Lefebvre's shiftless narrator searches for the place of poetry in a world gone mad, where the "culture sector is a graveyard for the soul's repose." ... an interior monologue filled with sharp observations, hysterical asides, and a sincere search for personal truth. Lefebvre succeeds in mapping out an unquiet mind in the midst of crisis.' - Publishers Weekly; 'Noemi Lefebvre refines a form of vital poetic resistance that ultimately liberates a strange and subversive political animal, half orang and half utan. At once lyrical and feverish, Poetics of Work will do you a power of good.' -Le Monde des livres; 'Lefebvre writes like a hiker who enjoys nothing more than staying where they are, following dead ends or winding, risky paths.' - Les Inrockuptibles; 'Lefebvre stands up to the language of capitalism. She invents her own to elude the law of market forces, which exists in the name of the father. In doing so, she insinuates herself between the lines of the dominant discourse, swimming against the tide of prevailing neoliberalism and its categorical imperatives.' - L'Humanite
£9.49
Weatherglass Books Cold New Climate
Book SynopsisAt thirty-seven, Lydia has been with the middle-aged Tom for over a decade, and she is bored. Yet when he leaves her, she is surprisingly devastated, and makes contact with Tom's nineteen-year-old son, Caleb, fresh out of his third stint of rehab. Spare, lyrical & shot through with an unflinching wit, this book announces a major new talent.
£10.44
No Alibis Press Seed
Book Synopsis
£13.50
Muswell Press The Final Round
Book SynopsisOn the morning after Boat Race Day, a man's body is found in a nature reserve beside the Thames. He has been viciously stabbed, his tongue cut out, and an Oxford college scarf stuffed in his mouth. The body is identified as that of Nick Bellamy, last seen at the charity quiz organised by his Oxford contemporary, the popular newsreader Melissa Matthews. Enter DI Garibaldi, whose first task is to look into Bellamy's contemporaries from Balfour College. In particular, the surprise 'final round' of questions at this year's charity quiz in which guests were invited to guess whether allegations about Melissa Matthews and her Oxford friends are true. These allegations range from plagiarism and shoplifting to sextortion and murder...Trade Review'Gripping, heartening, a captivating read' John Carey, The Sunday Times. 'An ingenious page turner' John Harding The Daily Mail. 'Absolutely gripping' John Carey. 'You're in for a treat'. Tie Crime Club. “A fine, twisting mystery, the real pleasure lies in seeing Garibaldi dismantle the murderous self-interest of the London upper-middle classes.” Mail on Sunday. “Another country music loving detective on the scene!” Mark Billingham. “Don’t miss it. Highly recommended” Liz Barnsley. “Crime fiction fans are in for such a treat, a terrific read” Anne Cater. “A breath of fresh air in the police procedural world” Girl With All The Crime Books.
£11.69
Les Fugitives Down with the Poor!
Book SynopsisOver the course of a night in police custody, a young woman tries to understand the rage that led her to assault a refugee on the Paris metro. She too is a foreigner, now earning a living as an interpreter for asylum seekers in the outskirts of the city. Translating the stories of men and women who come from her country of birth, into the language of her country of citizenship, Sinha's narrator finds herself caught up in a tangle of lies and truths. Armed with an acerbic sense of humour she exposes prejudices on all sides.Trade Review'A *provocative and visceral* book about class, caste, fear and self-loathing, exposing the real generational damage Imperialism wreaks on brown minds. Shumona Sinha gets inside the skin of an everyday woman turned monster by the system: *her voice grips the imagination and does not let go.*' - *Preti Taneja*, author of Aftermath; 'A novel *as singular in its subject matter as in its language and unbridled energy*. Through the poetic force of her writing, Sinha brings a broken world to burning point.' - *Le Monde*; 'Sinha lays bare so much of the nuance and violence imposed on individuals by the systems in the world meant to keep certain people down.' - Emma Ramadan, translator of Me & Other Writing by Marguerite Duras; 'Shumona Sinha's singular voice takes us into the nauseating world of bureaucracy, without heroes or pure-hearted victims. She does not condemn anyone, or perhaps she condemns everyone. Welcome to the real world.' - Grazia; 'Indian poet Shumona Sinha has transformed Baudelaire's poetic provocation into a strange and blazing reflection on violence.' - Marianne; 'The accuracy and power of her innovations in vocabulary and metaphor are striking. There is Kafka and Duras in these pages. But also Pascal Quignard whose reflection on the Greeks' belief in the fundamental freedom to go wherever one wants is emphasised at the start of this beautiful novel. Sinha has taken it as the alpha and omega of her writing, enriched with a dazzling and original poetic vitality.' - Tirthankar Chanda, Radio France Internationale; 'A harsh lucidity, often misunderstood by those who, like Sinha, come from far away, looking for a better world. She is similar yet different. And that is the heart of the question - the knot, which she is trying to untangle, of her belonging and her rejection. It is both fascinating and gratifying.' - Quinzaine litteraire; 'A striking book, infinitely harsh on exile, on society and its mirrors, its wounded memory. The author describes the nightmare of aimless wandering and the pain of being reduced to a bureaucratic checklist.' - Telerama; Further praise for Shumona Sinha; 'A seasoned novelist, Shumona Sinha travels between past and present, public unrest and private histories' - L'Express, for Calcutta; 'Longstanding tensions and bewildering modernity: the narrator sifts through the ashes before roaming through "the clutter of dreams". She succeeds in creating an intimate, nostalgic and serious book; a journey to her birthplace, her family and her abandoned language which is also the story of her country's political history.' -Telerama, for Calcutta
£11.69
Les Fugitives The Child Who
Book SynopsisIn an anonymous French village a child loves to wander a forest where his mother may have disappeared. His father is speechless with anger; his grandmother is concealing her own story.Trade Review'The Child Who beautifully explores the power and powerlessness of language, but I was struck most of all by its haunting depiction of intergenerational silence, and the way we have to live with those silences.' - Tash Aw, author of Strangers on a Pier; 'Aching, tender and luminous, The Child Who explores the splitting of the self that can occur in response to grief. Finding beauty even in the most painful dynamics, this is a humane and moving story touched by a transcendent lyricism.' - Jessica Traynor, author of The Quick; 'Mystical. A slow hand walking you into a forest. I come to it to think about loss, absence and longing, what can never be ours.' - Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House; 'A poetic exploration of the presence of absence in a family's life, tracking grief in all its melancholy intangibility. Jeanne Benameur writes with uncommon beauty, perceptiveness and subtlety.' - Ronan Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul; 'For those with the sensibility to respond to its poetic voice, Jeanne Benameur's L'enfant qui and the excellent English translation by Bill Johnston have the power to change lives. Existential beyond any philosophical system, the book carefully, lyrically explores the phenomenon of being as it occurs in each of three unnamed family members in an unnamed French village at an unnamed time.' - Lynn Hoggard; '[The Child Who] is driven by reflections on the love between parent and child and between husband and wife. And then there's a first-person narrator who talks to the child directly: "I'd like to say to you that the world is immense and lovely, that there's a path for you too."' - John Self, Guardian Best Recent Translated Fiction; 'Prose that approximates the condition of poetry... Benameur's particular strength lies in her ability to give a distinctive voice to the voiceless.' - Michael Cronin, Irish Times; 'Jeanne Benameur's work is carved out of silences. Her characters use few words, while she chooses her own with a parsimony that increases their impact tenfold. Suffused in mystery, this novel-about what makes a family, how a personality emerges, how one learns to inhabit the world-is fashioned from a poetry as startling as its title.' - Raphaelle Leyris, Le Monde; 'It's a brief story, but a prodigiously compact one-the hallmark of all Jeanne Benameur's books. It's impossible to say enough good things about her, for the loveliest assessments will never adequately convey her talent.' - Mohammed Aissaoui, Le Figaro; 'A work of startling beauty.' - Xavier Houssin, ELLE; 'A marvel.' -Claire Conruyt, Le Figaro Litteraire
£10.44
Les Fugitives May the Tigris Grieve for You
Book SynopsisRural Iraq, during the war against the so-called Islamic State. A pregnancy out of wedlock. The young woman knows her fate is sealed. In crystalline prose May the Tigris Grieve for You enters the minds of all protagonists, before and after death; fragments of the legend of Gilgamesh, the Mesopotamian hero who carries along the memory of the country and its people, punctuate the family members' short monologues, spaced with the mythical voice of the Tigris River, who has seen it all.; Inspired by her experience of Iraq's complex reality and brutal wars, Malfatto delivers an uncompromising yet compassionate insight into a rigid society ruled by fathers and sons, a world in which life matters less than honour. Winner of the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman 2021.Trade Review'A chorus of a novel with a rare intensity... here honour rhymes with horror. Each page is dazzling.' - Le Figaro Litteraire;'With masterful lyricism and elegant language, Emilienne Malfatto gives an account of one of the intimate tragedies that so often pass unnoticed between falling bombs' - Liberation; 'Approaching the tragedy of femicide from the inside, Emilienne Malfatto brings a stripped back lyricism to these destinies of submission.' - Livres Hebdo; 'The writing is simple, the sentences often short and arresting. The story comes swift and powerful, a true literary achievement.' - France Info Culture; 'A long poem in prose, like a fable, or Greek tragedy. A beautiful book, and beautiful first novel.' - France bleue radio; 'A hard-hitting tale of many voices, that is strong, moving and painful in equal measure.' - Femmes ici et ailleurs; 'A first novel that reads raw, laid bare, short and hard-hitting. A taut tragedy, like a rope that we know is fragile, threatened by obscurantim, the weight of tradition and taboo. A deep dive into present day Iraq.' - Bernard Magnier, Le francais dans le monde
£10.44
Zaffre The Mistake: Perfect for fans of T.M. Logan and
Book SynopsisA gripping new page-turner, perfect for fans of T.M. Logan, Liane Moriarty and C.L. Taylor.___________'I absolutely loved this novel . . . I didn't want it to end!' Liane Moriarty, bestselling author of Big Little Lies'I was turning the pages well into the night. I loved it' Sarah J. Naughton, author of The Mothers'Fantastically funny yet creepily menacing' Harriet Walker, author of The New Girl___________Two sisters. One mistake. A thousand consequences.Kate and Bec are sisters, but they could not be less alike. Bec lives the perfect life: perfect house, perfect husband, perfect children. That is, until she meets Ryan - ten years her junior, wild and exciting, his arrival makes her question everything.Her sister Kate's life is anything but perfect. Her modelling career ended suddenly over a decade ago; and since then she's lived a lonely existence. But when she meets tall, kind, funny Adam, things start to look up. Yet something doesn't quite add up, and as he avoids Kate's questions, she begins to wonder if he really is too good to be true . . . .But as tensions mount and secrets are revealed, which sister is about to make the wrong choice? And what if some mistakes just can't be put right?A novel about mistakes and choices, relationships and forgiveness, The Mistake will have you gripped to your seat. Not since Liane Moriarty have we met such sharp, sassy characters and been captivated by such a suspenseful, tantalising read.Trade ReviewAn amazing, irresistible read . . . I couldn't put this down! * Jaclyn Moriarty *Addictive storytelling from an exciting new talent * Fiona McIntosh *I absolutely loved this novel: fresh, funny and heartfelt. I didn't want it to end! * Liane Moriarty *The Mistake fits so much in - brilliantly drawn characters, witty asides and twists and turns that make you race to the end. Whether you're rooting for them or wanting to shout at them, the sisters' lives are ones you want to keep reading about. I loved it. It totally got me out of my lockdown reading slump! McMahon writes like a dream. * Asia Mackay *I was turning the pages well into the night. I loved it - that undercurrent of menace, but never quite knowing where the menace is coming from * Sarah J. Naughton *What a treat to read! The Mistake is an intelligent thriller with heart and guts - fantastically funny yet creepily menacing. Brilliantly written and immersive, it's a wonderful tale of what it means to be a sister, a mother, a wife and a lover in a world that judges on first appearances - and sometimes bears a grudge * Harriet Walker, author of The New Girl *
£8.54
Zaffre The Country Village Allotment: Escape to Little
Book SynopsisA heartwarming and uplifting summer read for fans of Heidi Swain and Phillipa Ashley, by the author of The Country Village Christmas Show, The Country Village Summer Fete and The Country Village Winter Wedding. At eighty-two years old Zelda Grey is tired. Tired of how much slower she is physically and mentally. Tired of technology. Tired of being alone since her beloved cat, Flint, died just before Christmas. And tired of life. The only thing that brings Zelda joy these days is her allotment in the gorgeous village of Little Bramble, where she has lived her whole life, and her three cranky goats.Widow Mia Holmes always loved visiting Little Bramble Allotment with her husband, Gideon. But since his death she can't motivate herself. Despite putting on a brave face for her three sons and four grandchildren, she's reached breaking point, and isn't sure she can carry on. And history teacher Liz Carter thought she had it all. The perfect job, perfect boyfriend in Rhodri and the perfect wedding to plan. Until she found Rhodri in bed with the neighbour. Holed up in her sister's box room she wonders how it all went so wrong. As she wallows in her misery, her sister takes her in hand and drags her to Little Bramble Allotment and suddenly she discovers the wonders of planting, growing and getting her hands dirty.In an increasingly lonely world, these three women strike up an unlikely friendship and find that community, female friendship and the wonders of nature can truly be powerful healers.Trade ReviewA wonderfully uplifting tale about the healing power of friendship. Cathy Lake is my go-to for feelgood romantic fiction. * Sarah Bennett *Little Bramble is the perfect country village. Brimming with community spirit and warmth. * Phillipa Ashley, author of A Perfect Cornish Escape *A heartwarming and charming story about love, friendship and village life. * Holly Martin, author of Ice Creams at Emerald Cove on The Country Village Summer Fete *A lovely summery read full of family, friendship and the feel good factor! * Bella Osborne, author of One Family Christmas on The Country Village Summer Fete *A fabulous slice of village life! * Heidi Swain on The Country Village Christmas Show *
£8.54
Zaffre Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life: 'An absolute joy'
Book Synopsis'Touching, tender . . . filled with wonderful humour' Sarah Haywood'A very special book' Katie FfordeThe Sunday Times bestselling novel, perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and The Rosie Project.My name is Hope Nicely. Why am I writing this book? That's easy. This book is going to change my life.My boss, Karen, says a friend is a stranger you haven't met yet. I think that's right. Veronica Ptitsky and Danny Flynn are strangers, except I have met them now because they 're in my writing class. But I don't want any friends, actually (only dog ones).I have my mum, Jenny Nicely, who says adopting me was the best thing she ever did, even if my thoughtsbounce a bit differently to other people'sExcept when my life does change it isn't because of my book but because something happens to my mum, Jenny Nicely, and she isn't here anymore. And, flip a pancake, I'm not very good at being on my own.Maybe I do need some human friends after all . . .'A gorgeous, funny, heartwarming read. Leaves you smiling' Ericka Walker, author of Dog DaysTrade ReviewHope Nicely's Lessons for Life is a sunburst of a story, full of love, kindness and one of the sweetest, most engaging central characters you're likely to meet. I was drawn in from the very first page by Caroline Day's sensitive portrayal of Hope Nicely's inner voice; as I followed Hope on her mission to make sense of the present, to uncover the past and to write her book, I found myself sharing in her triumphs and frustrations, her laughter and tears. It's a touching, tender story, but Hope Nicely's wonderful humour and delicious honesty mean that it's never sentimental. An absolute joy * Sarah Haywood bestselling author of The Cactus *I can't even find words to say how much I adore Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life! A heart-bursting book, full of tears, laughter and hope. Gorgeously written with an incredible protagonist and I cannot recommend it enough, it's FABULOUS * Jessica Ryn, author of The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside *How I wish Hope had been in my writing class. A gorgeous, funny, heartwarming read. Leaves you smiling * Ericka Waller, author of Dog Days *A very special book. Hope is extremely endearing and her rules for life relevant for us all. Really enjoyable * Katie Fforde *Hope is a bit different - she has Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and is on a mission to discover her birth Mum, who she hopes will answer the difficult questions of why she was abandoned as a baby. Her unique experience of the world will warm your heart with Hope's character and dialogue so well crafted by Day. A novel that reads as if Hope is sat with you. A book of acceptance, kindness and ultimately hope * My Weekly *I loved it! A sharply drawn character with beautiful soft edges who has lessons in her for all of us * Anstey Harris *A gorgeous, funny, heartwarming read. Leaves you smiling * Ericka Waller *This touching, uplifting debut novel oozes heart, and you'll fall in love with Hope, sharing in both her success and her sadness. * Daily Mirror *If you loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, this book is for you. * Sunday Mirror *Uplifting and touching, if you loved Eleanor Oliphant, this is for you. * Fabulous, The Sun on Sunday *This touching, big-hearted debut is funny, sensitive and has lessons for us all about optimism and perseverance * The Mail on Sunday *A gorgeous tale about love, acceptance, and living your best life no matter what * The Sun, PICK OF THE WEEK *A book full of hope, friendship and acceptance * Woman's Weekly *Captivated from the very first page! Perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Hope's story will stay with you long after the final page * NFOP magazine *
£8.54
Zaffre Begin Again
Book SynopsisDespite living firmly in her comfort zone, Frankie McKenzie feels unsettled. She can't help feeling something's missing. Is it a home to call her own? Travel? A more rewarding job? A relationship? Before she can work it out, she dies in a freak accident after yet another dud of a first date. But life isn't over for Frankie. Instead, she is offered a second chance: Frankie can revisit key moments from her past to see if different choices will lead to the fulfilling life she's always dreamt of. What would you change if you could begin again?Praise for Helly Acton:'A romcom with a difference' Sarra Manning'Genius, funny and thought-provoking. 5 stars' Carrie Hope Fletcher
£9.49
Zaffre Time After Time: The must-read novel from Sunday
Book Synopsis'A warm, witty novel about love and friendship with a fun time-travel twist' HELLO Magazine Number one bestselling author Louise Pentland is back with her brand new novel that will make you laugh, make you cry and thoroughly charm you!Sometimes you have to go back, to move forwards.Tabby is stuck. She still lives in the small town she grew up in . . . the town she's barely ever left.So, when her dad drops a bombshell over their weekly Sunday dinner, Tabby takes a look at her own life. She lives firmly in her comfort zone and doesn't know how to break out. Sometimes she wishes she could go back and start all over again.When she meets Bea, a free spirit like no one else she's ever known with an 'interesting' sense of style, Tabby quickly befriends her, recognising in Bea the change she's been craving. But soon it becomes clear that more has changed than her new friend. Somehow Tabby has been transported back to the 1980s.With the chance to reinvent herself in another time, will Tabby finally manage to move forward?'Full of hope and courage and sisterhood' Emma B, Magic FM
£8.54
Canongate Books The Fugitives
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, a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King, sets out to revive the band. All too soon an unlikely group are on their way, knowing the eyes of their country are on them. As they move 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.Trade ReviewEngaging tale of an old Khartoum jazz band who reform to play a gig in America . . . Mahjoub weaves in interesting political and ethnic themes, amid some lovely writing about friendship and music * * Observer * *A novel of regeneration through music and the secret hunger of quiet lives. It is an immersive, humorous and powerful novel from a truly great writer who deserves a very wide audience -- CHIGOZIE OBIOMAA terrific work of fiction . . . Mahjoub moves his characters around one another and the events they've brought upon themselves with the command and finesse of a master storyteller who knows he has his audience enthralled . . . A truly humane story of love, hope, and faith. An exhilarating, profoundly moving, musical romp. I loved it -- MIRZA WAHEEDA rip-roaring adventure from Khartoum to Harlem and an ode to jazz, creativity and freedom of expression . . . a heartfelt and touching book * * Bad Form * *Humorous * * Cosmopolitan * *(A) powerful treatise on music and memory * * Open Country Magazine, Books of 2021 * *Heartwarming * * Africa Report, Must-Read Literary Books of 2021 * *The Fugitives offers readers a remarkable and entertaining story of a band of Sudanese musicians travelling far from home . . . Mahjoub's skill positions the Kings' playing as a practice that, as well as being magical, is a bridge, a form of profound resistance: "this isn't an orchestra; this is an army" -- Camilla Delhanty * * Africa in Words * *Praise for Jamal Mahjoub: Mahjoub writes with sensitivity and intelligence, and with a deft feel for the complexity of his material -- ABDULRAZAK GURNAH * * Wasafiri * *Praise for A Line in the River: A wonderfully subtle exploration of place, identity and memory * * Guardian * *
£9.49
Canongate Books Black Sunday
Book SynopsisA fierce and fresh debut novel, set over the course of two decades in Nigeria, about sisterhood, fate and female resistanceTwin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife and their father gambles away their home, and the siblings are thrust into the reluctant care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother. Inseparable while they had their parents to care for them, the twins' paths diverge once the household shatters: one embracing modernity as the years pass, the other consumed by religion. Written with astonishing intimacy and wry attention to the fickleness of fate, Black Sunday delves into the chaotic heart of family life. In the process, it tells a tale of grace in the midst of daily oppression, and of how two women carve their own distinct paths of resistance.Trade ReviewSimultaneously unique and universal . . . Black Sunday is a literary wound that bleeds pain for a while, but you should stay the course, because that's followed by lots of love, beauty and hope * * NPR * *A beautiful, deeply affecting debut. Smart and incisive. Abraham's robust tale of twins forging separate paths is a must read -- IRENOSEN OKOJIEA searing debut novel about Nigerian twin sisters whose childhood bond is shattered by the political and social strife that impoverishes their family. As the decades pass, with all four of the family's children hurtling down painful, divergent paths, Abraham explores deeply felt themes of violence, kinship, and self-reliance * * Esquire * *Rich and immersive. It's a striking debut, bold and stylish, but also subtle and tender -- ANJALI JOSEPHTola Rotimi Abraham's sharp, captivating debut thrums with the energy of life itself. The story of a family and a city reeling from wounds both private and political, Black Sunday delivers unforgettable characters as they adapt to often cruel circumstances and fight to author their own futures. Abraham writes with such irresistible confidence and startling precision, I can't wait to see what she does next -- MIA ALVAR * * author of In the Country * *With stunning beauty and painful wisdom, Tola Rotimi Abraham's Black Sunday lays bare her characters' deepest aches and desires in a voice that is as haunting as it is addictive -- MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON * * author of The Revisioners * *In a confident, moving debut novel, Abraham unflinchingly presents women trying to make their way through a soul-destroying culture of corruption and sexual exploitation, finding strength in the scattered moments when her characters rise above their predicaments with grace and determination * * Herald * *An assured and worthy debut, Black Sunday finds lyricism in the swell of everyday betrayal. In Abraham's hands, the coming-of-age novel mourns the easy perversion of sex, love, ambition, and faith, glimpsing, nevertheless, twin moments of grace and intimacy, daring and strength -- TRACY O'NEILL * * author of The Hopeful * *In a fresh and fierce debut, Tola Rotimi Abraham proves that it's an act of indelible resistance every time a young woman tells her story. Through the eyes of a family at its brink, Abraham reveals the truth about violence, tenderness and the disquiet in between. Black Sunday is a surprising switchblade of a novel -- AMY JO BURNS * * author of Cinderland * *Beautiful, bold and brilliant * * Heat * *
£8.54
Canongate Books Look For Me and I'll Be Gone
Book Synopsis'This is truly inimitable storytelling' Observer'[A] master of language' New York TimesA boy stands alone, unable to enter the room in which his grandfather's coffin lies. Freddie Jackson's song 'You Are My Lady' plays on the car radio as a son is brought to a prison cell in Arizona. A narrator contemplates the Atlanta child murders from 1979.Look For Me and I'll Be Gone is vital reading for anyone interested in the state of America today. Historical and contemporary, intimate and expansive, the stories here represent a pioneering writer whose innovation, form and imagination know no bounds.Trade ReviewThis is truly inimitable storytelling. No one writes an American horror story like John Edgar Wideman * * Observer * *Master of language . . . Wideman has always been less interested in what a story tells than how it gets told, how the telling shapes our perception of our world. In works that erode the boundaries between fiction, memoir and essay, Wideman explores the impulses that drive storytelling itself, returning to some enduring themes and formal devices * * New York Times Book Review * *Wideman is one of the great tragedians of American literature . . . This collection, Wideman's artistic consummation, is also the site of his unravelling, and there are moments of unbearable vulnerability when the author puts aside his great gifts to lie down in the rag and bone shop of the heart * * Wall Street Journal * *Philosophical, ruminative and alive with wordplay . . . In each story, Wideman illustrates just how intricately the past is interwoven with the present, and there is plenty here to satisfy fans of captivating literary storytelling * * Booklist (starred review) * *A book that demands and deserves attention * * Scotsman * *Look for Me and I'll Be Gone, a short-story collection that draws fluidly from his personal life, is John Edgar Wideman's extended farewell to outrage . . . The book's style is so deceptively modest it stares you down and waits for you to realise it's cut your heart out while you coasted along on the calm surface of the syntax into a seething indictment of every aspect of society * * 4Columns * *Wideman's stories have a wary, brooding spirit, a lonely intelligence. They carry a real but atrophied affection for America. He airs the problems of consciousness, including the fragile contingency of our existence -- Dwight Garner * * New York Times on You Made Me Love You * *Praise for American Histories: The stories in American Histories read like an immense jazz riff . . . The acutely immersive world of American Histories is irresistible, and these profoundly moving stories will haunt you long after you've finished reading * * Guardian * *Wideman's rage against American injustice and racial prejudice burns magma-hot in his latest short stories . . . Immensely powerful . . . Challenging, animating, enlivening and electrifying; it does what literature should do. It's a bruising experience that leaves you feeling vulnerable and excited and alive * * Spectator * *Wideman's stories range widely over experiences from slavery to the present day . . . All are illumined by a searching intelligence and a willingness to test the boundaries of the short story form * * New York Times * *
£10.44
Canongate Books None of This Is Serious
Book Synopsis'Extraordinary' Naoise Dolan'Seriously good' Louise NealonDublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. Then, at a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen. None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary novel. None of This Is Serious brilliantly explores the impossibility to "come of age" in end times, where screens are so contiguous to experience that no-one is ever truly online or offline. She writes truthfully and with affectless nuance about the labyrinthine workings of friend groups and the defences women scramble for in a world that still hates us -- NAOISE DOLAN, author of EXCITING TIMESI inhaled None of This Is Serious. I've been waiting for a fictional story that reflects the all-consuming influence that the Internet has on my life. None of This Is Serious is that story. A compulsively readable, fresh and painfully accurate description of the way we live now. Don't let the title fool you. It is serious. Seriously good -- LOUISE NEALON, author of SNOWFLAKEEdgy . . . [Prasifka] has a painfully raw and acute gift for catching the way things are * * Sunday Times * *I absolutely LOVED this novel. Beautifully crafted -- EMMA GANNON, author of OLIVEFortunately, [Prasifka] doesn't need any sprinkling of Rooney's fairy dust; she makes her own magic. In the seriously good None of This is Serious, the 26-year-old author conveys what it's like to be a young woman today navigating life in Dublin and online . . . She is an astute observer of the social dynamics of her generation * * Irish Times * *A beautifully written original take on how we're all guilty of taking refuge online as the world around us becomes increasingly confusing * * Stylist, Fiction Books You Can't Miss in 2022 * *[A] funny, endearingly heartfelt debut * * Daily Mail * *As we adapt to our increasingly online lives, Catherine Prasifka's debut is the antidote we never knew we needed. We meet Sophie, Prasifka's ultra-relatable protagonist, at a precarious time in her life: leaving university. What happens next is a worthy reminder that Instagram /= reality * * Glamour, Best Books of 2022 * *None of This Is Serious is brilliant - so devastatingly precise about being a young woman living in Ireland and online today, moving deftly between sharp, hilarious observations and heartbreaking, enraging moments -- CLAIRE HENNESSY, author of LIKE OTHER GIRLSNone of This Is Serious is such a compelling novel, and Sophie is such a relatable character - reading her story felt like one of those meaningful and immersive conversations you can only have with a stranger at 3am in the toilets of a dingy club, all hearts laid bare. At times agonisingly close to the bone, Catherine Prasifka's debut novel is an exquisitely unnerving portrayal of who we are and how we live -- KATIE HALE, author of MY NAME IS MONSTER
£9.49
Canongate Books The Millstone
Book SynopsisWinner of John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Millstone is a radical celebration of the mother-child relationship. It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show of independence, and becomes pregnant as a result of a one-night stand. Although single parenthood is still not socially acceptable, she chooses to have the baby rather than to seek an illegal abortion, and finds her life transformed by motherhood.'Rosamund is marvellous, a true Drabble heroine' - Sunday TimesTrade ReviewI have learned so much from Margaret Drabble's work. Her prose is very beautiful, very funny, and at the same time very serious. Novels like The Millstone and Jerusalem the Golden have helped me to understand what great writing can be -- SALLY ROONEYA beautiful book - and a momentous one * * Guardian * *The novelist who will have done for late twentieth-century London what Dickens did for Victorian London * * New York Times * *A timeless fable about the condition of womanhood . . . Drabble's vision of woman's fate remains challenging, controversial, relevant and profound -- ELAINE SHOWALTERRosamund is marvellous, a true Drabble heroine * * Sunday Times * *The Millstone is a delight and Rosamund Stacey a witty, candid chronicler * * Daily Express * *Wry and witty * * New Republic * *The novel is a paean for motherhood * * Guardian * *The Millstone illuminated a path that could lead forwards a future * * Irish Times * *She writes not about exemplary women, but about real ones * * New York Times * *
£999.99
