Fiction: literary and general non-genre

Book SynopsisWritten by 'a sublimely elegant historical novelist as addictive as crack' (Daily Telegraph), the Inspector Troy series is perfect for fans of Le Carré, Philip Kerr and Alan Furst.Vienna, 1934. Ten-year-old cello prodigy Meret Voytek becomes a pupil of concert pianist Viktor Rosen, a Jew in exile from Germany.The Isle of Man, 1940. An interned Hungarian physicist is recruited for the Manhattan Project in Los Alomos, building the atom bomb for the Americans.Auschwitz, 1944. Meret is imprisoned but is saved from certain death to play the cello in the camp orchestra. She is playing for her life.London, 1948. Viktor Rosen wants to relinquish his Communist Party membership after thirty years. His comrade and friend reminds him that he committed for life...These seemingly unconnected strands all collide forcefully with a brazen murder on a London Underground platform, revealing an intricate web of secrecy and deception which Detective Frederick Troy must untangle.Trade ReviewJohn Lawton finds himself in the same boat as the late Patrick O'Brian - a sublimely elegant historical novelist as addictive as crack but overlooked by too many readers for too long. * Daily Telegraph *Admirable, ambitious and haunting, this is the sort of thriller that defies categorisation. I look forward with enthusiasm to the next one. * Spectator *John Lawton's books contain such a wealth of period detail, character description and background information that they are lifted out of any category. Every word is enriched by the author's sophistication and irreverent intelligence, by his meticulous research and his wit. * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis“This funny and fresh take on a classic tale manages to comment on gender roles, racial disparities, and white privilege all while creeping me all the way out. So good.”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black GirlNow in paperback, Steel Magnolias meets Dracula in this New York Times best-selling horror novel about a women's book club that must do battle with a mysterious newcomer to their small Southern town.Bonus features: • Reading group guide for book clubs • Hand-drawn map of Mt. Pleasant • Annotated true-crime reading list by Grady Hendrix • And more! Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor's handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in. Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.Trade ReviewThe New York Times Best SellerA Barnes & Noble Best Fiction Book of 20202021 Locus Award FinalistA Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist#1 April 2020 LibraryReads PickApril 2020 Indie Next PickAmazon Best Book of April 2020A Library Journal Editors' Pick for April 2020The A.V. Club Best Book of April 2020A POPSUGAR Best Book for Book Clubs 2020One of Good Housekeeping's 30 of the Scariest Horror Books Ever WrittenOne of Town & Country’s 50 Best Horror Books“This funny and fresh take on a classic tale manages to comment on gender roles, racial disparities, and white privilege all while creeping me all the way out. So good.”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl “Ghosts of the past have also inspired one of the most rollicking, addictive novels I’ve read in years: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, a tale of housewives battling vampires that is sweetly painful, like hard candy that breaks a tooth.”—Danielle Trussoni for The New York Times Book Review“A delight...its incisive social commentary and meaningful character development make The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires not just a palatable read for non-horror fans, but a winning one.”—USA Today, 3.5 out of 4 star review“Funny, gruesome, and wild, this rollicking novel from horror luminary Grady Hendrix is Desperate Housewives meets Dracula.”—Esquire“Delightful read that reads like Dracula set in the '90s American South....Perfect for fans of horror and real-life crime alike.”—Good Housekeeping“The novel is a charming testament to friendships and life's imperfections, with dashes of rot and savagery to earn its keep in horror literature....It's a rollercoaster [that] lands as a vampire story concreted in vileness and Southern charm.”—Fangoria“[Hendrix] remains excellent at staging page-turning sequences of excitement and anxiety...[and] a master of adding little details that fill in the landscape of his Southern-fried world.”—The A.V. Club“As fun (and as creepy) as the title suggests….This novel will definitely whet your appetite if you’re looking for something a bit eccentric and spooky.”—BuzzFeed“This book should be required reading for all Southern women....[It] transports you back to all the best parts of the 1990's while throwing more than enough thrill and chill into the mix.”—Country Living “[A] clever, addictive vampire thriller....This powerful, eclectic novel both pays homage to the literary vampire canon and stands singularly within it.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review“Hendrix cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he's a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet. Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review“Hendrix has masterfully blended the disaffected housewife trope with a terrifying vampire tale, and the anxiety and tension are palpable...a cheeky, spot-on pick for book clubs.”—Booklist, starred review

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Book SynopsisRichard Russo's new novel takes place in the decaying American town of North Bath over the course of a very busy weekend, ten years after the events of Nobody's Fool. Donald 'Sully' Sullivan is trying to ignore his cardiologist's estimate that he has only a year or two left. Ruth, his long-time lover, is increasingly distracted by her former son-in-law, fresh out of prison and intent on making trouble. Police chief Doug Raymer is tormented by the improbable death of his wife, while local wiseguy Carl Roebuck might finally be running out of luck. Filled with humour, heart and hard-luck characters you can't help but love, Everybody's Fool is a crowning achievement from one of the great storytellers of our time.Trade Review[T]he roguish, ragtag residents of North Bath, New York, still prove a diverting lot, even if you've not previously made their acquaintance...there's never a dull moment as the tragi-farcical events gradually snowball, with lightning strikes, an escaped cobra and attempted murder along the way. * Daily Mail *A delightful return . . . to a town where dishonesty abounds, everyone misapprehends everyone else and half the citizens are half-crazy. It's a great place for a reader to visit, and it seems to be Russo's spiritual home. * New York Times *The Fool books represent an enormous achievement, creating a world as richly detailed as the one we step into each day of our lives. . . . Sully in particular emerges as one of the most credible and engaging heroes in recent American fiction. -- T.C. Boyle * New York Times Book Review *A madcap romp, weaving mystery, suspense and comedy in a race to the final pages. * Wall Street Journal *Richard Russo can write like Edith Wharton leavened with a touch of David Lodge * The Economist *A writer of great comedy and warmth, Russo's living proof that a book can be profound and wise without aiming straight into darkness. * USA Today *

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Book SynopsisRichard Russo's slyly funny and moving novel follows the unexpected workings of grace in a deadbeat town in upstate New York - and in the life of one of its unluckiest citizens, Sully, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years.Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its sly and uproarious humour and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool is storytelling at its most generous.Trade ReviewNobody's Fool is big, funny and richly human, a garrulous book that buttonholes you in the first few pages and does not let you go... In Sully, Russo has created a character you cannot resist. * Financial Times *Like Anne Tyler, Russo is interested in how people rub along; in kindness and responsibility; in cutting slack without being asked...Russo makes an enormous job of story-telling look effortless. He is, in all the best senses of the word, a natural. * Sunday Times *A rude, comic, harsh, galloping story of four generations of small-town losers, the best literary portrait of the backwater burg since Main Street. -- Annie ProulxRusso lifts a generous slice of middle America in all its flavours... Nobody's Fool is a great-hearted, unforgettable comedy in the best tradition of John Irving and Anne Tyler. * Vogue *This is a novel of charm and wit, akin to the works of Alice Hoffman, Anne Tyler and Garrison Keillor. * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisBiblioasis is thrilled to continue this series of beautifully illustrated, collectible, classic Christmas ghost stories designed and illustrated by world-famous cartoonist Seth.In How Fear Departed the Long Gallery, for the Peverils, the appearance of a ghost is no more upsetting than the appearance of the mailman at an ordinary house. Except for the twin toddlers in the Long Gallery. No one would dare be caught in the Long Gallery after dark. But on this quiet and cloudy afternoon, Madge Peveril is feeling rather drowsy . . .E. F. Benson was the English writer of the Mapp and Lucia series.

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Book SynopsisLondon, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis - a curious, obsessive boy - she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge. On arrival, they hear rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist, is enthralled, convinced that what the locals think is a magical beast may be a yet-undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter's vicar, who is also deeply suspicious of the rumours, but thinks they are a distraction from true faith. As he tries to calm his parishioners, Will and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves at once drawn together and torn apart, affecting each other in ways that surprise them both.Trade ReviewThe Essex Serpent is a novel to relish: a work of great intelligence and charm, by a hugely talented author -- Sarah WatersHad Charles Dickens and Bram Stoker come together to write the great Victorian novel, I wonder if it would have surpassed The Essex Serpent? No way of knowing, but with only her second outing, Sarah Perry establishes herself as one of the finest fiction writers working in Britain today. -- John BurnsideA big, warm, generous novel that wears its considerable wisdom lightly, The Essex Serpent is an absolute pleasure from start to finish - I truly didn't want it to end. -- Melissa HarrisonThe Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry [is] a joyous and beguiling book that wrapped itself around me rather like its eponymous monster. -- Cathy RentzenbrinkA blissful novel of unapologetic appetites, where desire and faith mingle on the marshes, but friendship is the miracle. Sarah Perry has the rare gift of committing the uncommittable to prose - that is to say: here is a writer who understands life. -- Jessie BurtonA book to make you want to be a better person. -- Justine Jordan, The GuardianI loved this book. At once numinous, intimate and wise, The Essex Serpent is a marvellous novel about the workings of life, love and belief, about science and religion, secrets, mysteries, and the complicated and unexpected shifts of the human heart - and it contains some of the most beautiful evocations of place and landscape I've ever read. It is so good its pages seem lit from within. As soon as I'd finished it I started reading it again. -- Helen MacDonaldA sinuous historical novel by the genius that is Sarah Perry -- Lucy Mangan * Stylist *An historical novel with real depth ... Perry writes fantastically, and this deserves attention for the rest of the year. -- Steven Cooper * The Bookseller *One day this book will make a fine BBC period drama ... Perry is a wonderful descriptive writer with a remarkable talent for making the familiar strange ... Her accounts of open-heart surgery carried out half a century before antibiotics, or an autistic child questioning the nature of sin, or a soldier's wedding in the phthisic slums of Bethnal Green, snatch the breath in your throat. Perry bleeds light into darkness and back again with a mastery born of her deep professional acquaintance with the gothic tradition. -- Oliver Moody * Times *The Essex Serpent is a work of historical fiction, set in the 1890s, which, for originality, richness of prose and depth of characterisation is unlikely to be bettered this year ... a remarkable novel. Although Will and Cora provide the focal points for her story, Perry has packed The Essex Serpent with a rich array of equally rounded characters to hold our attention. The novel is full of vivid set pieces ... it is Perry's ability to conjure up a sense of entire lives unfolding before our eyes that is most impressive. Filled with wisdom about human behaviour and motivations, and written in a distinctive, stylish prose, The Essex Serpent is one of the most memorable historical novels of the past decade. -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *One for the holiday suitcase. A historical romance with a gothic twist ... expect to spot a copy on beach towels this summer. * Vogue *An irresistible novel that taps the vein of Victorian gothic and British myth * Daily Telegraph *It's prompted comparisons to both Dickens and Bram Stoker and marries the former's abhorrence of injustice with the latter's genius for unsettling atmosphere ... Hardy-esque ... a rich and complex novel but also a deeply enjoyable read, with warm humanity at its core. -- Jeff Robson * iPaper *An irresistible novel ... Perry's Victoriana is the most fresh-feeling I can remember ... Her prose is often beautiful ... the tone is a masterstroke ... You feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Hilary Mantel channelled by Perry in some sort of Victorian séance. This is the best new novel I've read in years. It's the kind of work that makes you alive to the strangeness of the world and of our history. -- Charlotte Runcie * Daily Telegraph *Engaging ... On the book's cover, John Burnside compares The Essex Serpent to Dickens and Stoker. But it was one of my favourite novels, Alasdair Gray's Poor Things (1992), that kept coming back to me ... Perry takes apart our preconceptions of prim Victorian mores with similar gusto ... The Essex Serpent is a historical novel with an entirely modern consciousness, and is every bit as gripping and unusual as its predecessor. -- Alex Preston * FT *The Essex Serpent is frightfully good. -- Susan Hill * Twitter *An intelligent, lushly written gothic yarn ... Reading it makes you want to hotfoot it to the Essex coast. -- Claire Allfree * Metro *Everything they're saying is true: sumptuous, beautiful, powerful, engrossing, brilliant. -- Nina Stibbe * Twitter *A lovely book ... it sets out unashamedly to lift the spirits ... The writing has a gorgeous lilt ... The method is itself Victorian - an omniscient narrator scattering sackfuls of sympathy - but the message never gets old: the world is poorer if we don't put ourselves in each other's place once in a while. -- Anthony Cummins * Spectator *Sarah Perry's new novel The Essex Serpent is a thing of beauty inside and out. I don't think I've ever mentioned a book's cover in a review before, but Peter Dyer's William Morris-inspired design is stunning, a tantalizing taste of the equally sumptuous prose that lies within ... When it comes to historical fiction, Perry's achieved the near impossible; she's created a novel and within it a world that seems to have sprung complete and fully formed directly from the period in question - a long lost fin-de-siècle Gothic classic - but her characters are as enticingly modern as they are of their period ... Perry also showcases the most beguiling evocations of landscape ... For only a second novel it's a stunning achievement, one for which I predict prize nominations galore, from the Wellcome to the Man Booker -- Lucy Scholes * Independent online *A richly themed and exhilarating novel ... this poetically written story dramatises the clash between rationality and resurgent superstition, between desire, morality and the intellect, and the struggle of reformers to redress the poverty of late-Victorian society. -- Elizabeth Buchan * Daily Mail *Sarah Perry has written an exquisitely absorbing, old-fashioned page-turner peopled by memorable characters, particularly the magnificent, stubborn and wilful Cora. Perry also captures a society on the brink of a profound shift, uncomfortably reassessing its view of the world through the prism of scientific progress. The Essex Serpent is shot through with such a vivid, lively sense of the period that it reads like Charles Dickens at his most accessible and fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell will also find much to love in this engaging, entertaining Gothic novel. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Daily Express *A novel of ideas, and flexes its muscles in addressing multiple concerns of the period ... The novel probes at both private emotion and public concerns, and is engrossing and immersive. The grime of London is only surpassed by the murk of Aldwinter. Cora makes for an indelible heroine: uncompromising, funny and smart, and not unlike Alma Whittaker in Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things. There will also be whispers of Dickens or a gamut of 19th century novels of similar size and scale, but Perry's voice and story are her own. Her language is exquisite, her characterisation finely tuned. Based on The Essex Serpent and its predecessor, it's clear that Perry is a gifted writer of immense ability. -- Sinéad Gleeson * Irish Times *A Victorian-era gothic with a Dickensian focus on societal ills, Perry's second novel surprises in its wonderful freshness. There's a sense of Llareggub about close-knit Aldwinter, its flint church, historic oak and ribby shipwreck instantly present, while the tapestry of voices that results from the use of letters amplifies the Under Milk Wood echo. Perry's singular characters are drawn with a fondness that is both palpable and contagious, and the beautifully observed changing seasons permitted space to breathe, all making for pure pleasure. -- Stephanie Cross * Observer *An eerie tale of science and superstition ... gothically good. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express *It's 1893, and Cora Seabourne is a young widow whose husband's death has released her from a miserable marriage. Finally free to follow her own interest in natural history, Cora heads to Essex, hoping the recent reports of a mysterious ancient serpent may possibly turn out to be proof of a "living fossil . . . a species outwitting extinction". There she meets the local vicar, Will Ransome, and despite his scepticism about science and her lack of faith in religion, the two forge an unlikely bond. A bewitching and luminous book about science, faith and different kinds of love. -- Anna Carey * Irish Times *Dazzling * Woman and Home *The Essex Serpent is rare in being a novel that is both highly diverting and intellectually rewarding, in taking its thematic interests seriously while playing delightedly with romance and the Gothic. -- Sarah Moss * The Lancet *Sarah Perry...beautifully and deeply...elucidates friendships of all kinds in her books...I must recommend the delicate beauty and sinuous power. -- Lucy Mangan * Stylist *It's a brilliantly written story of one woman's life and relationships in late Victorian England and my favourite historical novel since Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. -- John Meagher * Irish Independent *A graceful and intelligent book. -- Maria Croce * Daily Record *The Essex Serpent is probably the best novel I have read this year. It is the right kind of literary fiction: full of ideas, challenge, and intrigue, but with a compelling narrative that tows you through the pages like a freight train...Perry has created an ensemble of characters so richly drawn that each could warrant a novel in his or her own right...invigorating, fascinating, and hugely enjoyable. -- Malcolm Doney * Church Times *My stand-out novel of the year is The Essex Serpent...It's about love, faith and myth. I loved it. -- Jenni Murray * Radio Times *The eponymous serpent makes its presence felt throughout, but this novel is about much, much more than a winged demon terrorising the Essex countryside, and is all the richer for it. -- Kate Foley * Living North *One of the most-loved books of the last two years...Perry's descriptions of Essex bring to life the beauty of one of our more under-appreciated counties. * Emerald Street *The Essex Serpent has been hailed as a modern classic, and for good reason. It's an esoteric, whimsical book that joins the ranks of generations of Victorian and Gothic novels from Doyle to Shelley, all the while defying the very traditions these books have set down... The perfect book to read as you sit in an overgrown garden, or while tramping through the heath. * The Edinburgh Reporter *A Notable Book of 2017 * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION Ginger is in her forties and a recovering alcoholic when she meets and marries Paul. When it becomes clear it's too late for her to have a baby of her own, she tries to persuade him to consider adoption, but he already has a child from a previous marriage and is ten years older than her, so doesn't share her longing to be a parent at any cost. As a compromise, they sign up to an organisation that sends poor inner-city kids to stay with country families for a few weeks in the summer, and so one hot July day eleven year old Velveteen Vargas, a Dominican girl from one of Brooklyn's toughest neighbourhoods, arrives in their lives, and Ginger is instantly besotted. Bemused by her gentle middle-aged hosts, but deeply intuitive in the way of clever children, Velvet quickly senses the longing behind Ginger's rapturous attention. While Velvet returns her affection, she finds the intensity of it bewildering. Velvet's own passions are more excited by the stables nearby, where she discovers she has a natural talent for riding and a deep affinity with the damaged horses cared for there. But when Ginger begins to entertain fantasies of adopting her, things start to get complicated for everyone involved. This is a heartbreakingly honest and profoundly moving portrait of the nearly unbridgeable gaps between people, and the way we long for fairytale endings despite knowing that they don't exist.Trade ReviewGaitskill's work feels more real than real life and reading her leads to a place that feels like a sacred space. * Boston Globe *Penetrating ... confronts, head-on, white privilege and black victimhood. * Daily Mail *Gaitskill's novel is not a children's book, but it is a book about what children long for, and how we long for the same thing many years after we've left childhood behind * The New York Times *Velvet is that most wonderful of fictional creations: a convincing child who manages to be a captivating and perceptive narrator. * New Yorker *Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful. * GQ *A poignant, beautiful coming of age story about race, class and motherhood. * Women and Home *A thoroughly compelling read ... redemptive and moving, The Mare offers as much fresh air for the author (and the reader) as it does for her characters. * Spectator *A timely examination of the pains and pleasures that follow one woman's attempt to bridge the yawning gap of understanding between two races. * Sunday Express *Emotionally complex voices crafted with skill and sensitivity. * Mail on Sunday *Her voice captures a child's mixture of insight and innocence ... As a model for getting back in contact with the natural world, this is a delirious dream. As an acknowledgment of what human beings fail to offer each other, it comes closer to being a nightmare. * Times *A novel about race, class and, as Gaitskill's convincingly drawn characters show how different worlds collide, the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the two in America. * Daily Express *The Mare is a dark, dreamlike novel, at times nightmarish, at others offering glimpses of the sublime, shocking in its raw depiction of violence, and beautiful in its evocation of flawed love. * Financial Times *a devastatingly good novel * psychologies magazine *Here, without a drop of condescension, is fiction that pumps blood through the cold facts of inequality * Washington Post *The range of Gaitskill's humanity is astonishing and matched only, it seems, by a desire to confront readers with the trembling reality of our shared ugliness * LA Times *

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Book SynopsisINTRODUCTION BY RODDY DOYLE'He brought everyone down to earth, even the angels' LEONARD COHENCharles Bukowski is one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. The autobiographical Ham on Rye is widely considered his finest novel. A classic of American literature, it offers powerful insight into his youth through the prism of his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, who grew up to be the legendary Hank Chinaski of Post Office and Factotum.Trade ReviewHe brought everyone down to earth, even the angels -- LEONARD COHENIn an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad * * Observer * *Sometimes funny and always sad, Ham on Rye is written in an admirably hard, bare, vivid style * * Times Literary Supplement * *Both powerful and, where appropriate, extremely funny * * Sunday Telegraph * *Reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable * * The Times * *A scorching account of a childhood, adolescence, a life of ugliness, pain, escape, alcohol, loneliness. Often it is's funny - often it's disturbing - Ham on Rye is a powerful book -- RODDY DOYLEA Laureate of American low life * * Time * *This great novel is Bukowski's supremely honest account of a twisted childhood -- Howard Sounes * * author of Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life * *The Thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right -- SEAN PENNRaunchy yet lyrical, occasionally hilarious while abysmally sad * * San Francisco Chronicle * *We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up? -- BILLY COLLINSThere is a real poignancy in the people encountered in Bukowski's work * * New York Times Book Review * *

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Book SynopsisThe discovery of centuries old human bones; a haunted 12th century house; a medieval legend spawning a modern cult... Merrily must piece together a most insidious mystery.'No-one in the business deals with the spooky stuff better.' - Crime Review UK'She dragged herself back up, holding her scraped hands inside the sleeves of her parka like paws. As she came to her knees, a sound like laughter was chopped up by the wind, and the woman was back . . .'A legend of the undead, still seductive, still deadly. A storm unearths a medieval corpse in the old city of Hereford, and the past returns to menace diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins.Trade ReviewBedtime reading is sorted - Merrily is back. * Andrew Taylor *Intelligent rationalists will enjoy the way Rickman engages with the supernatural. * The Times *No-one in the business deals with the spooky stuff better. * Crime Review UK *Rickman's series is gaining a mass of fans with each book. This one will keep you entranced until the final page. * Crimesquad *

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Book SynopsisCAULDRON by Diane Carey On the spaceship Umiak, an elite troupe of cadets is forced into servitude by an unscrupulous captain taking the ship to a smuggler's rendezvous. During the transaction aboard the eerily silent Virginia, the cadets unwittingly transport an unexpected cargo: a hive of hibernating aliens. As the aliens begin to awake, a terrifying battle erupts between the cadets, the smugglers, the captain, and the emergent monsters. The cadets soon realize that in space, no one can hear them scream. STEEL EGG by John Shirley Before Ripley, there was a first encounter. Someone on Earth knew about the aliens. Someone battled them, and survived. Aliens and humans have fought before. When a human spaceship discovers a vast egg-shaped vessel in Saturn's orbit, they zero in to investigate the anomaly. They force their way aboard, finding evidence of an advanced civilization of peaceful creatures, now eradicated by an unknown foe. Three teams split up to explore the ship. But already the aliens have awoken. The first of all the battles unfolds...Trade Review"The novels in these Omnibuses span the width and breadth of the Alien universe, stretching its boundaries and giving it a marvelous depth of detail" - BookRiot

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Book SynopsisJim Francis has finally found the perfect life – and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he’s a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary.But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies – and, most alarmingly, his former self – Francis seems to have other ideas.When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband’s violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly. The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel – ultra violent but curiously redemptive – and it marks the return of one of modern fiction’s most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.Trade ReviewBack to his violent best… Dark, gruesome and captivating. -- Sam Parker * Esquire *It’s a thriller in the mode of Tarantino making war films or westerns; hiding grand themes within genre. -- Alan Bett * Skinny *Intense, electrifying… Welsh has delivered a tremendously entertaining book – a whodunit, a thriller, and a probing character study – that’s obsessed with conflict, both physical and mental… A surprisingly poignant, evocative read – highly recommended. * Mr Hyde *In a year when filming begins on Danny Boyle’s sequel of sorts to Trainspotting, it seems perfect timing to revisit its most visceral force. * Skinny *[Begbie’s] intelligence and instinct make him compelling, and Welsh keep the plot roaring along… This is a dark, guilty pleasure and written with – it seems to me – the cinema screen in mind. -- Kate Muir * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThe Covenant mission is the most ambitious endeavor in the history of Weyland-Yutani. A ship bound for Origae-6, carrying two thousand colonists beyond the limits of known space, this is make-or-break investment for the corporation—and for the future of all mankind. Yet there are those who would die to stop the mission. As the colony ship hovers in Earth orbit, several violent events reveal a deadly conspiracy to sabotage the launch. While Captain Jacob Branson and his wife Daniels complete their preparations, security chief Daniel Lopé recruits the final key member of his team. Together they seek to stop the perpetrators before the ship and its passengers can be destroyed. An original novel by the acclaimed ALAN DEAN FOSTER, author of the groundbreaking Alien novelization, Origins is the official chronicle of the events that led up to Alien: Covenant. It also reveals the world the colonists left behind.Trade Review“this book really steps forward and delivers the goods. Action, suspense, organic world-building and quality dystopian sci-fi.” - Book Devil

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Book SynopsisREAD THE CONTROVERSIAL THRILLER THAT SHOCKED THE WORLDTHE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLERGLAMOUR'S WRITER OF THE YEARBy day Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a London auction house.By night she's a hostess in one of the capital's unsavoury bars.Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She's learned to dress, speak and act in the interests of men. She's learned to be a good girl. But after uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world, Judith is fired and her dreams of a better life are torn apart. So she turns to a long-neglected friend. A friend that kept her chin up and back straight through every past slight. A friend that a good girl like her shouldn't have: Rage.Fatal attraction meets The Talented Mr Ripley in this darkly decadent thriller, soon to be a major Hollywood film, that asks: Where do you go when you've gone too far?Trade ReviewBrimming with scandal, intrigue and mystery, this is a book that everyone is talking about * Heat *[U]tterly un-put-down-able, a shocking and sexy psychological thriller * PopSugar *Set in a world of oligarchs, Mafiosi and dodgy art dealers, it also has in Judith Rashleigh a heroine you'll either love or loathe, at least two jaw-on-the-floor moments and sex scenes that would make Christian Grey blush * Red magazine *The next Gone Girl thriller everyone will be talking about * GoodReads Review *Smart, pacy and very rude * Glamour *Riveting... one of the most memorable females in recent fiction * Amy Pascal, Columbia Pictures Producer *Maestra features a feisty, morally complex and sharp heroine who may appeal to fans of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl * New York Times *A psychological thriller set on the French Riviera, rather like Patricia Highsmith crossed with Gone Girl, unsurprisingly, there's a film deal in the works * Harpers Bazaar, '10 Best Books for 2016' *This is already being compared to The Girl On The Train and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in terms of addictability * Glamour, ‘11 Female Authored Reads for 2016’ *One for fans of Fifty Shades of Grey * Grazia, 'Best of New Books' *This new thriller features a sexually voracious heroine eager to make her mark on the world * Irish Daily Mail *Fantastically good fun... LS Hilton can write. She can even make you think that popping along to a sex party..is quite a good idea. She writes convincingly about female desire. This book will make money and give pleasure -- Christina Patterson * The Sunday Times *A gloriously dark thriller... * Grazia Magazine *A maest (sic) read * Grazia Magazine *We'll be talking about the protagonist of this steamy thriller for years to come... * Grazia Magazine *Fifty Shades it is not- it's much better...There's a real plot. And real sexy talk....it's the very definition of a page turner. * Heat Magazine *The sexiest book of the year * Nottingham Post *It's a hot read! * Strathallen Times, Stirling News *In this marvellous debut, Hilton shows us how deadly such work can sometimes be. * Max Dunbar Blog *Well written and fast paced, and with a scandalous peep into the world of art dealing and a liberal amount of sex, MAESTRA is a fun and enjoyable read. * crimethrillergirl.com *This years must read * Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Evening Chronicle (Newcastle), South Wales Echo, Liverpool Echo, Daily Post (Wales) *She (Hilton) is smart and scathing on the art world; she clearly knows her stuff, and the novel is most interesting when she digresses into art history. -- Stephanie Merritt * The Observer, The New Review *You'll have to move to a wi-fi free island in the middle of the Pacific for Maestra to pass you by this summer....Set to be the 'it' book of 2016...A murderous heroine you'll love to hate. -- Hannah Britt * Daily Express, Scottish Daily Express *This years The Girl on the Train * Sheer Luxe *· I went from not thinking I'd enjoy it to not wanting to put it down. Gripped from the very first 'c' bomb dropped on page two. Judith is a sassy, smart and very dangerous heroine and I couldn't help but really like her. So read it before everyone else does because I do think it will be the most talked abut book this year - and with reason. -- Amy Space * Bella Magazine's Editor *'This is the must-read raunchy book of the year' * Xpose Magazine *A bonkbuster with brains... LS Hilton sets pulses racing with her novel Maestra, about orgies, escorts and the art world -- Fiona Wilson * The Times Ireland *This year's Fifty Shades brings sexual intrigue to the world of art fraud. At last someone has. * Cosmopolitan Magazine *Darkly compelling...a female reincarnation of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley... * Winq *Judith Rashleigh, also known as Lauren, is a woman on a mission, fuelled by a simmering hatred that drives her calculating behaviour ... * tripfiction.com *Completely Unputdownable -- Sue Turnbull * The Age, Australia *A spectacular act of revenge- on the English middle class- and men...aloof and independent minded... * Standpoint Magazine *A glamorous, witty and adrenaline fuelled romp- if you like your heroines sexy, vengeful, amoral and lethal thenMaestra delivers in spades. * Irish Times, Weekend Review *Maestra has an incredibly gorgeous vibe in both character study and scene setting, the writing is visceral, beautiful and indelible. This one will stay with you... Highly HIGHLY Recommended. * lizlovesbooks.com *It's a hot read! * Hillfoot Advertiser *The Talented Mr Ripley meets Gone Girl in this darkly decadent and compelling new thriller * mojomums.co.uk *Deliciously decadent...a glamorous and racy adventure * Sunday Mirror *Maestra is a fun, sexy novel...more self-determined than the ones her recent predecessors have offered -- Fiona Wilson * The Times *A psychological thriller set on the French Riviera, rather like Patricia Highsmith crossed with Gone Girl, unsurprisingly, there's a film deal in the works * Harpers Bazaar Magazine *Maestra features a feisty, morally complex and sharp heroine who may appeal to fans of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl * New York Times *'the outlandish plot remains wildly entertaining, romping along at a delightful pace. The best moments allow Hilton to showcase her knowledge of the high-end European art world, and readers will be left hankering for the next installment.' * Independent.ie *Maestra has been given the 'sentence of the year' with "I sucked the musk of his armpit like hummingbird nectar." * The Sunday Times Culture *Orgies, murder and dodgy art dealers; sounds like a best-seller to me. After several modest-selling historical books, Hilton hits the jackpot with this tale of a pretty and ambitious London gallery assistant of modest means who wants a fast-track to the good things in life. Our 20-something heroine Judith Rashleigh's a whip-smart femme fatale in a post-Kardashian world, whose humble origins sharpen her criminal resolve -no more tights drying over the heater for her -and her journey to wealth and power involves lots of sex and shopping for designer dresses. Less thriller than subversive post-feminist social satire, it has the blunt candour of Hilton herself-a 40-something solo mother whose experience as an intern at Christies clearly informs Maestra. Judith's catch-a-billionaire-will-travel goals upset some of the Literary Sisterhood but Maestra 's bonk -buster reputation disguises a razor-sharp novel on class and power. * New Zealand Herald *The Becky Sharp-style trajectory of the narrator proceeds with great momentum as she gets her psychopathic revenge on the snobs of the old master art world * The Week *

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Book Synopsis *SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ENDEAVOUR HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD 2017* LONDON 1885 – A woman’s body is discovered on Edgware Road. Ten miles away, her head is pulled from the dark muddy waters of the Thames. For two men, this event will push them to the very brink. DETECTIVE WILLIAM PINKERTON – ‘Thirty-nine years old, already famous and already lonely’. In an attempt to solve this case, he must descend into the seedy, gas-lit streets, opium dens, sewers and séance halls of Victorian London. ADAM FOOLE – A gentleman without a past, haunted by a love affair ten years gone. What he learns from his lover’s fate will force him to confront a past, and a grief, he thought long buried.Trade Review‘[A] rollicking read…Wonderfully melodramatic and well-written. The story is told over some 700 pages, and yet not a word feels wasted.’ * Cosmopolitan, Best Books of 2017 *‘Entertaining…as vast as the three-decker Victorian novels it so cleverly echoes’. -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *‘[A] darkly mesmerising tale worthy of any of the great Victorian thriller writers.’ * Crime Review *‘For long winter evenings…By Gaslight seems like an excellent choice’. * New Books *‘Guaranteed to grip.’ * Vogue *‘Rich in characterisation and description as well as evidently well-researched material.’ * Historical Novels Review *‘Reads like a resurrected Conan Doyle has created a high-quality thriller for a Sky Atlantic series… breathtakingly atmospheric.’ * Peterborough Telegraph *‘A formidable mystery.’ * Buffalo News *‘I found myself returning to passages . . . because I wanted to revisit the somber music of the telling. . . Spinning fiction out of fact, Price creates an evocative world, cast not in shades of stark black and white, but rather in morally complex herringbone . . . [R]aw and beautiful . . . always expressing the complexities of the human heart. . . By Gaslight can be seen as Arthur Conan Doyle by way of Dickens by way of Faulkner. Intense, London-centric, threaded through with a melancholy brilliance, it is an extravagant novel that takes inspiration from the classics and yet remains wholly itself.’ * NPR *‘Canadian poet Price turns to fiction with this lively visitation to the foggy streets of Victorian Blighty…the story is utterly Sherlock-ian – read Moriarty for Shade and Irene Adler for Reckitt – and postmodernly so, full of sly nods and winks and allusions. If it is derivative in the bargain, Conan Doyle by way of Nicholas Meyer and Benedict Cumberbatch, then Price's yarn is also a lot of fun. Fans of steampunk and Victorian detective fiction alike will enjoy Price's continent-hopping romp in time.’ * Kirkus *‘A postmodern take on noir mysteries…The real highlight of the novel, though, is the mesmerizing writing style, which is difficult to decipher but lyrically rewarding and intensely evocative of setting and character. Intense, frustrating, and magical, this fragmented, paradoxical suspense story will appeal to particular readers who love Dickens or who relish the complexities of Martin Seay’s The Mirror Thief and David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet.’ * Booklist *‘Steven Price has done a daring thing: taken a long, complex, but utterly fascinating 19th Century crime tale and applied to it the rules of modern mystery writing. The result is something unique, but it is his gift for unraveling a terrific yarn, in whatever manner, that shines through. Do not be daunted by length: give this book a try.’ * Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist *‘Price’s naturalism is unsentimental, adding verisimilitude to a book already thrumming with emotional and psychological realism. The author’s blend of quest, grief, betrayal, and the mysteries of identity will appeal to readers of literary crime fiction’ * Library Journal *‘Price’s elegantly written, vividly evoked second novel marries historical suspense with literary sophistication…With its intricate cat-and-mouse game, array of idiosyncratic characters, and brooding atmosphere, By Gaslight has much to please fans of both classic suspense and Victorian fiction. Yet Price’s novel is entirely contemporary, and assuredly his own: a sweeping tale of hunter and hunted in which the most-dangerous pursuer is always the human heart.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘By Gaslight is Steven Price's extraordinary historical novel, finely written and deeply researched, about the period just following the Civil War, the son of America's most famous detective (Allen Pinkerton), and a cast of truly powerful characters, half-mad and all dangerous.’ * Alan Furst, author of The Foreign Correspondent *‘This sweeping tale of the unforgettable William Pinkerton and Adam Foole thrusts the reader into smoky Victorian London with all its grit and glitter. Uniting the literary grace and depth of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy with the intrigue and momentum of a Sherlock Holmes story, By Gaslight is completely absorbing – an epic, brilliantly written novel to rank with the world’s best.’ * Jacqueline Baker, author of The Broken Hours *‘This darkly mesmerizing tale is worthy of the great Victorian thriller writers, but Steven Price brings to his prose a sensibility and dazzling skill all his own. The gruesome, eerie events that unfold during the search for Charlotte Reckitt are given enthralling life in a book that is perfectly grounded in period and rich in incident and image. Haunting and deeply satisfying.’ * Marina Endicott, author of Close to Hugh *‘A dark tale of love, betrayal and murder that reaches from the slums of Victorian London to the diamond mines in South Africa, to the American Civil War and back. Superb storytelling.’ * Kurt Palka, author of The Piano Maker *‘A poetic, persuasive pea-souper. Think Dickens with Maigret’s whiskers.’ * Anakana Schofield, author of Martin John *

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Book SynopsisAn enthralling collection of new and classic tales of the fearsome Djinn, from bestselling, award-winning and breakthrough international writers. Imagine a world filled with fierce, fiery beings, hiding in our shadows, in our dreams, under our skins. Eavesdropping and exploring; tormenting us, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends. And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind the wheel of a taxi, in the chorus, between the pages of books. Every language has a word for them. Every culture knows their traditions. Every religion, every history has them hiding in their dark places. There is no part of the world that does not know them. They are the Djinn. With stories from Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Okorafor, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherine Faris King, Claire North, E.J. Swift, Hermes (trans. Robin Moger), Jamal Mahjoub, James Smythe, J.Y. Yang, Kamila Shamsie, Kirsty Logan, K.J. Parker, Kuzhali Manickavel, Maria Dahvana Headley, Monica Byrne, Saad Hossain, Sami Shah, Sophia Al-Maria and Usman Malik.Trade Review"Exquisite and audacious, and highly recommended." -- The New York Times * The New York Times *"Entertaining, sexy and mischievous" -- Marina Warner -- Marina Warner"A treasure chest of literally wonderful and marvelous stories, with a kind of richness that fantasy only rarely achieves." -- Tim Powers -- Tim Powerrs"Opens quietly with an intense, thrumming poem from Egyptian poet Hermes, and then ignites like the creature it profiles... a rich and illuminating cultural experience." -- Washington Post * The Washington Post *"Gorgeous." -- Tor.com * Tor.com *"The sheer variation of interpretation is what makes this a superior collection, as well as, of course, the superior writing." -- BookRiot * BookRiot *"Vivid, enthralling and endlessly varied. A wonderful collection." -- Mike Carey -- Mike Carey"A sparkling array of talent and imagination" -- SFX * SFX Magazine *"A superb collection of superior stories by some of my favorite writers. This is the must-have anthology of the year." -- Lavie Tidhar -- Lavie Tidhar"Readers looking for stories set in a variety of locales (even outer space) and arrayed over various cultures and religions will find much to like." -- Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *"Not only one of short stories, but of real narratives... will let readers enter a world that they have no idea about" -- New York Journal of Books * New York Journal of Books *"Lovely and complex" -- Strange Horizons * Strange Horizons *"A range of terrific stories in a variety of styles, all of them effective... Fall in love with djinn! Read this book." -- Geek Syndicate * Geek Syndicate *Table of Contents Introduction - Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin The Djinn Falls in Love – Hermes The Congregation – Kamila Shamsie How We Remember You – Kuzhali Manickavel Hurrem and the Djinn – Claire North Glass Lights – Neon Yang Authenticity – Monica Byrne Majnun – Helene Wecker Black Powder – Maria Dahvana Headley A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds – Amal El-Mohtar The Sand in the Glass is Right – James Smythe Reap – Sami Shah Queen of Sheba – Catherine Faris King The Jinn Hunter’s Apprentice – E.J. Swift Message in a Bottle – K.J. Parker Bring Your Own Spoon – Saad Z. Hossain Somewhere in America – Neil Gaiman Duende 2077 – Jamal Mahjoub The Righteous Guide of Arabsat – Sophia Al-Maria The Spite House – Kirsty Logan Emperors of Jinn – Usman T. Malik History – Nnedi Okorafor

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of When I Hit You, shortlisted for the 2018 Women's Prize for FictionKarim and Maya:[x] share a home [x] worry about money [x] binge-watch films [x] argue all the time Karim, a young film-maker, carries with him the starry-eyed dreams of the Arab Revolution. Maya carries her own pressing concerns: an errant father, an unstable job, a chain-smoking habit, a sudden pregnancy. When Karim's brother disappears in Tunis, and Karim wants to go after him, Maya must choose between her partner and her home city, her future and her history...In a conversation between forms, fictions and truths, Exquisite Cadavers is a novel about a young couple navigating love in London, and a literary hall of mirrors about an author navigating the inspirations behind her work.___________________'An inventive fusion' Observer'A work of brilliance' Financial Times'Wonderful' LitHubTrade ReviewThank god for writing like this. For books like this. For this level of experimentation, combined with such control, such tenderness and wit. * Max Porter, author of Lanny *Exquisite Cadavers' experiment delivers a book that is slyly funny and profoundly thoughtful. It is common for critics and readers to belittle women by assuming they write out of catharsis rather than to create. Exquisite Cadavers is not just a fierce rebuttal. It's a work of brilliance. * Financial Times *An inventive fusion of fact and fiction. * Observer *Fascinating... The cleverness of Kandasamy's bricolage is that it allows her to explicitly separate fiction and memoir, while ensuring they're intimately intertwined. * Guardian *A smart, complex book. * Guardian *The key question about Exquisite Cadavers, however, is does all of this work? That is the hardest question to answer, because the terms are that it should be an experiment - there has never been a book quite like this. Better to ask, then, whether it surprises, grips, makes the reader take notice - all those things literature is supposed to do - to which the answer is, easily, yes, yes, and yes again. * The Irish Times *It's wonderful, a different view of difference. * LitHub *Kandasamy achieves the unachievable in this genre-defying, brilliant and satisfying double narrative. She subverts the mainstream by inserting her self into the margins of this timely novella. In doing so, she adds depth and intensity to an already gripping story of a mixed-race millennial couple grappling with identity, unexpected parenthood, zero-hour contracts and nearsightedness within academia. There is nothing Kandasamy can't do. * Zeba Talkhani, author of My Past is A Foreign Country *A rich and absorbing text full of allusion... Kandasamy's work becomes more bold and exciting with each new book. * The Skinny *Absorbing and innovative * The Herald *An extraordinary formally-inventive, beautiful at sentence-level novella. * Belfast Telegraph *This is hands-down the most emotionally resonant book I have read this year. In this fragmented literary experiment, Kandasamy flawlessly combines the political and the personal with her searing insight and dazzling literary prowess. * Book Riot *Wildly inventive and inimitable * Mint *A tightly packed experiment in literary fiction, toggling between life and art, the margin and the centre, stories and meta-stories * Open The Magazine *Astute metafictional observations * New Statesman *Defies all expectations of how prose should be laid out on the page. While it is ostensibly about a relationship, it also comments in the margins on Indian politics and the writer's own creative process. * Bernardine Evaristo, TLS *Both an excellent exercise in form and a deeply evocative love story. * Publisher's Weekly *Sharply observed, beautiful, smart writing. This book is an engagement with art and life on their own terms, demanding its readers level up their thinking * Booklist *The two-column format of the book presents questions about how we read, what story is, and what a novel can be. The lives of Maya and Karim, a young, London-based couple, are rendered in prose that is both poetic and ironic, while the voice of the author-character, sitting side-by-side, is at once philosophical and grimly witty. * Novuyo Tshuma, The Millions *

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Book SynopsisOne boy, one boat, one tiger . . .After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years.Trade ReviewThis enormously lovable novel is suffused with wonder * * Guardian * *A terrific book . . . Fresh, original, smart, devious, and crammed with absorbing lore -- MARGARET ATWOODEvery page offers something of tension, humanity, surprise, or even ecstasy * * The Times * *Vivid and entrancing * * Sunday Telegraph * *Extraordinary . . . Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life * * New York Times Book Review * *Full of clever tricks, amusing asides and grand originality * * Daily Telegraph * *Inventive, shocking and ultimately uplifting * * Daily Mail * *Dramatises and articulates the possibilities of storytelling * * Observer * *A unique and original story, brilliantly told * * Guardian * *Martel's engaging characterisation and vivid description enliven and enrich this dreamy, fantastic tale * * The Times * *

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Book SynopsisPenelope. Immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband's return.Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story - a tale of lust, greed and murder.The Myths series brings together some of the world's finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, David Grossman, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson.Trade ReviewAtwood takes Penelope's part with tremendous verve . . . she explores the very nature of mythic story-telling -- MARY BEARD * * Guardian * *As potent as a curse * * Sunday Times * *Fabulous . . . Determinedly irreverent * * New York Times * *A witty desecration . . . Atwood plays with vigour and ingenuity * * Observer * *Pragmatic, clever, domestic, mournful, Penelope is a perfect Atwood heroine * * Spectator * *Half Dorothy Parker, half Desperate Housewives * * Independent * *Atwood and all authors named above are able to grasp the female experience perfectly in myths dominated by men, creating beautifully rounded and realistic characters from those created as ornaments and prizes by Homer * * The Courier * *Nothing short of genius * * Week * *

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Book SynopsisA retelling of Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, accompanied by art from the original Disney Studio artists. Collect the whole Animated Classics series! This beautiful hardback features premium cloth binding, a ribbon marker to match the cover, gold foil stamping and illustrated endpapers, making this the perfect gift for all those who have been enchanted by the magic of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and a book to be treasured by all.A family favourite for over eighty years, Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the best-loved films of all time. Relive the magic through this retelling of the classic animated film, accompanied by paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists. Also featured is a foreword by Eric Goldberg, a supervising animator and director at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Turn to the back of the book to learn more about the artists who worked on this iconic animated film.Trade ReviewMost Disney fans would be able to tell you the stories of 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' and 'Snow White' according to the Walt Disney Animation Studios - they've become so ingrained in the public consciousness. These beautiful new hardback editions offer new insights into these animated classics.As well as retelling these beloved stories, the books contain a wealth of paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists.It was fascinating to see how characters developed from the first sketches to finished articles and to learn about the artists who created them in a special section at the end of the book.I am sure that fans of the Disney films would be absolutely thrilled to have one of these special hardback editions for their book collections, and they would make a great gift for younger fans to keep and enjoy as they grow up. * Library Girl and Book Boy *

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Book SynopsisA retelling of Disney Sleeping Beauty, accompanied by art from the original Disney Studio artists.Collect the whole Animated Classics series!This beautiful hardback features premium cloth binding, a ribbon marker to match the cover, gold foil stamping and illustrated endpapers, making this the perfect gift for all those who have been enchanted by the magic of Sleeping Beauty and a book to be treasured by all.A family favourite for nearly sixty years, Disney Sleeping Beauty is one of the best-loved films of all time. Relive its magic through this retelling of the classic animated film, accompanied by paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists. Also featured is a foreword by Mike Gabriel, an animator, story artist, visual development artist, production designer and director at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Turn to the back of the book to learn more about the artists who worked on this iconic animated film.Trade ReviewMost Disney fans would be able to tell you the stories of 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' and 'Snow White' according to the Walt Disney Animation Studios - they've become so ingrained in the public consciousness. These beautiful new hardback editions offer new insights into these animated classics.As well as retelling these beloved stories, the books contain a wealth of paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists.It was fascinating to see how characters developed from the first sketches to finished articles and to learn about the artists who created them in a special section at the end of the book.I am sure that fans of the Disney films would be absolutely thrilled to have one of these special hardback editions for their book collections, and they would make a great gift for younger fans to keep and enjoy as they grow up. * Library Girl and Book Boy *

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Book SynopsisA retelling of Disney The Little Mermaid, accompanied by art from the original Disney Studio artists. Collect the whole Animated Classics series!This beautiful hardback features premium cloth binding, a ribbon marker to match the cover, gold foil stamping and illustrated endpapers, making this the perfect gift for all those who have been enchanted by the magic of The Little Mermaid and a book to be treasured by all.A family favourite for over thirty years, Disney The Little Mermaid is one of the best-loved films of all time. Relive the magic through this retelling of the classic animated film, accompanied by paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists. Also featured is a foreword by Brittney Lee, a visual development artist at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Turn to the back of the book to learn more about the artists who worked on this iconic animated film.Trade ReviewMost Disney fans would be able to tell you the stories of 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' and 'Snow White' according to the Walt Disney Animation Studios - they've become so ingrained in the public consciousness. These beautiful new hardback editions offer new insights into these animated classics.As well as retelling these beloved stories, the books contain a wealth of paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists.It was fascinating to see how characters developed from the first sketches to finished articles and to learn about the artists who created them in a special section at the end of the book.I am sure that fans of the Disney films would be absolutely thrilled to have one of these special hardback editions for their book collections, and they would make a great gift for younger fans to keep and enjoy as they grow up. * Library Girl and Book Boy *

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Book SynopsisA retelling of Disney Pinocchio, accompanied by art from the original Disney Studio artists. Collect the whole Animated Classics series!This beautiful hardback features premium cloth binding, a ribbon marker to match the cover, foil stamping and illustrated endpapers, making this the perfect gift for all those who have been enchanted by the magic of Pinocchio and a book to be treasured by all.A family favourite for eighty years, Disney Pinocchio is one of the best-loved films of all time. Relive the magic through this retelling of the classic animated film, accompanied by paintings, story sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists. Also featured is a foreword by Mike Gabriel, an art director at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Turn to the back of the book to learn more about the artists who worked on this iconic animated film.

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Book SynopsisTranslated by George Szirtes From the winner of the Man Booker International Prize In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias - long-thought dead - returns, the villagers fall under his spell. Irimias sets about swindling the villagers out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold.Trade ReviewA modern masterpiece that manages to speak both of its time and to transcend it altogether * Sunday Telegraph *A monster of a novel: compact, cleverly constructed, often exhilarating * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisBold and inventive in style, City of Night is the groundbreaking 1960s novel about male prostitution. Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling 'youngman' and his search for self-knowledge among the other denizens of his neon-lit world. As the narrator moves from Texas to Times Square and then on to the French Quarter of New Orleans, Rechy delivers a portrait of the edges of America that has lost none of its power. On his travels, the nameless narrator meets a collection of unforgettable characters, from vice cops to guilt-ridden married men eaten up by desire, to Lance O'Hara, once Hollywood's biggest star. Rechy describes this world with candour and understanding in a prose that is highly personal and vividly descriptive.Trade ReviewRechy's tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement. -- James BaldwinOne of the major books to be published since World War II. * The Washington Post *City of Night is a remarkable book . . . Mr. Rechy writes in an authentic jive-like slang: the nightmare existence is explored with a clarity not often clouded by sentimentality and self-pity. The book therefore has the unmistakable ring of candor and truth. * The New York Times Book Review *A breathless, amphetamine-fuelled dash across America ... Rechy's descriptive energy is instead reserved for city life's twilight world and a colourful parade of characters... his descriptive energy surpasses any queer literature label. * New Statesman *John Rechy's groundbreaking novel City of Night lifted the lid on gay life in `60's America ... it broke new ground with its depiction of the gay sexual subculture in America's cities ... The author is ripe for rediscovery. * Time Out *In his first novel, City of Night, John Rechy achieved what most authors strive for their entire career. A book that will last ... Although it was long after the original publication, through City of Night Rechy taught me that my feelings of isolation could be released, that my experiences could be written. It was Rechy who showed me that no subject matter is taboo. -- Charles Casillo * LA Review of Books *Probably no first novel is so complete, so well held together, and so important as City of Night. * The Houston Post *

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 Shortlisted for the 2022 National Book Critics' Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book As heard on BBC Radio 4's Front Row 'A voraciously knowing, compulsively readable novel' Chris Kraus 'Tremendously funny and sexy as hell' Juliet Jacques 'I loved this very smart book from start to finish, with its beautifully drawn, complicated, and winning characters.' Madeleine Miller Reese nearly had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York, a job she didn't hate. She'd scraped together a life previous generations of trans women could only dream of; the only thing missing was a child. Then everything fell apart and three years on Reese is still in self-destruct mode, avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. When her ex calls to ask if she wants to be a mother, Reese finds herself intrigued. After being attacked in the street, Amy de-transitioned to become Ames, changed jobs and, thinking he was infertile, started an affair with his boss Katrina. Now Katrina's pregnant. Could the three of them form an unconventional family - and raise the baby together?Trade ReviewSo good I want to scream -- Carmen Maria MachadoIrresistible ... Perhaps Detransition, Baby is the first great trans realist novel? Witty, elegant and rigorously plotted -- Grace Lavery * Guardian *The smartest novel I've read in ages ... it manages to be utterly savage & lacerating while also conveying endlessly expanding compassion. It's kind of a miracle. -- Garth GreenwellDetransition, Baby is emotionally generous, richly textured, and deeply intelligent - a vibrant and kaleidoscopic portrait of complicated women and their colliding lives. -- Claire Lombardo, New York Times-bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever HadDetransition, Baby updates and transcends (trans-scends!) the Sex and the City model, while fully delivering its many satisfactions! ... A noteworthy advance in the history of the novel! -- Elif BatumanRiveting, insightful, and very funny ... an unforgettable portrait of three women, trans and cis, who wrestle with questions of motherhood and family-making. Destined to be a 21st century classic, Detransition, Baby will definitely keep you up late and might destroy your book club, but in a good way. -- Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal GirlTorrey Peters just took everything that couldn't be done, and did it ... Plenty of books are good; this book is alive. -- Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the FoxPeters confronts the unruliness of our desires, and our vitality as we struggle within their limits ... a dishy, engrossing new novel * New Yorker *Writing with alarming insight, Torrey Peters captures the grandiose, heartfelt and sometimes mangled aspirations of queer and trans people facing an unprecedented array of personal choice. By showing how gender transition (like divorce, or any transformative life event) can be simultaneously destabilizing and liberating, Peters makes trans culture relatable to all. A voraciously knowing, compulsively readable novel. -- Chris Kraus, author of I Love DickI love Detransition, Baby for its wit, its irreverence. And I love it even more for its reverence-its reverence for the quest for womanhood, motherhood, selfhood. Torrey Peters evokes these characters with such fullness and compassion that they felt like dear friends to me. This is an important book, and I couldn't put it down. -- Helen Philips, author of The NeedI loved [Detransition, Baby] so, so much - it's so smart, funny and sad about human nature and all our longings, hypocrisy, shame and sweetness. And it's fearlessly thought-provoking about gender. Such a literary feat and also such a great read. -- Curtis SittenfeldDetransition, Baby is a landmark piece of trans literature - brutally honest and yet incredibly sensitive about trans living, tremendously funny and sexy as hell. -- Juliet Jacques, author of Trans: A MemoirA visceral, funny exploration of sex and gender through a triad of people - trans and cis -rocked by an unexpected pregnancy * Vanity Fair *Smart, funny, and bighearted. . . . A wonderfully original exploration of desire and the evolving shape of family [and] . . . a dishy contemporary drama. * Kirkus starred review *Possibly the most hotly anticipated work of transgender fiction ever * Pink News *Page-turning ... Through a careful narrative that laces humour into every paragraph, Peters paints a story of LGBT identity that will be engaging to any person who has struggled to define their place in the world * New Statesman *Fleishman is in Trouble meets Transparent in this eye-opening, gender-bending exploration of parenthood. * Oprah Magazine's Best Books of 2021 *Written with verve and humour, it's a must-read for 2021. * Stylist *The distinctive storyline in this page-turner navigates gender, sex, relationships (from romantic to familial), and the commonly unaccepted ideas surrounding them. * Cosmopolitan Best Books of 2021 *Detransition, Baby strikes to the heart of the moment. This conversation-shifting, taboo-busting novel is set to catapult its author, Torrey Peters - a Brooklyn-based trans writer whose two self-published novellas drew a cult following - into the mainstream ... Detransition, Baby should be on your reading list. It's an exuberant novel of ideas, desire and life's messy ironies - all filtered through Peters' astute, witty characters. * Evening Standard *Devastating, hilarious, touching, timely and studded with fun pop culture references and celebrity cameos, this is an acutely intelligent story about womanhood, parenthood and all the possibilities that lie within. * BookPage starred review *A landmark... Detransition, Baby is a comic and prodding take on transness and taboos. * i-D magazine *A riotously funny and fearless debut from Torrey Peters, who is clearly not afraid of polarising readers. * AnOther magazine *With heart and savvy, Detransition, Baby upends our traditional, gendered notions of what parenthood can look like. . . . Reese, Ames and Katrina feel to us more like friends than characters. * The New York Times Book Review *Ferociously smart and fearlessly queer ... this enthralling, extraordinary book is as queer as Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor, and as sharp as Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. Superb. * Attitude *Detransition Baby is somehow both biting and deeply tender all at once... and feels up-to-the-second relevant. A lot of people recommended this book to me, and I will be recommending it to many, many others, queer, trans, straight, cis -- Amelia AbrahamSparklingly intelligent ... Detransition, Baby is for anyone who has ever reached a point of reassessment, transformation and risk -- Rosie Wilby * The F Word *Perhaps the first great novel about the realities of being trans, this witty, savage yet compassionate story is essential, exciting reading * Sunday Telegraph *The striking thing about Torrey Peters's first novel is not its vivid portrait of trans women's lives in Obama-era Brooklyn, nor its mordant wit, but the sheer accomplishment of its carpentry... a brave defence of what it means to be a woman - and a mother -- Roz Kaveney * TLS *Detransition, Baby blows preconceived notions of the nuclear family out of the water, by questioning what personal fulfilment can and should look like in a contemporary setting ... Tantalising * The Face *Devastating, hilarious, tender, ambitious, provocative - there simply aren't enough superlatives to heap upon this masterful work of fiction. * Independent Best LGBTQ+ Books *Peters' writing is sexy, urgent and thoughtful. She doesn't just hit the mark, but keeps going past it. -- Caroline O'Donoghue

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Book Synopsis'A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' Japan Times Two babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start. Raised amidst the outcasts and misfits of Toxitown, they carve out vastly different paths: one as a bisexual rock star on a desperate search for his mother, the other as an athlete consumed by revenge against the woman who left him behind. When their twisted journeys start to intertwine, this savage and stunning story plunges headlong into a surrealistic whirl of violence. 'Encapsulates the fin de siècle cultural detonation of Japanese youth' KirkusTrade Review'Ably encapsulates the fin de siecle cultural detonation of Japanese youth... Snyder's agile translation preserves much of the shock, beauty, and pathos in this apocalyptic minisaga of troubled times' - Kirkus'Ryu Murakami is known for the sex-drugs-and-violence style of his fiction and Coin Locker Babies has it all... A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' - Japan Times

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Book Synopsis'A vivid, gripping story, beautifully handled, with a gem on every page' - Tracy Chevalier'Once again J.C. Harvey has cleared the high bar in historical fiction by a mile.' - S. W. Perry'Vibrant, twisting and compelling' - Minette Walters'Excellent writing, intricate plotting and masterful senses of place and time make Harvey's books compulsive reads.' - HistoriaSummer 1630. The Swedish army is fighting its way down through Germany, with Jack Fiskardo and his company of scouts, or 'discoverers', fighting the guerrilla war ahead of the main advance. There are new allies to be made, new perils to overcome, new enemies to outwit and new adventures to pursue; but there is also a fortune for the taking, a mystery to be solved, and a destiny to fulfil - one that will see Jack brought face-to-face at last with his sworn enemy, Carlo Fantom. And in the wintry forests of Bohemia, that destiny will present Jack with an almost impossible choice - does he pursue his final vengeance, or does he turn aside, to help a child as helpless as he once was himself?Trade ReviewA vivid, gripping story, beautifully handled, with a gem on every page. I'm full of admiration, if not a little envy at Harvey's confidence; she knows exactly what she's doing. -- Tracy Chevalier * Tracy Chevalier *Vibrant, twisting and compelling. The Dead Men will appeal to old and new fans of Jack Fiskardo as he fights for Protestantism in a 17th Century Europe, ravaged by war. This is a series worth following! -- Minette WaltersOnce again J.C. Harvey has cleared the high bar in historical fiction by a mile. -- S. W. Perry * S. W. Perry *[A] marvellous [...] intelligently written romp through history -- NB Magazine * NB Magazine (THE SILVER WOLF) *Multi-layered, compelling and intriguing, The Silver Wolf draws us into the murky underbelly of Europe's Thirty Years' War. -- Minette Walters * Minette Walters (on THE SILVER WOLF) *Excellent writing, intricate plotting and masterful senses of place and time make Harvey's books compulsive reads. -- Frances Owen * Historia *

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Book SynopsisNever before available in hardback, this is a lavish edition of one of the greatest love stories of our time. The perfect gift for anyone captivated by Elio and Oliver.A sudden and powerful romance blossoms between Elio, an adolescent boy, and Oliver, his parents' guest, over the course of one summer. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the hot restless weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.Trade ReviewA beautiful and wise book... A miracle. -- Colm TóibínA love letter, an invocation, and something of an epitaph. An exceptionally beautiful book. * New York Times Book Review *Brave, acute, elated, naked, brutal, tender, humane and beautiful. -- Nicole KraussExtraordinary... Evocative, poetic and deeply beautiful. * Tatler *

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Book Synopsis'A gruesome, blackly funny, utterly original feminist horror story' New York Times, Notable Book of the Year 'A buzz-worthy and ferocious horror comedy from one of the genre's most promising voices'BuzzfeedAbby Lamb has done it. She's found the Great Good in her husband, Ralph, and together they will start a family and put all the darkness in her childhood to rest. But then the Lambs move in with Ralph's mother, Laura, whose depression has made it impossible for her to live on her own. She's venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, who has a complicated understanding of motherhood given the way her own, now-estranged, mother raised her.When Laura takes her own life, her ghost starts to haunt Abby and Ralph in very different ways. Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is being terrorized by a force intent on taking everything she loves away from her. With everything on the line, Abby must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to prove her adoration to Ralph and break Laura's hold on the family for good.Trade ReviewGripping... A gutsy, gory mashup of domestic horror and dark humour * Observer *A gruesome, blackly funny, utterly original feminist horror story * New York Times, Notable Book of 2022 *A dark, moving, hugely entertaining slab of gothic horror....and also very funny * Metro *A disgusting and delightful romp of a book * Big Issue *Filled with sharp, crackling sentences, which bend variously sinister, humorous and sad, Ainslie Hogarth's new novel is a stunner. Like Mona Awad's Bunny or Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen, Motherthing is a fabulous, frightening story built from fine, fine prose * Laird Hunt, author of the National Book Award finalist, Zorrie *This novel is bursting with smart, provocative, heart-breaking things to say about the nature of grief and its ability to take up just as much - if not more - physical space than the actual person lost. Motherthing is gory and irreverent and totally irresistible * Courtney Maum, author of Touch *A masterfully crafted horror novel that's by turns humorous and deeply unsettling... Packs a punch * Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW *Profane, insane, hilarious, disgusting - and unexpectedly moving * Kirkus STARRED REVIEW *A smart, taut, hallucinatory book about mothers, daughters, and relationships of care. And buckets of blood. * Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces *One of my favourite books of the year so far... Sorrow and Bliss but make it haunted * Red, Blackwells Manchester *

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Book Synopsis'My name is Oscar and I'm ten years old . . . They call me Egghead and I look about seven. I live in hospital because of my cancer and I've never written to you because I don't even know if you exist,' writes Oscar in a letter to God.Oscar is ill and no one, especially not his parents, will tell him what he already knows: that he is dying. Granny Rose, the oldest of the 'ladies in pink' who visit Oscar and his fellow patients, makes friends with him. She suggests that he play a game: to pretend that each of the following twelve days is a decade of his imagined future. One day equals ten years, and every night Oscar writes a letter to God telling him about his life.The ten letters that follow are sensitive, funny, heartbreaking and, ultimately, uplifting. Oscar and the Lady in Pink is a small fable with a big heart; it will change the way you feel about death, and life.Trade Review"* 'Oscar and the Lady in Pink combines story-telling skill with the elegant questioning that Schmitt learnt from his studies of 18th-century French philosophers... When children write to him, they say that, even if they have not been ill themselves, the book has helped them speak about their parents and about solitude, hope and mystery.' Daily Telegraph * 'What's brilliant about Oscar is that we all know we should live each day as our last and we don't. Then you read this book and feel you must try.' Janet McTeer"

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Book Synopsis'Mary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex and eloquent, infused at every turn with her life-long passion for the Classics. Her characters live vividly both in their own time, and in ours' MADELINE MILLERMary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us' HILARY MANTELIn the story of the great lyric poet Simonides, Mary Renault brings alive a time in Greece when tyrants kept an unsteady rule and poetry, music, and royal patronage combined to produce a flowering of the arts. Born into a stern farming family on the island of Keos, Simonides escapes his harsh childhood through a lucky apprenticeship with a renowned Ionian singer. As they travel through 5th century B.C. Greece, Simonides learns not only how to play the kithara and compose poetry, but also how to navigate the shifting alliances surrounding his rich patrons. He is witness to the Persian invasion of Ionia, to the decadent reign of the Samian pirate king Polykrates, and to the fall of the Pisistratids in the Athenian court. Along the way, he encounters artists, statesmen, athletes, thinkers, and lovers, including the likes of Pythagoras and Aischylos. Using the singer's unique perspective, Renault combines her vibrant imagination and her formidable knowledge of history to establish a sweeping, resilient vision of a golden century.'There's much to say about her interweaving of myth and history and, just as interestingly, there's much to wonder at in the way she fills in the large dark spaces where we know next to nothing about the times she describes . . . an important and wonderful writer . . . she set a course into serious-minded, psychologically intense historical fiction that today seems more important than ever' - Sam Jordison, GuardianTrade ReviewMary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us -- Hilary MantelI never learned Latin or Greek; I wasn't raised on the classics, even in translation. So all my sense of the ancient world - its values, its style, the scent of its wars and passions - comes from Mary Renault. I turned to writing historical fiction because of something I learned from Renault: that it lets you shake off the mental shackles of your own era, all the categories and labels, and write freely about what really matters to you -- Emma DonoghueMary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex and eloquent, infused at every turn with her life-long passion for the Classics. Her characters live vividly both in their own time, and in ours -- Madeline MillerThere's much to say about her interweaving of myth and history and, just as interestingly, there's much to wonder at in the way she fills in the large dark spaces where we know next to nothing about the times she describes . . . an important and wonderful writer . . . she set a course into serious-minded, psychologically intense historical fiction that today seems more important than ever -- Sam Jordison * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE FLAHERTY-DUNNAN FIRST NOVEL PRIZEFire Support Base Matterhorn: a fortress carved out of the grey-green mountain jungle. Cold monsoon clouds wreath its mile-high summit, concealing a battery of 105-mm howitzers surrounded by deep bunkers, carefully constructed fields of fire and the 180 marines of Bravo Company. Just three kilometres from Laos and two from North Vietnam, there is no more isolated outpost of America's increasingly desperate war in Vietnam.Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, 21 years old and just a few days into his 13-month tour, has barely arrived at Matterhorn before Bravo Company is ordered to abandon their mountain and sent deep in-country in pursuit of a North Vietnamese Army unit of unknown size. Beyond the relative safety of the perimeter wire, Mellas will face disease, starvation, leeches, tigers and an almost invisible enemy. Beneath the endless jungle canopy, Bravo Company will confront competing ambitions, duplicitous officers and simmering racial tensions. Behind them, always, Matterhorn. The impregnable mountain fortress they built and then abandoned, without a shot, to the North Vietnamese Army...Trade ReviewOne of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam - or any war -- Sebastian Junger * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisNow filmed as INVICTUS directed by Clint Eastwood, and starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2008As the day of the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup dawned, and the Springboks faced New Zealand's all-conquering All Blacks, more was at stake than a sporting trophy. When Nelson Mandela appeared wearing a Springboks jersey and led the all-white Afrikaner-dominated team in singing South Africa's new national anthem, he conquered the hearts of white South Africa. Playing the Enemy tells the extraordinary human story of how that moment became possible. It shows how a sport, once the preserve of South Africa's Afrikaans-speaking minority, came to unify the new rainbow nation, and tells of how - just occasionally - something as simple as a game really can help people to rise above themselves and see beyond their differences.Trade ReviewWonderful... Don't wait for the movie. * New York Times *A triumphant conversion... A portrait of South Africa's answer to George Washington... [It] works because Carlin got so close to Mandela and the people Mandela seduced. -- Simon Kuper * Financial Times *Revelatory... A tight, gripping and powerful book that shines a light on a moment of hope, not just for one nation but the whole world. * Daily Express *A fascinating story... Thirteen years on, it is possible to look back with emotion at a moment which suggested that everything was possible. -- Justin Cartwright * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisBrimming with alternative universes, futuristic landscapes and gleeful metaphysics... Yu's spirit of invention is infectious. - Sunday TimesHighly inventive and hilarious - The Times_______________________________________________________________________________________With only TAMMY - a slightly tearful computer with self-esteem issues - a software boss called Phil - Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0 - and an imaginary dog called Ed for company, fixing time machines is a lonely business and Charles Yu is stuck in a rut. He's spent the better part of a decade navel-gazing, spying on 39 different versions of himself in alternate universes (and discovered that 35 of them are total jerks). And he's kind of fallen in love with TAMMY, which is bad because she doesn't have a module for that. With all that's on his mind, perhaps it's no surprise that when he meets his future self, he shoots him in the stomach. And that's a beginner's mistake for a time machine repairman. Now he's stuck in a time loop, going in circles forever. All he has, wrapped in brown paper, is the book his future self was trying to press into his hands. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. And he's the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could save him.Trade ReviewA complex, brainy, genre-hopping joyride of a story * New York Times *Brimming with alternative universes, futuristic landscapes and gleeful metaphysics... Yu's spirit of invention is infectious. * Sunday Times *A man with a time machine shoots a future version of himself... The old time-travel paradox becomes a witty and plangent enquiry into the nature of memory. It's SF - but not as we know it. * Financial Times *If sci-fi is the literature of ideas, Charles Yu is already a master of the form: there are more fascinating, bizarre and clever concepts per page than most writers manage in an entire novel. * Time Out *A fantastic time travel story, one that blends fiction and reality, a sharp style of storytelling that blew my mind... this is one of the most important books of the genre to be published this year * SF Signal *Highly inventive and hilarious * The Times *pretty superb: involving, clever, perky, properly science fictional and above all funny... a most excellent debut * The Guardian *A complex, brainy, genre-hopping joyride of a story, far more than the sum of its part, and smart and tragic enough to engage all regions of the brain and body * International Herald Tribune *Buzzes with ideas, takes stylistic risks successfully, and is tightly focussed on the emotional impact of the story... Yu's enthralling debut makes me yearn for his next one * Scotland on Sunday *'A small wonder of a novel.' * Time Magazine, ‘Top 10 Books of the Year 2010’ *

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Book SynopsisThracia, AD30: Even after four years military service at the edge of the Roman world, Vespasian can't escape the tumultuous politics of an Empire on the brink of disintegration. His patrons in Rome have charged him withthe clandestine extraction of an old enemy from a fortress on the banks of the Danube before it falls to the Roman legion besieging it.Vespasian's mission is the key move in a deadly struggle for the right to rule the Roman Empire. The man he has been ordered to seize could be the witness that will destroy Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard and ruler of the Empire in all but name. Before he completes his mission, Vespasian will face ambush in snowbound mountains, pirates on the high seas, and Sejanus's spies all around him. But by far the greatest danger lies at the rotten heart of the Empire, at the nightmarish court of Tiberius, Emperor of Rome and debauched, paranoid madman.______________________________________________Don't miss Robert Fabbri's epic new series Alexander's Legacy Trade ReviewRobert Fabbri has a winner on his hands. * The BookPlank *A stonking read. * Classic FM *Fabbri's Vespasian novels have been creating quite a stir. * The History Girls *

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Book SynopsisThis edition is releasing to celebrate the release of the award winning film adaptation, starring Hermione Corfield, Will Fletcher and Mark Gatiss and directed by Richie Adams. Cinematic release set for May 2022, screening around 900 UK cinemas. Winner of the Edinburgh International Film Festival Audience Award 2021. Kirsty MacLeod is a beautiful young woman, coveted by all the young men of her island village. She dreams of America, of following the setting sun west to a better life. She meets the man who dreams her dreams and promises to make them come true. But then the Great War breaks out and the men must leave for battle. In their honour, the islanders organise a grand Road Dance. That night she is raped. She is left with a secret that will bring shame upon her and her family and ultimately on the child she is carrying. On a night of storms and sorrow, she has to make her choice and it is no choice at all.Trade Review'Powerful, shocking, heartbreaking.'- SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL 'Breathtaking' - THE FILM MAGAZINE '[MacKay] has captured time, place and atmosphere superbly...'- SUNDAY HERALD 'A gripping plot that subtly twists and turns, vivid characterisation, and a real sense of time and tradition, this is an absorbing, powerful first novel.'- SCOTS MAGAZINE 'One of the most powerful aspects of the book is the way in which it conjures up the atmosphere of fear that stalks a community where the church casts "sinners" into the wilderness.' - SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

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Book SynopsisFIRST IN THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING DARK ICELAND SERIES OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD A murder takes place in the isolated Icelandic town of Siglufjörður, where an avalanche has cut off all communication and the unrelenting snow threatens rookie police officer Ari Thór Arason first investigation… ‘A modern Icelandic take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery, as twisty as any slalom…’ Ian Rankin ’Ragnar J&?oacute;nasson writes with a chilling, poetic beauty’ Peter James ‘Seductive … Ragnar does claustrophobia beautifully’ Ann Cleeves ________________Siglufjörður: an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors – accessible only via a small mountain tunnel.Ari Thór Arason: a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik – with a past that he’s unable to leave behind. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theatre, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life. An avalanche and unremitting snowstorms close the mountain pass, and the 24-hour darkness threatens to push Ari over the edge, as curtains begin to twitch, and his investigation becomes increasingly complex, chilling and personal. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness – blinded by snow, and with a killer on the loose.Taut and terrifying, Snowblind is a startling debut from an extraordinary new talent, taking Nordic Noir to soaring new heights. ________________ ‘His first novel to be translated into English has all the skilful plotting of an old-fashioned whodunnit although it feels bitingly contemporary in setting and tone’ Sunday Express ‘A chiller of a thriller’ Washington Post 'A classic crime story seen through a uniquely Icelandic lens. First rate and highly recommended' Lee Child ‘Required reading’ New York Post ’Morally more equivocal than most traditional whodunnits, and it offers alluring glimpses of darker, and infinitely more threatening horizons’ Independent ‘A truly chilling debut, perfect for fans of Karin Fossum and Henning Mankell’ Eva Dolan ‘A stunning murder mystery by one of Iceland’s finest writers’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir ‘There is a young pretender beavering away, his eye on the crown: Ragnar Jónasson…’ Barry Forshaw ‘As dazzling as its title implies’ William Ryan ‘An isolated community, subtle clueing, clever misdirection and more than a few surprises combine to give a modern day Golden Age whodunnit. I look forward to the next in the series’ Dr John Curran ‘The best sort of gloomy storytelling’ Chicago Tribune ‘The prose is stark and minimal … bleakly brilliant’ Metro ‘A chilling, thrilling slice of Icelandic Noir’ Thomas Enger ‘This classically crafted whodunit holds up nicely, but Jónasson’s true gift is for describing the daunting beauty of the fierce setting, lashed by blinding snowstorms that smother the village in “a thick, white darkness” that is strangely comforting’ New York TimesTrade Review'Is King Arnaldur [Indridason] looking to his laurels? There is a young pretender beavering away, his eye on the crown: Ragnar Jonasson - ' Barry Forshaw

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Book SynopsisTHE FINAL INSTALMENT IN THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING DARK ICELAND SERIES OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE When a police officer is murdered in the dead of night, in the isolated Icelandic town of Siglufjordur, Ari Thor Arason faces a complex investigation that takes him back to the past, and some sinister secrets... 'A modern take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery' Ian Rankin 'Ragnar Jonasson write with such a chilling, poetic beauty - a must-read addition to the growing canon of Iceland Noir' Peter James Siglufjoerdur: an idyllically quiet fishing village on the northernmost tip of Iceland, accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Ari Thor Arason: a local policeman, whose tumultuous past and uneasy relationships with the villagers continue to haunt him. The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by the murder of a policeman - shot at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark arctic winter closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor, and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik, where someone is being held against their will. Then a mysterious young woman moves to the area, on the run from something she dare not reveal, and it becomes all too clear that tragic events from the past are weaving a sinister spell that may threaten them all. Dark, chilling and complex, Nightblind is an extraordinary thriller from an undeniable new talent.Trade Review'Jonasson plays fair with the reader - his clues are traditional and beautifully finessed - and he keeps you turning the pages. Snowblind is morally more equivocal than most traditional whodunnits, and it offers alluring glimpses of darker, and infinitely more threatening horizons' Independent * 'A tiny, segregated town is a superb setting for a crime novel, and Jonasson exploits it well. He builds a layered mystery featuring a series of unhealthy secrets, and past crimes buried deep in the sheltered, almost claustrophobic recesses of family life, which Ari Thor will pay a high price for unravelling' Crime Thriller Journal * 'Bitingly contemporary in setting and tone' Express * 'A modern take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery, as twisty as any slalom...' Ian Rankin * 'Ragnar Jonasson does claustrophobia beautifully' Ann Cleeves

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Book SynopsisOn the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer's night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person's life hangs in the balance. Ari Thor Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjoerdur struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit. As silent, unspoken horrors from the past threaten them all, and the darkness deepens, it's a race against time to find the killer before someone else dies... Dark, terrifying and complex, Blackout is an exceptional, atmospheric thriller from one of Iceland's finest crime writers. `Jonasson's books have breathed new life into Nordic Noir' Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express `A distinctive blend of Nordic Noir and Golden Age detective fiction ... economical and evocative prose, as well as some masterful prestidigitation' Laura Wilson, Guardian `Jonasson's writing is a masterful reinvention of the Golden Age classic style, both contemporary and timeless ... enclosed by the poetic beauty of the location' Crime Review `A classic crime story seen through a uniquely Icelandic lens ... first rate and highly recommended' Lee Child 'A modern take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery, as twisty as any slalom...' Ian Rankin

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Book SynopsisWinner of The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984. The year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil. When a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy turns up in Breathed claiming to be Satan himself, everybody assumes he is just a runaway. But when strange things start happening to the townsfolk, there are some who start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. Trade Review‘A wildly riffing trumpet voluntary that sustains its thrilling high notes from start to finish … A startlingly rich imagination shouts its glorious arrival in this overwhelming narrative of sin, redemption, love and death.’ -- Jane Housman * The Guardian *'Tiffany McDaniel’s The Summer That Melted Everything is a wonderfully original, profoundly unsettling, deeply moving novel that delivers both the shock of fully realised reality and the deep resonance of parable. This is a remarkable debut by a splendid young writer.’ -- Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize—winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain'In this bold and surprising debut novel, Tiffany McDaniel reveals a new voice in contemporary fiction. At times comic, at times heartbreaking, The Summer That Melted Everything, moves between the future and the past, and gives us a window on a particular time, the hell-hot summer of 1984, and a group of characters George Orwell could not have imagined. In this world nothing is quite what it seems, as mystery and revelation alternate, right up to the end. At times surreal, magical, this story of a family and community incorporates global warming, AIDS, discrimination, fear, mass hysteria, lynching, and martyrdom, but in the end is a love story, warning us not to be too quick in judging what is evil and what is good.' -- Robert Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of Gap Creek'Sometimes a book comes along that is so good that it defies all descriptions, but I'll give it a shot anyway: Tiffany McDaniel's astounding and heartbreaking The Summer That Melted Everything reads as if Carson McCullers and Shirley Jackson got together with Nathaniel Hawthorne in some celestial backwater and decided to write the first truly great gothic coming-of-age novel of the twenty-first century. There, I said it. Now read it.' -- Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time'It is rare that a narrative makes me question my own beliefs. This book did that very thing. A fine story with a message about truth, trust, family, and the dangers of the devils among us.' -- Suzanne Palmieri, author of The Witch of Bourbon Street'The Summer That Melted Everything is a blast of hellfire, humor, and heartbreak that’s part Flannery O’Connor, part Stephen King, and wholly original.' -- Lou Berney, author of The Long and Faraway Gone'A wondrous debut of a novel. Imagine To Kill a Mockingbird, seen through the eyes of Neil Gaiman. McDaniel’s prose is rich and magical, full of passages of exquisite, strange beauty that ache with bitter truths and old sorrows. You'll not read anything else like it.' -- James Sie, author of Still Life Las Vegas'Sometimes there is a novel so strange and beguiling it makes you give up your world for another world, all the while that you are reading it. Such a story is Tiffany McDaniel’s tale of an enchanted boy — who might be the devil — welcomed into a family with no right to their name, Bliss. It will frighten you, and charm you, and break your heart if you allow it ... and you will allow it, because once this world has hold of you, it won’t let you go.' -- Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author The Deep End of the Ocean and Two if by Sea‘McDaniel opens up a thought-provoking world powered by increasing suspense … A powerful debut.’ * Sunday Star Times *‘Dark and wholly original … Gloriously Gothic.’ * Psychologies *‘Hugely ambitious, stuffed with very vivid characters … A fascinating, poignant story.’ -- Amanda Craig * Radio 4 ‘Saturday Review’ *‘Fantastic…The Summer That Melted Everything is a novel you’ll want to re-read.’ * Nudge Book *‘There’s more than an echo of To Kill a Mockingbird here … though Fielding’s journey from innocence to experience is a whole lot darker than Scout’s … Atmosphere is key when it comes to southern gothic, and the summer heat licks like hellfire through McDaniel’s pages … The Summer That Melted Everything is a genuinely unnerving, deliciously dark tale of the evil that lies in ordinary people.’ * The Independent *‘A hefty slice of deep south gothic’ -- Sam Baker * The Pool *‘Gently written, allegorical, domestic, with myths of the underworld explored like never before through the eyes of a man looking back on his sins. One of the most beautiful books of the year.’ * Listener *‘A very fresh and different take on the southern gothic novel.’ * Bath Life *‘The Summer that Melted Everything is inventive and provocative … [A] meaty and relentlessly good story.’ * bookreporter *‘When word gets out that the devil may be in Breathed, tensions and temperatures will rise, and soon the town will find itself enveloped in full-blown hysteria. A fantastic Jackson-esque debut about rumours, fears, and beliefs.’ * BookRiot *‘This debut novel shines with beauty and lyricism … Give this to fans of atmospheric fiction, particularly those who enjoy the grit of Donald Ray Pollock, the foreshadowing of Shirley Jackson, and the mounting suspense of Peter Straub.’ * Library Journal *‘[McDaniel] is capable of stirring powerful emotions … [A]n ambitious novel that will invite thought and surely spark discussion.’ * Booklist *‘Tiffany McDaniel’s brilliant literary debut is a feast for the mind. Her gifted language and stunning story craft shine a bright light on human nature as she examines the face of good and evil. I enjoyed every single word.’ -- Susan Crandall, bestselling author of Whistling Past the Graveyard‘A haunting Appalachian Gothic novel that calls into question the nature of good and evil.’ * Akron Beacon Journal *

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Book SynopsisÁróra returns to Iceland when her estranged sister goes missing, and her search leads to places she could never have imagined. A chilling, tense thriller – FIRST in an addictive, nerve-shattering new series – from one of Iceland’s bestselling authors…‘Icelandic crime writing at its finest … immersive and unnerving’ Shari Lapena‘Best-selling Icelandic crime-writer Sigurðardóttir has built a formidable reputation with just four novels, but here she introduces a new protagonist who is set to cement her legacy’ Daily Mail‘Another bleak, unpredictable classic’ Metro**Winner: Best Icelandic Crime Novel of the Year**––––––––––––––Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realises that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace. As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – Áróra is led into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation. Baffled by the conflicting details of her sister’s life, and blinded by the shiveringly bright midnight sun of the Icelandic summer, Áróra enlists the help of police officer Daníel, as she tries to track her sister’s movements, and begins to tail Björn – but she isn’t the only one watching…Slick, tense, atmospheric and superbly plotted, Cold as Hell marks the start of a riveting, addictive new series from one of Iceland’s bestselling crime writers.–––––––––––––––––‘Lilja Sigurðardóttir doesn’t write cookie-cutter crime novels. She is aware that “the fundamentals of existence are totally incomprehensible and chaotic”: anything can and does happen … Isn’t that what all crime writers should aim for?’ The Times‘The blinding midnight sun in Iceland’s summer is beautifully evoked as Áróra establishes herself as a heroine to move the heart’ Daily Mail‘Lilja is a standout voice in Icelandic Noir, and this book does not disappoint … Cold as Hell is her best yet’ James Oswald ‘Domestic abuse, high-finance hanky-panky, and illegal immigration all figure in this arresting series launch … sure to please Scandi noir fans’ Publishers Weekly ‘What sets Lilja’s work apart is her ability to thread dark atmospheric tension throughout her writing and to keep the tale so taut … a slick, refreshing, glacial blast of a thriller’ LoveReading‘So atmospheric’ Crime Monthly‘Intricate, enthralling and very moving – a wonderful crime novel’ William Ryan‘Three things we love about Cold as Hell: Iceland’s unrelenting midnight sun; the gritty Nordic murder mystery; the peculiar and bewitching characters’ Apple Books‘Lilja Sigurðardóttir just gets better and better … Áróra is a wonderful character: unique, passionate, unpredictable and very real’ Michael RidpathPraise for Lilja Sigurðardóttir'Smart writing with a strongly beating heart' Big Issue'Tough, uncompromising and unsettling' Val McDermid'Tense and pacey' Guardian'Deftly plotted' Financial Times‘An emotional suspense rollercoaster on a par with The Firm, as desperate, resourceful, profoundly lovable characters scheme against impossible odds’ Alexandra Sokoloff'Tense, edgy and delivering more than a few unexpected twists and turns' Sunday Times‘The intricate plot is breathtakingly original, with many twists and turns you never see coming. Thriller of the year’ New York Journal of Books'Taut, gritty and thoroughly absorbing' Booklist'A stunning addition to the icy-cold crime genre' Foreword Reviews For fans of Katrine Engberg, Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir, Arne Dahl and Sarah Vaughan

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