Narrative theme: coming of age

Book SynopsisThe stunning new novel from Christine Dwyer Hickey, bestselling author of Last Train from Liguria.'One of Ireland's most lauded modern writers, Christine Dwyer Hickey teases out the strands of her story... It leaves the reader with the aftertaste of regret for their own what might have been...' - Daily MailFollowing a long absence spent in New York, Elaine Nichols returns to her childhood home to live with her invalid father and his geriatric Alsatian dog. The house backing on to theirs is sold and as she watches the old furniture stack up on the lawn, Elaine is brought back to a summer in the 1970s. She is almost sixteen again and this small out-of-town estate is an enclave for women and children while the men are mysterious shadows who leave every day for the outside world. The women are isolated but keep their loneliness and frustrations hidden behind a veneer of suburban respectability. When an American divorcee and her daughter move into the estate, the veneer begins to crack. The women learn how to socialise, how to drink martinis in the afternoon, how to care less about their wifely and maternal duties. While the women are distracted, Elaine and her friends find their own entry into the adult world and the result is a tragic event that will mark the rest of Elaine's life and be the cause of her long and guilt-ridden exile.Insightful and full of suspense, this is an uncompromising portrayal of the suburbs and the cruelties brought about by the demands of respectability.Trade ReviewThis study of suburbia shows how the "savagery of respectability" can wreck lives... A reflection on neglect that engages right to the shocking end. * Psychologies *One of Ireland's most lauded modern writers, Christine Dwyer Hickey teases out the strands of her story... It leaves the reader with the aftertaste of regret for their own what might have been... * Daily Mail *As the compelling narrative alternates between Elaine's teenage summer and her present-day loneliness, Dwyer Hickey offers a devastating picture of suburban isolation. * Irish Times *A stunning portrait of a section of '70s Ireland... The Lives of Women is a wonderful read - thought provoking and compelling - and is, to my mind, Christine's best to date. * Irish Examiner *[A] richly textured, insightful and uncompromising look at life in unforgiving 1970s Ireland. Another triumph for this talented and original writer. * Irish Independent *Dwyer Hickey is as astute in conveying everyday conversation as dark events... It left me with that vague, almost physical chest ache one feels on experiencing great sadness. * Independent on Sunday *A beautiful, suspenseful look at life in the suburbs and the compromises required by the expectations of society. * Sunday World *Insightful and full of suspense, this is an uncompromising portrayal of the suburbs... Here is a novel that will truly make us think about the lives of women. * Newstalk *

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Book Synopsis1988. 12-year-old Harper Richardson's parents are divorced. Her mum got custody of her, the Mini, and five hundred tins of baked beans. Her dad got a mouldering cottage in a Midlands backwater village and default membership of the Lone Rangers single parents' club. Harper got questionable dress sense, a zest for life, two gerbils, and her Chambers dictionary, and the responsibility of fixing her parents' broken hearts... Set against a backdrop of high hairdos and higher interest rates, pop music and puberty, divorce and death, What a Way to Go is a warm, wise and witty tale of one girl tackling the business of growing up while those around her try not to fall apart.Trade ReviewWhat a fabulous novel! So fresh, touching, truthful and laugh-out-loud funny. I absolutely loved it. -- Deborah MoggachI hugely, entirely enjoyed this book. What a Way to Go is richly transporting - and so funny, and so moving. Julia Forster has all the marks of a prize-winning novelist; you know it from the first pages. -- Horatio ClareA brilliant debut. Sharp, sweet, bristling with wit and full of hilarious, wildly imaginative observations. In Harper Julia Forster has created a bold and distinctive 12 year old voice that manages to be nostalgic and authentic at the same time. -- Emma Jane Unsworth, author of 'Animals'I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. Harper is such a lovable, funny character, and seeing the the 1980s through her eyes is both moving and revealing. I loved the 'mis-en-scene' of Blackbrake, the whole small town atmosphere where the skies are as grey as her 'school uniform', and I thought the monstrously selfish but somehow sympathetic Mum is a great comic creation. Above all, I thought Harper's tone was perfectly judged, that mix of knowingness, naivete, and humour was great. It deserves to do really well. I will put a 5 star review on Amazon! -- Francis GilbertI haven't enjoyed a book this much in ages. It's wonderful... Harper [is] an amazing protagonist - all the things I wanted to be at that age but probably never was - bright, funny, inquisitive, happy in her own skin. -- Megan Bradbury, author of 'Everyone Is Watching'Oh, this one is good, so very good. Heart-breaking, humorous and thought provoking. Thank you Julia Foster for a brilliant debut novel. -- Phylippa Smithson for lovereading.co.ukPoignant, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and a fabulous portrait of the time. * Woman & Home *As a first novel it has promise, with some sensitive writing and funny lines. * The Scotsman *This is a bittersweet tale of one girl just at the cusp of becoming a young woman with a burgeoning mind of her own, and a blossoming sense of life's possibilities. * The Western Mail *What a Way to Go is very funny and warm, sometimes sad, always beautifully written and just a ... joy [to read]. -- Hayley Long, blogger and author, twice nominated for the Costa AwardWhat A Way To Go is funny and sharp and it's a treat to hang out with Harper as she and her Chambers dictionary flit between her Midlands parental homes. * Emerald Street *What a joy to read... Julia Forster's assured debut novel marks the start of a brilliant writing career. * Reader's Digest *I loved this novel. It's by turns incredibly poignant and very funny. A touching coming of age tale that completely hits its mark. -- Kate HamerThis amusing coming-of-age novel, narrated by 12-year old Harper Richardson, is full of humour, often of the black variety... this gauche yet likable character emerges chrysalis-like, a bit more armoured for the next stage of her young life. * Irish Examiner *A glowing debut * Daily Mail *

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Book Synopsis'Utterly magnificent . . . gripping, accomplished and dark' Marian KeyesWINNER: Newcomer of the Year at the IBAs WINNER: Bookseller YA Prize WINNER: CBI Eilis Dillon Award Buzzfeed's Best Books Written by Women in 2014The bestselling novel about beauty, body image and betrayaleves are designed, not made. The School trains them to be prettyThe School trains them to be good.The School trains them to Always be Willing.All their lives, the eves have been waiting. Now, they are ready for the outside world.companion . . . concubine . . . or chastityOnly the best will be chosen.And only the Men decide.Trade ReviewGripping ... like all the best dystopias, Only Ever Yours is about the world we live in now * Irish Times *The Handmaid's Tale meets Mean Girls' * The Vagenda *Utterly magnificent ... gripping, accomplished and dark * Marian Keyes *Deserves to be read by young and old, male and female, the world over in the same way Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were * Sunday Independent *A dark dream. A vivid nightmare. The world O'Neill imagines is frightening because it could come true. She writes with a scalpel * Jeanette Winterson *Deep, dark and frighteningly believable, this book will stay with you for a long time * Marie Claire *Compelling writing ... this only-too-real dystopia grips from beginning to end * SFX *Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale with a post-millennial twist * The Journal.ie *The bleakness of The Catcher in the Rye, the satire of The Stepford Wives and it made me recall Nineteen Eighty-Four ... a fresh and original talent * Irish Independent *Terrifying but captivating * Company *A sparkling debut that will really make you think * Heat *'Compelling and frightening' * Irish Examiner *An ingenious exploration of gender roles, female identity and female competition * Buzzfeed *'Terrifying and heartbreaking, O'Neill's story reads like an heir to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and MT Anderson's Feed, and, like those two books, it's sure to be discussed for years to come' * Publisher's Weekly *'A stunning debut set in a dystopian future that has everyone talking . . . once read, will never be forgotten' * Irish Independent *Dark, gripping . . . should be mandatory reading everywhere * The F Word *

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Book Synopsis'The kind of book that changes readers for the better' GuardianWhen a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the floodwaters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together. In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernières tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts.Trade ReviewThe kind of book that changes readers for the better… The love between Mick and Granpa, and the changing landscape they inhabit, are the highlights of this superb story. * Guardian *Wise and heartwarming. -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday *[Blue Dog] is the heart-warming, funny, coming-of-age story… This is an irresistible, feel-good, laugh-out-loud tale… It is not an easy place to leave behind. -- Nicolette Jones * Sunday Times *A young adult novel that will appeal to all ages. -- Lorna Cumming-Bruce * Financial Times *A beautifully told story. -- Emily Bearn * Daily Telegraph, Book of the Year *

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Book Synopsis Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2018 This number one best-selling title in Iraq, Dubai, and the UAE is a heart-rending tale of two girls growing up in war-torn Baghdad Baghdad, 1991. The Gulf War is raging. Two girls, hiding in an air raid shelter, tell stories to keep the fear and the darkness at bay, and a deep friendship is born. But as the bombs continue to fall and friends begin to flee the country, the girls must face the fact that their lives will never be the same again. This poignant debut novel reveals just what it's like to grow up in a city that is slowly disappearing in front of your eyes, and how in the toughest times, children can build up the greatest resilience.Trade Review‘Vivid, at times surreal… the novel confronts the reality of Baghdad in the final decade of the twentieth century through the vision of a girl who often imbues it with wonder and beauty.’ * TLS *"The Baghdad Clock is not just a popular winner with Edinburgh International Book Festival readers this year - it's also a brilliant winner that will live long in the memory and it established Shahad Al Rawi as a force to be reckoned with, in Arabic and English alike." * Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival *‘With tremendous talent and a sharp intelligence, Al Rawi delivers an outstanding debut. Highly recommended.’ * Library Journal (starred review) *‘Shahad Al Rawi brings us into the city of Baghdad in the middle of the Gulf War, where people continue to go about their lives despite the war that is eroding their homes. The story centres on two girls in an air raid shelter and the friendship that blossoms around the stories they tell each other in this book filled with resilience and life.’ * World Literature Today *‘This stirring debut follows two girls and their lives as they grow up in the war-torn city of Iraq. A poignant portrayal of the enduring bond of friendship, infused with a touch of magical realism.’ * Book Riot *‘Marked with a wild inventiveness and emotional depth… The Baghdad Clock is a stirring, and at times moving, portrait of two young women sticking together while everything around them falls apart…[which] provides compelling depictions of each stage of the girls’ journey to adulthood.’ * The National *‘Al Rawi’s debut presents the so-called enemy imbued with childhood whimsy and human longing, their quotidian stories embellished with touches of magic realism. Rendered into English by Harvard professor Leafgren, who was inspired by 9/11 to learn Arabic, this international bestseller is both condemnation against politics and war and testimony to resilient humanity.’ * Booklist *‘Extraordinary... The author does an incredible job of painting a portrait of a neighborhood in Baghdad [and] writes beautifully of characters who immediately captivate you — characters who are relatable, but also imbued with a sense of magic. The life she writes of has an ethereal overlay, as if life is about much more than just living through war. In a country so often dehumanized by politics, Al-Rawi reminds us of the stories and people that make Iraq what it is.’ * Arab News *‘Through a child's perspective and using elements of magical realism, Al Rawi explores her protagonist's internal turbulence at a time in which uncertainty is a way of life and stability a myth.’ * The Tempest *‘Al Rawi writes with such enthusiasm for her subject matter, she injects her characters with beautiful quirks and personalities.’ * The Bookbag *‘Amazing...I am in awe of [Al Rawi's] ability to share profound thoughts from the point of view of such a young woman.’ * Sandra Yeaman, blog review *‘The Baghdad Clock is a wonderful human book... It's a brilliant and imaginative work that will capture both your heart and your mind.’ * Blogcritics *‘[Shahad Al Rawi] has skilfully interwoven fantasy and reality with a fine thread. She draws you through the story, leading you from one maze into another, as you stagger along in a state of perplexity, amazement and sheer delight.’ * al-Watan *

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Book SynopsisAfter the loss of war, can there be hope for the future?Manchester, 1922.Belinda Layton is a surplus girl. One of the many women whose dreams of marriage perished in the Great War, with the death of her beloved fiancé, Ben. After four years of mourning, she's ready to face the future, even though Ben's family is not happy to see her move on, and her own only cares about getting hold of her meagre factory wages. Then, Belinda joins a secretarial class and a whole new world opens up to her as she quickly finds herself drawn to beguiling bookshop owner Richard Carson. But after all the loss and devastation she has experienced, can she really trust him with her heart?The first in a quartet of sagas set during the early 1920s, following three Surplus Girls - those women whose dreams of marriage perished in the Great War, after the deaths of millions of young men, and the new lives they forged for themselves.Trade ReviewA promising start to a new saga set in the years between the wars... An enjoyable read full of good friends and bad characters. * People's Friend *A real page-turner that will tug on your heart strings * Anna Jacobs *Pleasant and engaging * NB Magazine *

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Book Synopsis"Maylis de Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism her characters hope to achieve in paint" London Magazine"Evocative and exhilerating" Booklist"Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam" TImes Literary SupplementBehind the ornate doors of the Institut de Peinture in Brussels, Kate, Jonas and Paula begin their apprenticeship in decorative painting, the art of visual deception. An intense year of study will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal education ends. Paula's initiation into trompe l'oeil will take her back through time and place as she strives for perfection. From her work on the film sets of Cinecittà to the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, her experiences will transcend artistic endeavour and gradually reveal something of her own inner world and the secret, unreachable desires of her heart.This is a coming-of-age novel like no other: an atmospheric and highly aesthetic portrayal of love, art and craftsmanship from the prize-winning author of Birth of a Bridge and Mend the Living.Translated from the French by Jessica MooreTrade ReviewAs she has so often done, de Kerangal shows there is poetry to be found in our jargon, and stories embedded in our tools . . . This is writing that defies haste, that slows the eye. It is also a mighty feat of translation . . . Cements [de Kerangal's] reputation as one of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders -- Beejay Silcox * Guardian *The book is a joyful testament to the rigours of research, and to the translator's art too . . . Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam -- Jonathan Gibbs * TLS *Intensely alive, encompassing both the technical and the poetic, emotion and cerebrality -- Raphaëlle Leyris * Le Monde *Always brilliant, executed in flowing, lyrical prose that had already reached the firmament in [Mend the Living] . . . De Kerangal finds fiction in reality; precise, technical vocabulary is imbued with rich imagination and meaning. And mastering trompe-l'œil - isn't that the ideal metaphor for the work of a novelist? -- Frédérique Roussel * Libération *The art of painting in perfect harmony with de Kerangal's writing; visual, flamboyant, assured . . . in perfect alignment with her subject -- Marine Landrot * Télérama *Kerangal's elegant, sexy, subtly Proustian, and fluidly dimensional drama of discipline and passion, imitation andimagination is resplendently evocative and exhilarating. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *Long looping sentences, beautifully translated from the French by Jessica Moore, are balanced by taut scene changes . . . De Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism that her characters hope to achieve in paint * London Magazine *

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Book Synopsis* A WATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE MONTH * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD * 'As moving as it is gripping... I loved it' CHRIS BROOKMYRE 'Utterly compelling' MARION TODD 'Extraordinary' JAMES OSWALD 'Excellent' HERALD SCOTLAND There were good people in The Homes. But there were also some very, very bad ones... A thousand unwanted children live in The Homes, a village of orphans in the Scottish Lowlands on the outskirts of Glasgow. Lesley was six before she learned that most children live with their parents. Now Lesley is twelve, and she and her best friend Jonesy live in Cottage 5, Jonesy the irrepressible spirit to Lesley's quiet thoughtfulness. Life is often cruel at The Homes, and suddenly it becomes much crueller. A child is found murdered. Then another. With the police unable to catch the killer, Lesley and Jonesy decide to take the matter into their own hands. But unwanted children are easy victims, and they are both in terrible danger... Inspired by a true story, and introducing readers to the unforgettable voice of young orphan Lesley, The Homes is a moving and lyrical thriller, perfect for readers of Val McDermid, Chris Whitaker, Jane Casey and Denise Mina.Trade ReviewA serial-killer mystery and a whodunit, but so much more. Tragic, gritty and haunting, yet brims with bitter-sweet humour and a main character who will steal your heart away -- Janice Hallett, author of THE APPEALAn evocative, compelling and ultimately moving mystery with a captivating central character -- Brian McGillowayTense yet tender, as moving as it is gripping... set to be one of the Scottish crime books of the year. I loved it -- Chris BrookmyreAn extraordinary story quite brilliantly told. Lesley is a wonderful character, and J.B. Mylet catches her voice perfectly. I found myself staying up long after lights out reading "just another chapter". And then another, and another -- James OswaldHeart-warming, heart-breaking and utterly compelling. I could not put this beautiful book down and it stayed with me long after I finished it -- Marion Todd, author of the Detective Clare Mackay seriesAmazing. I was hooked from the first page... A brilliant, must read story, all the more powerful because it's told through the bewildered logic of a child. I read it with an ache in my chest for all the Lesleys and Jonesys out there -- Anna Smith, author of the Kerry Casey seriesIn an unguarded voice that conveys her intelligence and courage while still passing convincingly as that of a smart 12-year-old girl, Mylet balances the whodunnit aspects with the painful lessons Lesley is learning about life... It's a testament to the strength of Mylet's characterisation, and his ability to make us care about her, that by the end of this excellent debut the real question is not so much "Who committed the murders?" but "Where does Lesley go from here?" * Herald Scotland *

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Book SynopsisFour boys. One band. No Chance. Chris and George are best friends, and they want to be rockstars. Unfortunately, a childhood spent playing in the school orchestra and listening to Jimmy Nail has left them a little fluffy around the edges, and at the age of 23, their acoustic duo Satellite doesn’t resemble Bon Jovi nearly as much as they’d planned. So how do two ordinary boys from a sleepy village go about taking on the cut-throat world of rock ’n’ roll? They'll have to fake it until they make it. True to life, funny and uplifting, Mockstars is a coming-of-age story about friendship and chasing the rock ’n’ roll dream. Inspired by the real-life tour diaries of the author’s band The Lightyears, Mockstars is a refreshingly different musical odyssey.

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Book Synopsis'This wove a spell on me' – Marian Keyes 'F***ing brilliant' – Daisy May Cooper ___________Meet Gosia.She's a sensitive soul with a filthy mind and problems with intimacy.Between shifts in a well-lit budget supermarket and nights in a badly lit Zone 3 flatshare, she spends hours inside her own head. That is, until a chance encounter snaps her out of her reverie.Propelled into a series of mediocre jobs, lousy dates and even worse sex, the prickly yet warm-hearted Gosia begins her excavation of the 'perfect' life so many dream of.After all, could there be more to it than she imagined?Raw, funny, mean and moving, Odd Hours is a razor-sharp social comedy about human connection, unexpected happiness, and the many forms of love. ___________'A hymn to normality and an absolute joy to read' – Sarah May 'Compelling, surprising, funny' – Kate Sawyer 'Bas writes so well about that state of being young and trying so hard to make connections' – Marianne Levy 'Dark, sharply funny and utterly rewarding ... Reminded me of the brilliant books by Kirsty Capes ... Highly recommended' – Liz HyderTrade Review'Dark, sharply funny and utterly rewarding ... Reminded me of the brilliant books by Kirsty Capes ... Highly recommended' -- Liz Hyder'This enigmatic and idiosyncratic gem is eccentric, quirky and utterly original' -- Kevin O'Sullivan (Irish Examiner Book of 2022)'Bas writes so well about that state of being young and trying so hard to make connections' -- Marianne Levy'Odd Hours is a brilliant satire on the struggles of life in the zero-hours sector ... An auspicious debut' -- Paul Mendez

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Book SynopsisA clash of empires that will echo for eternity…AD 1071. Emperor Romanus Diogenes has rekindled the guttering flame of Byzantium, and a reinvigorated empire rises to meet the Seljuk threat. In the eastern borderlands, two vital strongholds hang in the balance: Manzikert and Chliat. The Byzantines and Seljuks race to secure the twin fortress-towns.Apion rides by the emperor’s side as they march east, marshalling Byzantium’s armies for the conflict that is to come. He knows only too well that the threat posed by the Sultan’s hordes is well-matched by malevolent forces within the Byzantine ranks. Thus, the road to war is a savage one, but one he cannot refuse. For at its end, Fate beckons, taunting him with a choice of two futures.On the plains of Manzikert, one great power will rise and another will fall. On the plains of Manzikert, Apion will face the storm.The epic conclusion to the Strategos series, perfect for fans of David Gilman and Christian Cameron.

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Book Synopsis'A gleeful, page-flipping read . . . One you'll be glad to take a ringside seat for' Observer'A rollicking historical novel' Daily MailAnnie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country at the height of the industrial revolution. When her father dies, her Romi family can no longer afford to keep her, and at nine years old she is sold for six guineas to the famous and feared bare-knuckle boxer Bill Perry, the Tipton Slasher.Bill is starting to lose his strength but insists he has one last fight in him. In fear for his life, Annie steps into the ring, fists raised in his defence. From that moment on, she will fight - for Bill and for her future.A whole new world opens up for Annie, one of love, fortune, family and education, but also of danger. One wrong move, one misstep, and the course of her life will be changed for ever.Trade ReviewA punchy historical yarn . . . [Kitson] has a fine time with Annie and the Slasher - warm, memorable creations who come punching off the page . . . Featherweight transports the reader to the tough, rapidly industrialising world of the 19th-century Black Country, with its old canals and new railways, the soot of the forges and strikes at the nail factories, via lushly detailed, rhythmical descriptions . . . A gleeful, page-flipping read . . . A rollicking tale, one you'll be glad to take a ringside seat for * * Observer * *Annie is a lively, appealing character and there is plenty more to enjoy in Kitson's narrative * * Sunday Times, Best New Historical Fiction * *A no-holds-barred portrait of an English town despoiled by the Industrial Revolution * * New York Times * *A rollicking historical novel set in the Black Country during the Industrial Revolution . . . Offers plenty to enjoy * * Daily Mail * *Kitson creates a Dickensian flavour through Black Country dialogue, a strong sense of place (a smut-blackenedindustrial town), and colourful characterisation. Detailed descriptions of what goes on in the ring add suspense . . . Readers will love rooting for this great little fighter who easily punches above her weight . . . Compelling * * Booklist * *A wonderful novel . . . The themes of Kitson's plot also revolve around themes of rejection, lost hope, vulnerability. But in Annie it also shows us a strong woman, way ahead of her time who decides she can also turn her hand (or fists) to pugilism * * NB Magazine * *Praise for Sal: Kitson writes clearly and concisely . . . Sal is an ambitious and skilled novel. Literature needs more stories like this -- JENNI FAGAN * * Guardian * *Daring and original . . . Manages to feel both contemporary and timeless, both heart-rending and uplifting * * Observer * *Just wonderful. A breath of fresh air in a book. Sal is a story with incredible heart, told so beautifully and with such clarity and grace I can hardly believe it's a debut! I loved it -- JOANNA CANNON, author of THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEPSal is an inspiring novel that feels honest and fastidious. It introduces the theme of redemption and fresh beginnings without shying from the awful truth * * Financial Times * *

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Book Synopsis'Extraordinary' Naoise Dolan'Seriously good' Louise NealonDublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. Then, at a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen. None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary novel. None of This Is Serious brilliantly explores the impossibility to "come of age" in end times, where screens are so contiguous to experience that no-one is ever truly online or offline. She writes truthfully and with affectless nuance about the labyrinthine workings of friend groups and the defences women scramble for in a world that still hates us -- NAOISE DOLAN, author of EXCITING TIMESI inhaled None of This Is Serious. I've been waiting for a fictional story that reflects the all-consuming influence that the Internet has on my life. None of This Is Serious is that story. A compulsively readable, fresh and painfully accurate description of the way we live now. Don't let the title fool you. It is serious. Seriously good -- LOUISE NEALON, author of SNOWFLAKEEdgy . . . [Prasifka] has a painfully raw and acute gift for catching the way things are * * Sunday Times * *I absolutely LOVED this novel. Beautifully crafted -- EMMA GANNON, author of OLIVEFortunately, [Prasifka] doesn't need any sprinkling of Rooney's fairy dust; she makes her own magic. In the seriously good None of This is Serious, the 26-year-old author conveys what it's like to be a young woman today navigating life in Dublin and online . . . She is an astute observer of the social dynamics of her generation * * Irish Times * *A beautifully written original take on how we're all guilty of taking refuge online as the world around us becomes increasingly confusing * * Stylist, Fiction Books You Can't Miss in 2022 * *[A] funny, endearingly heartfelt debut * * Daily Mail * *As we adapt to our increasingly online lives, Catherine Prasifka's debut is the antidote we never knew we needed. We meet Sophie, Prasifka's ultra-relatable protagonist, at a precarious time in her life: leaving university. What happens next is a worthy reminder that Instagram /= reality * * Glamour, Best Books of 2022 * *None of This Is Serious is brilliant - so devastatingly precise about being a young woman living in Ireland and online today, moving deftly between sharp, hilarious observations and heartbreaking, enraging moments -- CLAIRE HENNESSY, author of LIKE OTHER GIRLSNone of This Is Serious is such a compelling novel, and Sophie is such a relatable character - reading her story felt like one of those meaningful and immersive conversations you can only have with a stranger at 3am in the toilets of a dingy club, all hearts laid bare. At times agonisingly close to the bone, Catherine Prasifka's debut novel is an exquisitely unnerving portrayal of who we are and how we live -- KATIE HALE, author of MY NAME IS MONSTER

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE'Usami so successfully depicts the consequences of pure obsession' Guardian'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what it is like to be a teenage girl' Catherine PrasifkaHigh-school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one-fifth of Japanese pop group Maza Maza. Akari's dedication to her oshi consumes her days completely - until he disgraces himself and Akari's world goes into a tailspin.Trade ReviewUsami so successfully depicts the consequences of pure obsession * * Guardian * *[Idol, Burning] cracked a door open into an intense world of obsession . . . essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what it is like to be a teenage girl, where priorities are skewed, emotions are high, and everything feels like it's life or death -- CATHERINE PRASIFKAA vivid depiction of the joys and despairs of teenage fan culture, Idol, Burning is urgent and all-consuming . . . In this passionate and compassionate novel, the voice of teenage desperation sings out -- KATIE HALEA short but mighty novel that sheds a light on the world of superfans, obsession and the dangers of building your identity around a phenomenon that can disappear in a second . . . Usami's novel lifts the lid on the unique world of fandom and 'stan' culture in Japan * * The Skinny * *Compelling and unsettling in equal measure, Idol, Burning is a pitch-perfect insight into how confusing and exhausting modern life can feel to young women today. * * Buzz Magazine * *Idol, Burning is a window into the world of teenage obsession and the dark places it can venture to . . . This is like nothing else I've read * * Red * *Praise for Rin Usami: Pure brilliance -- TOSHIYUKI HORIE, author of THE BEAR AND THE PAVING STONEPoignant -- YOKO OGAWA, author of THE MEMORY POLICE[Usami's] writing is extremely fresh and she has high literary ability -- Akutagawa Prize Judges

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Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES BEST HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARA BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK1628. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship's busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a child struggling with a dark past and Gil's actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.The Night Ship is an enthralling tale of human brutality, providence and friendship, and of two children, hundreds of years apart, whose fates are inextricably bound together.Trade ReviewLyrical, haunting, a beautiful and elegant fictional interpretation of history, I loved it -- KATE MOSSEMajestic . . . Kidd packs the story with superb characters, high emotion and drama . . . this gripping story ebbs and bobs with surprises from Kidd's sparkling imagination * * Independent * *The ambition and execution of [Jess Kidd's] new book The Night Ship is breathtaking! Sweet and grim, epic and domestic - I loved it . . . readers are in for a treat -- GRAHAM NORTON[A] consistently gripping and impressively constructed novel . . . Kidd builds an immersive visual and olfactory world of the 17th century ship . . . since her first novel Himself [Kidd] has displayed a voracious talent for storytelling . . . [a] marvellous, spirited novel * * Financial Times * *Jess Kidd's extraordinary evocation of a place gruesome with ghosts and the stranglehold of the past is nothing short of brilliant. I loved it -- HANNAH KENTGripping . . . The Night Ship is immersive, vivid and immediate, teeming with sensory detail that could only have come from extensive and diligent research and told in beautifully assured prose * * Irish Times * *Fabulous . . . Beautifully pitched, and told in the present tense, there's a wonderful immediacy to the children's stories as they cope with the harsh reality of their worlds but yearn for the magical and mystical, in this briny, beguiling book * * Daily Mail * *Kidd's writing is beautiful, a seemingly effortless layering of small details to create a vivid sense of place and geography . . . wonderful . . . memorable * * Sunday Independent * *I absolutely loved it . . . Fantastic -- STEPHEN MANGANCompelling . . . [Possesses] great energy and originality * * Sunday Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Month * *

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Book Synopsis'A delectable slice of dark academia' Times Crime ClubCleeve College is not for everyone...When Eve's husband is appointed housemaster at his old boarding school, Cleeve College, she gives up her life in London to join him. But the isolation and loss of autonomy threaten both her happiness and her marriage.The arrival of Fen, an enigmatic artist and wife of the new Classics teacher, is a welcome distraction. Fen doesn't play by the rules, and she and Eve enter into a game of escalating dares, disrupting the delicate balance of school life.Then, the morning after Hazard Night, a tradition that allows the students to run wild and play pranks for one day, a body is found. Someone has been murdered. And it seems everyone has something to hide...'Dark and devious, immersive, compelling ... wonderfully absorbing read' - Andrea Mara'Atmospheric and sinister'- ObserverTrade ReviewBeautifully written, Hazard Night is dark and devious, immersive, compelling, and intensely atmospheric. A wonderfully absorbing read. -- Andrea MaraAtmospheric and sinister * Observer *A delectable slice of dark academia * Times Crime Club *Drew me in from the very first page with its evocative and brilliantly realised setting. With astute characterisation, masterful prose and gripping twists, Hazard Night cements Vaughan as one of my absolute favourite psychological thriller authors. * Philippa East *Cleverly written and thoroughly enjoyable * Belfast Telegraph *I absolutely loved it. The kind of writing where you don't want to miss a single word. * Emma Curtis *An award-winning performance * The Times on Let’s Pretend *A treat ... excellent insights ... elegant prose * Daily Mail on The Favour *Intensely captivating ... will cast its spell, leaving you on edge with unexpected twists * Heat Magazine on The Favour *

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Book SynopsisFROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PROMISEWinner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker, The Good Doctor is a powerful tale of a friendship overshadowed by betrayal, set against the tawdry hopes and disappointments of a post-apartheid South Africa'The Good Doctor will be seen as one of the great literary triumphs of South Africa's transition... by a novelist of great and growing power.' -- Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's HeartLaurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital postingfull of optimism. Frank, the disgruntled deputy, is forced to share his room with the new arrival but is determined to stay out of Laurence's ambitious schemes. When the dilapidated hospital is looted, the two men find themselves uneasy allies in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present.Trade Review'The bold, fresh voice of South African fiction' * Observer *'A latter day Heart of Darkness' -- Michael Arditti * Daily Mail *'His sentences have such hypnotic power that once started, this novel is very hard to put down' -- Russell Celyn Jones * The Times *'A lovely, lethal, disturbing novel' -- Christopher Hope * Guardian *'A gripping read, laced throughout with powerful emotional truth and Damon Galgut's extraordinary vision' -- Julie Wheelwright * Independent *'As good as Graham Greene' -- Joan Bakewell * Sunday Times *'Should have won the Booker.' -- Norman Lebrecht, Books of the Year * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisFROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PROMISEShortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best BookA gripping, claustrophobic novel of guilty secrets, obsession and self-reinvention on the African Savannah from the twice Man Booker-shortlisted author.When Adam moves into an abandoned house on the dusty edge of town, he is hoping to recover from the loss of his job and his home in the city. But when he meets Canning - a shadowy figure from his childhood - and Canning's enigmatic and beautiful wife, a sinister new chapter in his life begins. Canning has inherited a vast fortune and built for himself a giant folly in the veld, a magical place of fantasy and dreams that seduces Adam and transforms him absolutely, violently - and perhaps forever. Damon Galgut's magnificent novel evokes a hot and cruel and claustrophobic world, in which sex and death are never far from the surface.

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Book SynopsisYouth dives into the lives of four teenagers in Ireland's most diverse town, Balbriggan. Angel is about to finish school and discover if Drill music and YouTube fame can deliver on their promises. Princess is battling to escape her claustrophobic surroundings and go to university and Dean is ready to come out from under his famous father's shadow, while Tanya, struggling with the spotlight of internet infamy, is still posting her dream life for all of her faithful followers. Isolated and disorientated by the white noise and seemingly insurmountable expectations of adolescence, our protagonists are desperate to find anything that helps them belong. Oblivious to one another's presence, potential and struggles, they pass each other on the street as strangers. But when their paths cross, the connections they make will change the course of their lives. Twenty-first century life - hyper-sexualized, social media saturated, anxiety-plagued - is here. Living inside its characters' heads, and negotiating their interior landscape, this book is a love song to the possibilities of youth. Using insights gained from the young people he works with, Curran's evocative writing yields the authenticity this novel demands. With instinctive affection and admiration for his characters' strengths and complexities, Youth is a journey through streets less travelled.Trade Review'Kevin Curran's twenty-first century ... is a thrilling dispatch from life lived amid the ruins of idealism.' ROB DOYLE ; 'Kevin Curran ... [writes] with confidence and brio.' COLIN BARRETT ; '"The isolation of whole communities can be glimpsed through stories of marginalised individuals." Kevin Curran exemplifies this idea.' SALLY ROONEY ; '[Curran has] some big things to say about Ireland, past and present.' THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST ; 'Brings an edge of hard-won resolve to his tale while keeping mindful of broader social issues.' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ; ‘Here’s a rasping book, full of the kick and verve of the inner city. Loved the dialogue, the vernacular of working-class Dublin and all the minor and major concerns of youth. It’s easy to forget what it is to be young when looked at from the other end of life but Kevin made me remember the fine line between triumph and disaster with his great writing and love for his characters. Great book.’ KIT DE WAAL

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. S. BYATT'She is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century's greatest American writers' OBSERVER' . . . a clear-eyed salute to the resilience of the human spirit and the innate hardiness of the immigrants' XAN BROOKS, GUARDIAN 'Willa Cather was a wordsmith of enormous talent' ROBERT SLAYTON, LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS'During that burning day when we were crossing Iowa, our talk kept returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had both known long ago. More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood . . . His mind was full of her that day. He made me see her again, feel her presence, revived all my old affection for her'My Antonia is the unforgettable story of an immigrant woman's life on the Nebraska plains, seen through the eyes of her childhood friend, Jim Burden. The beautiful, free-spirited, wild-eyed girl captured Jim's imagination long ago and haunts him still, embodying for him the elemental spirit of the American frontier.In this powerful and astonishing novel, Willa Cather created one of the most winning yet thoroughly convincing heroines in American fiction.Trade ReviewShe is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century's greatest American writers * Observer *In fact it's one of the warmest, most quietly rousing books that I know; a clear-eyed salute to the resilience of the human spirit and the innate hardiness of the immigrants who came across the ocean to start afresh in the golden west -- Xan Brooks * Guardian *Willa Cather was a wordsmith of enormous talent -- Robert Slayton * Los Angeles Review of Books *Willa Cather makes a world which is burningly alive, sometimes lovely, often tragicHer voice, laconical and richly sensuous, sings out with a note of unequivocal love for the people she is setting down on the page

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Book SynopsisNanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient and eager to please, she accepts this closed world where, with all the enthusiasm of the outsider, her desires and passions become only those the school permits. Her only deviation from total obedience is the passionate friendships she makes.Convent life is perfectly captured - the smell of beeswax and incense; the petty cruelties of the nuns; the eccentricities of Nanda's school friends.Trade ReviewFrost in May is the unsurpassed novel of convent school life. This story of a clash between a determined young girl and an authoritarian regime is both perceptive and painfully emotional, convincing in every detail -- Hermione Lee * Observer *Evelyn Waugh called [her] one of the very best novelists of the day - a title she still deserves -- Carol ShieldsIntense, troubling, semi-miraculous ... IT is not the only school story to be a classic; but I can think of no other that is a work of art * Elizabeth Bowen *A masterpiece. Beautifully written, it is a calm and factual record of the slow death of the soul -- Selina HastingsA small masterpiece, the compelling and passionate story of young girls at a repressive religious school, told with such lyricism and elegant economy, such subtle understanding -- Tessa Hadley

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Book SynopsisBy the bestselling author of Black Narcissus and The Battle of the Villa Fiorita'The River will make you laugh, make you cry and, in its way, change you forever' JULIE MYERSON'Her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty' NEW YORK TIMES'Bold, beautiful . . . everyone's appetites will be satisfied' ELLEThe River is Rumer Godden's beautiful tribute to India and childhood, made into a film by Jean Renoir. And in a preface for this novel she explains how the classic tale came to be written.Harriet is caught between two worlds: her older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal - is about to be shattered by a tragic event.Intense, vivid, and with a dark undertow, The River is a poignant portrait of the loss of a young girl's innocence.Available with Virago Modern Classics. Trade Review[Godden's] distinctive, poised and unsentimental books have never lost a shred of their almost hypnotic appeal -- Rosie Thomas * Guardian *Her craftsmanship is always sure; her understanding of character is compassionate and profound; her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty * New York Times *The River will make you laugh, make you cry and, in its way, change you forever -- Julie MyersonBold, beautiful . . . everyone's appetites will be satisfied * Elle *A small masterpiece, a near perfect account of how childhood has to come to an end and the serpent must enter the garden . . . In The River she celebrates a passion for the people, colours, sounds and even the smells of India . . . She evokes, in simple, flawless prose, a young girl's first encounters with jealousy, sex, guilt and death -- Anne Chisholm * Spectator *The grace, the fragility, associated with Rumer Godden, again most evident in this new book * Kirkus Reviews *So intense, so quietly demanding of attention, that at the time there will be nothing in your thoughts but a small girl in India, and the people and places that were her world * Saturday Review *Compassionate wisdom and serene understanding . . . with each book she writes Miss Godden's position as one of the finest of English novelists becomes more secure -- Orville Prescott

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Book SynopsisMusil's limpid, psychological evocation of adolescent sexuality and its often sadistic eroticism which anticipates the carnage of both World Wars. As the nineteenth century draws to an end, young Törless is sent to a military boarding school for the sons of the nobility on the eastern outreaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Far from his comfortable, free-thinking bourgeois home and left to his own devices, he experiences the joy, pain and self-doubt of adolescence. He is confronted with desire and love, but also his own cruelty, as he finds himself participating in his fellow pupils’ bullying campaigns. A dark Bildungsroman which shocked its readership at the time, Robert Musil’s first novel is a fresco of psychoanalysis, philosophy, eroticism, snobbery, sado-masochism and schoolboy humour, a hothouse of alternately repressed and unchained desires that prefigure the carnage of both World Wars.

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Book SynopsisHelen and Ridley Ambrose are preparing to set off for an exotic resort off the coast of South America on the Euphrosyne, a ship belonging to Helen’s brother-in-law Willoughby Vinrace. Travelling with them is his daughter Rachel – a quiet, unremarkable girl raised in the London suburbs by her spinster aunts after the death of her mother. Along the way other people come aboard, such as the upper-class Clarissa and Richard Dalloway. As Rachel interacts with the passengers, intrigued by their different personalities, it becomes clear that what started for her as a mere sea voyage is turning into a journey of self-discovery and a rite of passage that will change her for ever. Published in 1915 after a long period of gestation and several drafts, The Voyage Out marks Virginia Woolf’s debut as a novelist. Perhaps the most accessible of her major works, it is essential both for understanding the early development of her style and for the light it sheds on her own biography and artistic vision.

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Book SynopsisA kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, James Frey's explosive new novel, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2017.At its centre are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the global imagination.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZE 2009LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2010'A tremendously vital book in every sense.' - Sunday TimesAt a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. The result is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits...Trade ReviewThe must-read novel of the summer. * Guardian *Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium. * John Boyne *Now and then a book comes along that defines a summer. This year that book is The Slap... The writing has shades of Martin Amis, Nick Hornby and Anne Tyler... The ideal summer read. * Daily Telegraph *As addictive as the best soap opera. * Daily Mail *A tremendously vital book in every sense. * Sunday Times *Dazzling. * Independent *Tsiolkas is a true storyteller and a hundred sentences could be plucked from the text to demonstrate his genius for establishing place, mood and character in a handful of words * Sydney Morning Herald *Brilliantly compelling and utterly fresh... Fiercely fantastic, you won't be able to put this down. * Grazia *Nothing short of a tour de force. Tsiolkas outs a microscope to family life and presents us with a vision both of unflinching honesty and great tenderness. Here is a novel of immense power and scope, reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Don De Lillo's Underworld. * Colm Toibin *Brilliant, beautiful, shockingly lucid and real, this is a novel as big as life built from small, secret, closely observed beats of the human heart. A cool, calm, irresistible masterpiece. * Chris Cleave *

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Book SynopsisThe Perseids brought it all out of the past, with a force like a blow that leaves you winded. The night lurched and seemed to swoop suddenly down. The boy still lay on his back, but when I sat up, gasping, I glimpsed the pale disc of his face as he turned to see what had startled me. 'It's all right,' I said, though it wasn't. It is the summer of 1954. Four young men, on a summer vacation buy an old car from a farmer and drive it from the hills of Wales all the way to the mountains of Spain. It is only a few years since the war, Europe is still in ruins. They are innocent and war-scarred, dreamers and realists, men but not much more than boys. They have their whole lives ahead of them. This will be their summer to remember. A beautiful, elegiac rumination on youth, friendship and the dreams that we hold. "A haunting meditation on memory and loss that takes the reader on a summer road trip to a vanished Spain. In this well-crafted, wistful novella, Sam Adams weaves his tapestry from fragments of a remembered friendship in a coming of age tale written with sixty years' bitter hindsight." - Richard Gwyn Sam Adams has created a rare novel in The Road to Zarauz, both timeless and very much of a time and a place, a past of hope and expectation erased in a moment, and what remains when hope is gone.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Leipzig Book Fair Prize Longlisted for the 2022 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger Shortlisted for the 2022 Prix Femina etranger #1 on the Spiegel Bestseller List November 1989. The Berlin Wall has just fallen when the East German couple Inge und Walter, following a secret dream they've harboured all their lives, set out for life in the West. Carl, their son, refuses to keep watch over the family home and instead heads to Berlin, where he lives in his father's car until he is taken in by a group of squatters. Led by a shepherd and his goat, the pack of squatters sets up the first alternative bar in East Berlin and are involved in guerrilla occupations. And it's with them that Carl, trained as a bricklayer, finds himself an initiate of anarchy, of love, and above all of poetry. Winner of the prestigious Leipzig Book Fair Prize and a bestseller in German already with 150,000 copies sold, Star 111, musical and incantatory, tells of the search for authentic existence and also of a family exploded by political change which must find its way back together.Trade Review‘There aren’t many books that can be cited as the missing link between Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries and Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, and still fewer that could live up to the comparison, but Lutz Seiler (with impeccable assistance from Tess Lewis) makes it look easy. Star 111 is a brilliant, immersive, sometimes funny, slyly moving book with a main character who walks through the new reality he finds himself in like an astronaut exploring alone beneath a strange, harsh, beautiful sun. A stellar achievement.’ Will Ashon ---- 'It took Lutz Seiler, born in East Germany, thirty years to give to the moment [of the Fall of the Berlin Wall] the full richness of fertile and ambiguous human experience. With its ample narrative and powerful imagination, Star 111 is the "Wenderoman" par excellence, the great novel of the "turn", as German reunification is called.' Christine Lecerf, Le Monde des livres ---- 'The Berlin of Star 111 wakes a longing for a city like no other. You want to linger there in the squatted Assel bar where workers, hookers and departing Soviet soldiers cross paths with anarchists full of ideas.' Frederique Fanchette, Liberation ---- 'The presence of objects have is no doubt one of the most extraordinary things about Star 111. Everything is unique, everything has a price, everything is respected because it is the fruit of work or of making. Nothing is thrown away, everything kept. What if the objects have a soul? Read Star 111 (the title is the name of an East German transistor radio) and understand the real value of an object.' Cecile Dutheil de la Rochere, AOC ---- 'Lutz Seiler reaches the level of a Thomas Pynchon here. [...] This is atmospherically rich, true world literature. World literature is, after all, that which lets me see the world with different eyes, which shows me a part of the world I have not seen before. And this is what Seiler manages to do in Star 111.' Denis Scheck, SWR lesenswert ---- 'Star 111 reveals the fiery nucleus of everything political, its dual nature: the unity of poetic rapture and the mysticism of the revolution. [...] Lutz Seiler has the ability to describe the ridiculous, overheated and even the unconscionable of that political romanticism without having to denounce the original impulse. That's what makes Star 111 great literature.' Ijoma Mangold, Die Zeit ---- 'Star 111 is a novel full of hard-hitting, deeply moving psychology, full of scenes in which people shake the foundations of a reality that is in the process of creating new laws for itself.' Paul Jandl, Neue Zurcher Zeitung ---- 'The [goat in the novel], the reader understands, knows neither longing nor nostalgia. The fact that the novel shares, in this regard, the view of a goat, is its last and biggest virtue.' Thomas Steinfeld, Suddeutsche Zeitung ---- 'For the second time now Lutz Seiler has achieved something rather extraordinary: to talk about how one actually leads a poetic existence, a matter that is as euphoric as it is cruel, in a novel that is "accessible" in the best sense of the word.' Jan Wiele, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ---- 'Lutz Seiler talks about a city and a time that seemed to have been exhausted in fiction. But he creates a new fascination.' Jona Nietfeld, Der Tagesspiegel ---- 'It has been a long time since anyone has talked about those foggy years, glossed over with garish colours by other writers scores of times, more movingly than Lutz Seiler.' Anja Maier, die tageszeitung ---- 'Seiler tells a story of freedom in a poetically-precise style.' Der Spiegel ---- 'This is much more than a historical novel. It condenses an era and invokes the great panoramas of consciousness of modernity in a highly independent way.' Helmut Boettiger, Deutschlandfunk Kultur ---- 'This unexpected novel about post-reunification from the partially decayed, far from gentrified Berlin convinces with its unique atmospheric density, its gentle irony and the devotion to the matter at hand.' Bayerischer Rundfunk ---- 'With Star 111, Lutz Seiler presents a great novel that talks enchantingly about departures and downfalls, about social utopias and societal realities, about humiliation and pride. Fascinating.' Katja Weise, NDR Kultur ---- 'What distinguishes it from the many Berlin-Reunification-books is that there is not a trace of caricature, no manipulative narrative, but still captivating entertainment.' Roland Gutsch, Nordkurier ---- ‘Drawing on a history at once recent and ever more distant, Seiler's dazzling novel recounts just what must be lost for an artist to be made.’ Roland Bates, Kirkdale Books

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Book SynopsisThis gorgeous, funny novel paints a picture of a bygone era, depicting the changing society in Ceylon after Independence from the British in 1948. Three Tamil girl cousins, Gowry, Saratha and Buvana, grow up in the old-fashioned village of Kolavil in Eastern Sri Lanka near the beautiful River Thillai. As they approach womanhood, they each struggle in their own way to assert themselves in opposition to the strict traditions of Tamil culture and their powerful Grandma. Their idyllic village life is threatened by people and by events beyond their control. Meanwhile, the reader can get lost in a colourful world of flamingos, temple bells and coconut prawn curry.

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Book SynopsisIt's 1992 in Portland, Oregon. Fifteen-year-old Julie Winter moves through her days as if underwater - watching skaters through the constant rain, detached from her best friend's crushes, listening to the same B-side REM song on repeat. The rest of the world is caught up in the AIDS crisis, the war in Yugoslavia, and grunge. But to Julie it's all background. No one at home talks about her older brother, a once-champion swimmer who could be living in Berlin, or could be anywhere. And although she spends her time searching for pictures of him in the pages of Swimmer's World magazine, she'd never considered swimming herself. Until Alexis, captain of the swimming team, tries to recruit her. What starts as a flirtation and an infatuation becomes a chance to join in with the world, find out what really happened to her brother, or finally let him go. Yearning, stifled, and sharp, Dryland is an anti-coming out novel that captures gauzy queer exploration at its quietest and its most loud.Trade Review"Be still my gay grunge heart" - Beth Ditto “Sara Jaffe’s Dryland is the perfect indie-rock love song, an anthem for lonely 90s queer kids—a little melancholy, a little surly, a little dirty." - Andrea Lawlor, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl "Remarkable. It's realism, but its realism brushes ever so deftly against the allegorical, making the novel shimmer, part diary, part dream" - Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts "A brilliant, beautiful, and evocative first novel, full of historical and experiential details that I had never quite articulated to myself and was so grateful and happy to find written down. Sara Jaffe is a treasure." - Elif Batuman, The Idiot "A gorgeous, layered, meticulous, clamoring, beating heart of a thing." - Sara Marcus, Girls to the Front "Moving sideways with its weight of secrets, this novel never strikes a false note"- Kirkus

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE WRITERS'' GUILD FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2020ELLE ONES TO WATCH 2019''Not since Holden Caulfield have I been so captivated by a first-person voice as the one Season Butler creates in Cygnet'' Blake Morrison''A bright new voice in literature'' Bernardine Evaristo''Terribly moving'' China Miéville''A beautiful book, a meander through the fluid anxiety of youth'' Uzodinma Iweala''[A] potent debut . . . A strange, promising beginning'' Observer The Kid doesn''t know where her parents are. They left with a promise to come back months ago, and now their seventeen-year-old daughter is stranded on Swan Island. Swan isn''t just any island; it''s home to an eccentric old age separatist community who have shunned life on the mainland for a haven which is rapidly sinking into the ocean. The Kid''s arrival threatens to burst the Trade ReviewComing-of-age fiction is a well-established genre but I doubt there's ever been a novel in which the narrator turns 18 on an island exclusively occupied by oldsters. And not since Holden Caulfield have I been so captivated by a first-person voice as the one Season Butler creates in Cygnet: 'kiddo' or 'small-fry' as the Wrinklies call her is super-bright but also naive, tough-minded but also vulnerable, self-reliant but also adrift. How long will she remain on the island? How long will the island itself remain, increasingly eroded by the ocean as it is? Will her parents arrive in time to celebrate her birthday? We don't know, but this sad, funny, highly original novel keeps us turning the pages to find out * Blake Morrison, Author of Things my Mother Never Told Me *Season Butler is an extraordinary writer. In this wonderful novel the narrative voice is rhythmic and compelling, telling a coming of age story which resonates with our times. Like Colson Whitehead, her work is fearless in its inventiveness. I've always thought Season was the real deal, this book proves that she has arrived * Julia Bell, Author, The Dark Light *Terribly moving. A clear-sighted, poignant rumination on loneliness, love, the melancholy of age and of youth - and, in its quiet way, the end of the world * China Miéville *Season Butler has written an imaginative, atmospheric and original novel that lingers in the memory long after reading . . . A bright new voice in literature * Bernardine Evaristo *An original novel with a memorable narrator * Elle (Eight Books to Devour) *An uncanny meditation on mortality and intergenerational distrust * Metro *[A] potent debut . . . A strange, promising beginning * Observer *[A] vivid, poetic debut * Daily Mail *As sixteen-year old environmental activist Greta Thunberg has shown us, teenagers are the ideal candidates for raising consciousness about our planetary plight. Kid's ardent voice powers Cygnet. Her expression of the loneliness, boredom and rage she feels at her circumstances is reminiscent of Holden Caulfield . . . the characters have real emotional depth . . . Cygnet is both very funny and convincingly tragic, its young narrator memorably charismatic and self-aware * Literary Review *Season Butler (in her novel Cygnet) describ[es] an island occupied, with one exception, by geriatrics - the exception being the narrator, whose wise reflections on age, race, class and global warming belie her tender youth -- Blake Morrison * New Internationalist *

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Book SynopsisA "big-hearted, lively, and expansive portrait of a family" that follows a neurodivergent father, his nonbinary teenager, and the sudden, catastrophic reappearance of the woman who abandoned them (Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author).Morgan Flowers just wants to hide. Raised by their neurodivergent father, Morgan has grown up haunted by the absence of their mysterious mother Zoe, especially now, as they navigate their gender identity and the turmoil of first love. Their father Julian has raised Morgan with care, but he can't quite fill the gap left by the dazzling and destructive Zoe, who fled to Europe on Morgan's first birthday. And when Zoe is dumped by her girlfriend Brigid, she suddenly comes crashing back into Morgan and Julian's lives, poised to disrupt the fragile peace they have so carefully cultivated.Through it all, Julian and Brigid have become unlikely pen-pals and friends, united by the knowledge of what it's like to love and lose Zoe; they both know that she hasn't changed. Despite the red flags, Morgan is swiftly drawn into Zoe's glittering orbit and into a series of harmful missteps, and Brigid may be the only link that can pull them back from the edge. A story of betrayal and trauma alongside queer love and resilience, ALL THE THINGS WE DON'T TALK ABOUT is a celebration of and a reckoning with the power and unintentional pain of a thoroughly modern family.

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the Indigenous Voices Awards. On the edge of normal, challenges take many forms—the everyday can be an adventure and the ordinary a triumph. A young woman in a group home investigates a mysterious piece of knitting. An obsessed bag boy does grim battle with a squirrel. A woman, an asparagus bag and a garbageman have a tumultuous short-term relationship. Otherwise unremarkable achievements become epic on the edge of normal. In the tradition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Room and If I Fall, If I Die, this uplifting short story collection explores the world through the eyes of protagonists whose perspectives are informed by their unique circumstances. Some are struggling with physical challenges while others seek to overcome psychological barriers. Far from being defined by their limitations, these characters revel in achievements others take for granted and find wonder in unexpected places. By celebrating the private triumphs of people who are all too often dismissed, Ashton reminds us all of our own humanity.

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Book Synopsis'A delightful dose of nostalgia' HEAT'Get ready to fall in love with Eadie Browne, the eponymous and eccentric heroine of this tender-hearted, steeped-in-nostalgia story about chosen family' RED'A gorgeous, heartfelt, atmospheric novel by a wonderful storyteller' LUCY ATKINS'A beautifully moving portrait of youth, friendship and love . . . I loved it' MIKE GAYLE'Beautifully written, funny and wise . . . heart-breaking and heart-warming' ALEXANDRA POTTERWhen your present meets your past, what do you take with you - and what do you leave behind?Eadie Browne is an odd child with unusual parents, living in a strange house neighbouring the local cemetery. Bullied at school - but protected by her two best friends, Celeste and Josh, and her many imaginary friends lying six feet under next door - Eadie muddles her way through.Arriving in Manchester as a student in the late 1980s, Eadie confronts a busy, gritty Victorian metropolis a far cry from the small Garden City she's left behind. Soon enough she experiences a novel freedom she never imagined and it's seductive. She can be who she wants to be, do as she pleases, and no one back home needs to know. As Manchester embraces the dizzying, colourful euphoria of Rave counterculture, Eadie is swept along, blithely ignoring danger and reality. Until, one night, her past comes hurtling at her with ramifications which will continue into her adult life.Now, as the new millennium beckons, Eadie is turning thirty with a marriage in tatters. She must travel back to where she once lived for a funeral she can't quite comprehend. As she journeys from the North to the South, from the present to the past, Eadie contemplates all that was then - and all that is now - in this moving love letter to youth.PRAISE FOR FREYA NORTH:'A terrific family drama of secrets . . . and so cleverly plotted' Graham Norton'A completely compelling story of family secrets, courage and resilience' Fearne Cotton'Immensely enjoyable . . . infused with empathy and a great sense of place' Erica James'What a treat. This filled my heart with joy and occasionally my eyes with tears; it is beautiful' Prima

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Book SynopsisA beautiful hardcover repackaging of this timeless classic from the publishers of the Autobiography of Mark Twain and in partnership with the Mark Twain Project. This definitive edition ofThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, one of the world's best-loved books, was the first version since the original publication to be based directly on the author's manuscript. It includes all of the 200 rattling pictures Mark Twain commissioned from one of his favorite illustrators, True W. Williams. Prepared by the Mark Twain Papers, the official archive of Sam Clemens's papers at the University of California, Berkeley, this volume also contains a wealth of helpful explanatory notes, along with a selection of original documents by Mark Twain, including several letters in his inimitable voice about writing Tom Sawyer and about its original publicationeverything the discerning reader needs to enjoy this classic of American literature again and again.

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Book SynopsisA fresh and vivid translation of Flaubert’s influential bildungsroman Gustave Flaubert conceived Sentimental Education, his final complete novel, as the history of his own generation, one that failed to fulfill the promise of the Revolution of 1848. Published a few months before the start of the 1870 Franco–Prussian War, it offers both a sweeping panorama of French society over three decades and an intimate bildungsroman of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris when protests against the monarchy are increasing. The novel’s protagonist, Frédéric Moreau, alternates between aimlessness and ambition as he searches for a meaningful life through love affairs and republican politics. Flaubert’s narrative includes scenes of high drama, as scattered protests across Paris swell into revolution, and quiet moments of self-aware romanticism, crafting a story that possesses the sweep and scope of a historical novel combined with deep emotion and scandalous intimacy. Suffused with tragedy and the poignancy of lost chances and wasted lives, Sentimental Education is sharpened by satirical observations of what Flaubert condemned as the Second Empire’s endemic hypocrisy and willful blindness. This vibrant, new translation by Raymond N. MacKenzie includes an extensive critical introduction and annotations to help the modern reader appreciate Flaubert’s achievement. Sentimental Education intertwines the personal, the intimate, and the subjective with the political, social, and cultural, embedding Frédéric’s story in the larger arc of what Flaubert saw as France’s decline into mediocrity and imbecility in its politics and manners.

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Book SynopsisIn this exhilarating prize-winning novel—only the second to be published in English from Madagascar—a young man comes of age amidst the enchanted origin myths of his island country. Named after the first man at the creation of the world in Malagasy mythology, Ietsy Razak was raised to perpetuate the glory of his namesake and expected to be as illuminated as his Great Ancestor. But in the chaos of modernity, his young life is marked only by restlessness, maddening insomnia, and an adolescent apathy. When an unexpected tragedy ships him off to a boarding school in France, his trip to the big city is no hero’s journey. Ietsy loses himself in the immediate pleasures of body and mind. Weighed down by his privilege and the legacy of his name, Ietsy struggles to find a foothold. Only a return to the “Enchanted Island,” as Madagascar is lovingly known, helps Ietsy stumble toward his destiny. This award-winning retelling of Madagascar’s origin story offers a distinctly twenty-first-century perspective on the country’s place in an ever-more-connected world.

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Book SynopsisChoose: A quick death or a slow poison Locked deep in the palace dungeon for killing her abuser, Yelena knows she’ll never be free again. The laws in Ixia are strict, and murderers must be executed, no matter the reason. But just as she’s resigned herself to her fate, she’s offered an extraordinary reprieve. As the food taster, Yelena will eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace — and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. To make matters worse, the chief of security deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust, and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again, and in order to survive, she must unravel the secrets behind the past she’s been running from. A CHRONICLES OF IXIA NOVEL 'A compelling new fantasy series’ – Rhianna Pratchett, SFX The Chronicles of Ixia Poison Study Magic Study Fire Study Storm Glass Sea Glass Spy Glass Shadow Study

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Book SynopsisSunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass returns with her first novel. The Girl in the Mirror is a moving and gripping story of a young woman who tries to piece together her past and uncovers a dreadful family secret that has been buried and forgotten.When Mandy learns her much-loved Grandpa is dying, she is devasted and returns to the house where she spent so many wonderful summers as a child. But the childhood visits ended abruptly and those happy days are now long gone. Having lost touch with the rest of her family, Mandy returns as a virtual stranger to her aunt''s house to nurse her grandfather.Mandy hardly recognises the house that she loved so much as a child and it is almost as though her mind has blanked it out. But as certain memories come back to her, Mandy begins to piece together the events that brought a sudden end to her visits that fateful summer. What she discovers is so painful and shocking that she understands why it was buried and never spoken

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Book SynopsisNora, Lili, and Iris are seniors at Seaside High. Their differing schedules and mounting extracurriculars inspire the girls to form a secret club where they can hang without sacrificing their future aspirations. Enter Supper Club, the delicious solution to their problems. When life starts to crumble like a cookie under the girls' feet, they rely on comfort food to hold it together. Can Supper Club endure life's most challenging recipes without burning to a crisp?SUPPER CLUB is The Baby-Sitters Club meets Relish in this foodie fusion of feel-good friendship and coming-of-age drama perfect for Raina Telgemeier readers.Trade Review"Morrow expertly weaves together these individual stories, and their ties to each supper club offering, via emotive illustrations and well-paced storytelling. Morrow’s bold, sketchy line art and rich, dense color palette, coupled with luxurious food illustrations that one can almost smell from the page, couch the story in cozy, familiar atmosphere, making for a heartfelt—and mouthwatering—tale. Straightforward, easy-to-follow recipes for the novel’s featured dishes conclude." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)"As good as your favorite meal. Friendship, coming of age, food, everything a story needs to be great." —AIPT "The richly colored art is full of movement and personality, gestures and facial expressions bringing intensity to every character...Bursting with flavor." -Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisEVERY FAMILY HAS ITS SECRETS . . .A beautiful, bewitching, unsettling and unputdownable dream of a book . . . .I genuinely loved this, it will stay with me for a long time' LISA JEWELLA blistering thriller' NEW YORK TIMESImpossible to put down' CHRIS WHITAKER____________________________________________________________Seventeen-year-old Lily has a loving, normal family. So why does it suddenly feel like secrets are stirring? Like Mama is about to crack?As a storm of memories builds over one stifling summer, Lily must recast everything. What if her house isn't a home but a prison? What if her mother isn't a protector but a monster . . .Bold, beautifully told, and bound to keep you turning this pages, this is an unforgettable story about a family gone bad . . ._________________________________________________________________Readers love getting a taste of BAD FRUIT:Best book I have read in a long long time. Intelligently written, really well paced. I devoured this' Reader review ?????A Trade Review‘A chilling literary thriller’ GRAZIA ‘Disturbing, poignant and memorable all at once – an exploration of a very dark relationship between a daughter and her mother’ OBSERVER ‘A riveting novel exploring how family ties can both make us and break us’ RED ‘Searing’ ELLE ‘A compelling debut that fizzes with tension from start to finish . . . this is a darkly fascinating, tightly plotted narrative from a writer to watch’ HARPER’S BAZAAR ‘A family overflowing with secrets. Bad Fruit is dark, compelling and beautifully written’ LOUISE HARE ‘Beautiful, disturbing, impossible to put down. Bad Fruit heralds a seriously impressive new talent in Ella King’ CHRIS WHITAKER ‘Thrilling and suspenseful, King’s exemplary novel will keep readers fascinated until the end’ BOOKLIST, starred review ‘A beautiful collision of mothers and daughters, human darkness and human kindness, truth and lies’ SARAH MAY ‘Compelling and wicked, Bad Fruit is a novel about the darkest of family secrets and the lies we tell ourselves in order to live with them. This is an intimate, compulsive thriller best read on a hot summer night’ JING-JING LEE ‘Tense, intense and intriguing. Ella King is a genuinely exciting new voice’ KATE HAMER ‘King is unflinching as she examines the hard questions about family. What defines belonging? Looks, care, secrets? How do you understand someone who loves you and hurts you? In Bad Fruit, guilt, hate, and love mingle powerfully’ ROWAN HISAYO BUCHANAN ‘Bad Fruit is brilliant, taut and explosive. Ella King deftly explores the toxicity of generational trauma while being unafraid to confront the racial tensions that can simmer below the surface. A bold new voice’ HELENA LEE 'At once beautiful and harrowing’ L V MATTHEWS ‘Mesmerizing, dream-like and darkly suspenseful’ FRANCES CHA

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Book Synopsis'Wow wow wow. Loved this from page one' NetGalley review?????Absolutely wonderful. The perfect escape to Cornwall' NetGalley review?????Totally loved this book Couldn't put it down Brilliant' NetGalley review?????Under the golden Cornish sun, buried treasure and family secrets will change Emma's life foreverEmma loved her life in the seaside village of Silver Cove. But when the discovery of sunken treasure ignited a feud between her family and that of Luke, her first love, everything fell apart. Heartbroken and betrayed, she fled.Now, as she wades into the sparkling surf for the first time in fifteen years, she remembers everything she loved about this beautiful place. Then a huge wave knocks her off her feet. Dripping wet, Emma is rescued by none other than Luke who is, to her dismay, even more handsome than ever.As their paths continue to cross, and Emma is reminded of everything she ran away from, she starts to wonder if returning home was a huge mistake.Or could the real treasure Trade Review Praise for Phillipa Ashley: ‘Sheer joy!’ Katie Fforde ‘Within moments you’ll feel like you're at the Cornish seaside, gazing out on the waves, cream tea in hand. The ultimate summer reading escape!’ Yours Magazine ‘Full of genuine warmth and quirky characters’ Woman’s Own ‘Serious festive escapism . . . like a big warm hug’ Popsugar ‘A page-turner of a festive read’ My Weekly ‘Romantic and life-affirming’ Woman’s Weekly ‘A feel-good read for summer’ The Sun

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.''Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There''s no better rule''Pip is an orphan without any expectations he has no name, no fortune and no prospects. It is only when he begins to visit Miss Havisham, elderly, rich and reclusive, and her adopted niece Estella, that he begins to hope for something better. And when it is revealed that Pip has inherited a large sum of money from a mysterious benefactor, he begins an adventure that will change his life forever.Epic and memorable, Pip''s quest to find the truth about himself is a classic coming-of-age tale and one of Dickens' most enduring and popular novels.

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Book Synopsis''A novel of female friendship . . . startling and moving'' New York Times _______________________________________________''In the first few months after Charlie died, I began hearing from her much more frequently . . .''When Helen Clapp gets a missed call from best friend Charlie, she knows it''s a mistake. Because Charlie''s dead. Ghosts break so many fundamental laws of the universe that Helen, a physicist, shouldn''t believe in them. Should she?As this question draws Helen to Charlie''s grieving husband and daughter, she finds herself entangled in the forgotten threads of lost friendship and her own paths not taken . . . ______________________________________________________''There aren''t many novels that bring to mind both Middlemarch and Bridget Jones''s Diary - but Lost and Wanted is one of them'' The Times''Dazzling. Freudenberger explores the nature of aTrade ReviewEndlessly rich . . . It is Freudenberger's willingness to accept human contradictions here - and to lay them out with a combination of calm rigour and rueful comedy - that so triumphantly makes Lost and Wanted the real thing * The Times *Dazzling . . .[Freudenberger explores] the nature of ambition, success and grief . . . brilliant -- Francesca Segal * Financial Times *Freudenberger has a real eye for the subtle differences in how people react to adversity, an ear for the way children talk, and an artist's clear-sighted commitment to seeing the totality of her characters * Sunday Times *The effect is beautiful . . . Reading it, I was moved by intimacies near and far, real and imagined, lost and found in all the echoing corners of the expanding universe * New York Times *This spooky mystery fuses nimbly explained science with a finely calibrated meditation on grief and paths not taken -- Hephzibah Anderson * Mail on Sunday *Tender, sharply observed and marvellously rich * Daily Mail *Are we connected? Are we alone? Freudenberger's brilliant and compassionate novel takes on the big questions of the universe and proves, again, that she is one of America's greatest writers -- Andrew Sean Green, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'Less'[A] stunning portrayal of grief . . . The integration of ideas from physics sparks in the reader new ways of thinking about the nature of time and existence as well as, on a less cosmic scale, about human relationships . . .This is a beautiful and moving novel * Publishers' Weekly *Dazzling . . . [Freudenberger] dramatizes, through Helen, both the dawning awareness that life doesn't always allow for second chances and the great midlife consolation prize: a greater appreciation for those chances - and people - one has been given. * Washington Post *With page-turning acceleration, Lost and Wanted is a piercing meditation on the immutable truths that mourning calls into question. Freudenberger [has a] gravity-defying gift * O, the Oprah Magazine *Deeply involving, substantial, suspenseful, and psychologically lush . . . With daring, zest, insight, wit, and compassion, Lost and Wanted gracefully and thrillingly bridges the divide between science and art * Booklist *Before the full scope of the accomplishment has sunk in-the lucid, compassionate portraits of a wide array of characters, the meticulous hand with which Freudenberger paints their world-you'll be beguiled, as I was, by Helen's narration, so full of humble longing and deep, sweet ruefulness -- Jonathan Lethem, author of 'A Gambler's Anatomy'This tender, engaging story takes a physicist for its heroine, and boldly bends the forces of the universe to the binding love between friends, between partners, between parents and their children. It's a literary and emotional adventure peopled by complex, sympathetic characters, some of whom happen to do science as they navigate their most important relationships -- Dava SobelGorgeous, brainy, and passionate. Lost and Wanted is the best kind of big American novel: a majestic book that takes on nothing less than the nature of the universe-literally-while probing that similarly infinite mystery known as the human heart. Nell Freudenberger's writing is fearless and profound, as it absolutely must be in order to pull off this very modern ghost story that unfolds in the life of an MIT physicist. Freudenberger is one of our best novelists, and she's delivered a real powerhouse of a novel -- Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkLike the finely calibrated tools of particle physics described in its pages,NellFreudenberger's novel demonstrates an astonishing sensitivity to the forces that move us all. Her rendering of grief-with its shadings of denial, anger, longing, dark humor, and magic-is nothing short of perfection -- Julie Orringer, author of 'The Invisible Bridge'An iridescent story of friendship. Lost and Wanted is an extraordinary book, startling in its open curiosity and love -- Rivka Galchen, author of 'Atmospheric Disturbances'Intellectually dazzling and almost unbearably moving, Lost and Wanted stayed with me long after I read it, its characters still moving in my brain like free electrons. Probing the mysteries of the physical universe and the equally mysterious nature of human connection, Nell Freudenberger writes fearlessly and lyrically about physics and grief; parenthood and friendship; the subtleties of race and the seriousness of female ambition. I've read many novels that make me think and some that made me cry, but few that did both as powerfully as this one did -- Amy Waldman, author of 'The Submission'A great work of art treads the line between the ingenious and the improbable. This is true of Nell Freudenberger's remarkable Lost and Wanted. It somehow combines particle physics and paranormal phenomena to present a lucid, humane and wryly comic view of the way we live today. One reads the novel with pleasure and marvels at Freudenberger's courage and intelligence -- David Bezmozgis, author of 'The Betrayers'Brimming with wit and intelligence and devoted to things that matter: life, love, death, and the mysteries of the cosmos. Nell Freudenberger is good at explaining physics, but her real genius is in the depiction of relationships. Each one in the novel-whether between adults, adults and children, or among children-is unique, finely calibrated, and real. The title is a line from a poem by W.H. Auden, which doesn't fully hit until the end of the book, when it takes on heart-rending poignancy * Kirkus *I love novels that are obsessed with the "erotics of knowledge," books that understand how ideas are not the opposite of feelings but rather their intense distillation. A. S. Byatt's "Possession," Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder," Barbara Kingsolver's recent "Unsheltered," and Nell Freudenberger's forthcoming "Lost and Wanted" all are marvelous depictions of the direct link between the body's cravings and the passions of the mind -- Richard Powers * New York Times *Freudenberger's outstanding achievement is that Lost and Wanted is also a moving story about down-to-earth issues like grief and loneliness * NPR *

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Book SynopsisThe BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick''Sentence by sentence, Ben Hinshaw offers wit, sensitivity and sharp observation. Then slowly the reader sees the grand design - the intricate, braided storylines, sustained with energy and relish. It is entertaining, and something more - truly involving, like a whole novel sequence cleverly condensed'' Hilary MantelSurrounded by the dramatic beauty of Guernsey, a teenager discovers a secret and finds his betrayal has the power to ruin adult lives. In London, a marriage shot through with infidelity leads to a quest for revenge, resulting in a series of simultaneously comical and catastrophic events. And in California, as wildfires threaten landscapes and lives, a young veteran struggles with the trauma of war, seeking solace at a local ranch.In this extraordinary debut, a cast of characters grapple with unexpected betrayal, the loss of innocence and the lies we tell. With sharp insight, Ben Hinshaw illumTrade ReviewA surprising and enjoyable read . . . this novel without guardrails stands as a brave debut * The Times *Virtuosity of technique accompanies keenness of insight and depth of characterisation . . . Hinshaw's impressively accomplished debut puts him in [Tim Winton and Jennifer Egan's] company -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times *Ben Hinshaw offers wit, sensitivity and sharp observation . . . the intricate, braided storylines, sustained with energy and relish. It is entertaining, and something more - truly involving -- Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the LightA poignant demonstration of the way the past is still folded into the present * FT *Ben Hinshaw renders ordinary human agonies with extraordinary precision and emotional insight . . . This book is a riveting and beautifully patterned map of the emotional archipelago of longing and learning, loving and leaving -- Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with FeathersSuch an incredibly clever idea this, a set of interlinked stories in which people who appear in one turn up in another . . there's a regretful, wistful atmosphere that's compelling. * Daily Mail *A splendid debut. The stories are sharp, subtle, richly coloured and the world they deliver delightfully surprising. Read this book -- Lynn Freed, author of The Romance of ElsewhereFull of precise moments of humanity. So finely observed, funny and touching -- Alex Hyde, author of VioletsTerrific. I really enjoyed it -- Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously and co-host of BacklistedThe calm, clear and intelligent prose belies the tortured emotional currents just below the surface. Sophisticated and ambitious -- Samantha Dunn, author of Failing Paris

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Book SynopsisIn an era of hot takes and easy generalizations, this collection reclaims the absurdities and paradoxes of life as it is actually lived from the American fantasy of niceness. In Macy''s world, human desires and fatal blind spots slam headlong into convenient, social-media-driven narratives that would sort us into neat boxes of insider or outsider; good or bad; with us or against us.Time and again, whether at home or in the age-old role of Americans abroad, Macy''s women see their good intentions turn awry. A woman who tries to do a good deed for an underprivileged child sees it go horribly wrong. A wife, attempting to be a good host to a friend''s strange ex-boyfriend, finds herself in a compromised situation. And, in the title story, a newlywed fancies herself a Euro-sophisticate until an accident reminds her just how truly foreign she really is.In tales where shocking and sometimes brutal events disabuse characters of their most cherished beliefs, Macy forgoes easy

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