FICTION
In the ever changing world of fiction publishing we try to keep abreast of the best in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the USA. The curated collection here is simply ' the best of' that we have come across in our recent years of running this shop. Consequently, we stand behind these in that most of these books are personally recommended and will not disappoint!
Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell ( paperback JULY 2023)
£9.99
Marriage was her destiny. Now she must survive it. The breathtaking new novel from the bestselling author of Hamnet, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020.
The Marriage Portrait is a dazzling evocation of the Italian Renaissance in all its beauty and brutality.
Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here.
He intends to kill her. Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence's grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband.
What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival. The Marriage Portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.
The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty ( Paperback 8 June 2023)
£9.99
The standout literary debut that everyone is talking about*'Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny' Guardian ... I really loved the writing style of this one! Linda
Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building. An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents - neighbours, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial centre of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her flat with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives.
Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.
Lessons, Ian McEwan (paperback July 2023)
£9.99
The mesmerising new novel from Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement. The world is forever changing. But for so many of us, old wounds run deep.
Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers. 'Lessons is deep and wide, ambitious and humble, wise and substantial... McEwan's best novel in 20 years' New Statesman
While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means - literature, travel, friendship, drugs, politics, sex and love. His journey raises important questions.
Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape us and our memories? What role do chance and contingency play in our existence? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?
Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes ( paperback March 2023)
£9.99
Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods.Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt. And her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know. When the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can - and Medusa is changed forever.
Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. The power cannot be controlled: Medusa can look at nothing without destroying it. She is condemned to a life of shadows and darkness.
Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .
In Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes - the Women's Prize-shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships - brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before . . .
PRAISE FOR NATALIE HAYNES:'With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism... her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished' - Madeline Miller
Woman, Eating : Claire Kohda ( paperback Apr 23)
£9.99
Claire Kohda takes the vampire trope and makes it her own' RUTH OZEKI
Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in.
But Lydia can't eat any of this. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated. Then there are the humans: the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men who follow her after dark, and Ben, a goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for.
Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans. Before any of this, however, she must eat.
How Do You Like Me Now? Holly Bourne
£8.99
Holly Bourne is a legend in writing on difficult topics for children and teenagers, this is her first ' grown up' novel for the 30 somethings - and it really hits the mark.
Everyone wants to be Tori Bailey. A straight-talking, bestselling author, she's inspired millions of women around the world with her self-help memoir and uplifting posts online.
What's more, her perfect relationship with her long-term boyfriend is the envy of all their friends. But Tori isn't being honest. While everyone around her is getting engaged and having babies, Tori's boyfriend will barely look at her, let alone talk about marriage.
And when her best friend Dee unexpectedly falls in love, suddenly Tori's in danger of being left behind. Tori's built a career out of telling women how to live their best life, but is she brave enough to admit it's not what she wants?*****The debut adult novel by bestselling author Holly Bourne is a blisteringly funny, honest and moving exploration of love, friendship and navigating the emotional rollercoaster of your thirties. Everyone is raving about this book! Brutally honest, appallingly funny and very moving - so accurate on the female interior, and the loneliness life in the public gaze.
The Pachinko Parlour, Elisa Shua Dusapin (paperback August 2022)
£9.99
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, Winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long.
It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko, in an apartment in an abandoned hotel, and lying on the floor at her grandparents’: daydreaming, playing Tetris and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by.
When her grandparents first arrived in Tokyo, fleeing the civil war in Korea, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, a tender relationship growing, Mieko’s determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds and with it, Claire’s own desire to visit Korea with her grandparents.
The Pachinko Parlour is a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel amongst family. Crisp and enigmatic, Dusapin’s writing glows with intelligence.
Outside, Ragnar Jonasson ( paperback Sept 2022)
£9.99
When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a tiny, abandoned hunting lodge. A terrifying discovery . .. Far from offering relief, however, they find something truly shocking. Yet they dare not leave.
A haunting darkness . . .
As the night lengthens, their fears intensify. Old secrets and past tragedies spill into the light. And, slowly, these four friends begin to turn on one another.
Outside, a murderous storm rages. But is inside even deadlier?_________Praise for Ragnar Jonasson'An intensely gripping mystery, Ragnar Jonasson is a poet of the "dark, wet and cold", of the "gloom, cold and rain". The climactic revelations are credible and moving
Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr ( paperback Sept 2022)
£9.99
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 'A dazzling epic of love, war and the joy of books' Guardian 'There is magic in this place ... You just have to sit and breathe and wait and it will find you' Fifteenth-century Constantinople. Present day Idaho.The future, and humanity's last hope. Across time and space, five young dreamers are bound by a single ancient text. Together, they tell a story of a world in peril; of the power of words, of resilience, and of hope against all odds.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See returns with a heart-breaking, magnificent epic of human connection and a love letter to storytelling itself.
Bewilderment Richard Powers ( paperback October 22)
£9.99
THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
The breathtaking new novel from the million-copy bestselling author of The Overstory. 'Heart-rending' Oprah Winfrey
Theo Byrne is a promising young scientist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old.
His son Robin is funny, loving and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. But after a violent outburst from Robin at school, the strength of their close bond will be tested to its limits...
What can a father do, when those around him refuse to understand his rare and troubled child? And how can he reveal to his boy the truth about our beautiful, bewildered world?'The love between son and father has an emotional truth that wrings the heart' Guardian
Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng ( paperback April 2023)
£9.99
From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes one of the most anticipated books of the year - the inspiring new novel about a mother's unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard's library.He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic - including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him through the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
She And Her Cat, Makoto Shingkai ( hardback October 2022)
£10.00
he perfect curl-up gift for cat-lovers'Touching and hugely heartwarming. Goes to show how cats will save us all' Nick Bradley, author of The Cat and the City
On the outskirts of Tokyo, in a neighbourhood crossed by a commuter railway, local cats weave their way through the lives and homes of their owners as they navigate difficult times. A cat named Chobi sends silent messages of courage to a young woman, willing her to end a faltering relationship; a gifted artist fatally misunderstands her boss's enthusiasm for her paintings; a manga fan shuts herself away after the death of her friend, while her cat Cookie hatches a plan to persuade her outside; a woman who has dedicated her life to a distant husband learns a lesson in independence from her cat.
Against the urban backdrop of humming trains and private woes, SHE AND HER CAT explores the gentle magic of the everyday. Populated by both the friendly and the feral, it reveals - with heartstopping clarity and warmth - how even in our darkest moments, community and connection may lead us to a happier place. From the renowned film director of Your Name.
If you enjoy Before the Coffee Gets Cold, or Convenience Store Woman, you will like this.
paperback October 2023
Best Of Friends, Kamila Shamsie ( paperback June 2023)
£8.99
'The spirit of Elena Ferrante haunts this tale of a friendship forged in Karachi' - Sunday Times'A profound novel about friendship. I loved it to pieces' - Madeline Miller'
Sometimes it was as though the forty years of friendship between them was just a lesson in the unknowability of other people... Maryam and Zahra.
In 1988 Karachi, two fourteen-year-old girls are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael. As Pakistan's dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of possibilities. Elated by the change in the air, they make a snap decision at a party.
That night, everything goes wrong, and the two girls are powerless to change the outcome. Zahra and Maryam. In present-day London, two influential women remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways.
Now both have power; and both have very different ideas of how to wield it... Their friendship has always felt unbreakable; can it be undone by one decision?
The Trees, Percival Everett ( paperback March 2022) * Booker Shortlist 2022 *
£9.99
The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body - that of a man who resembles Emmett Till, a young black boy lynched in the same town 65 years before.The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried.
In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can't look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance.
Darling, by India Knight ( paperback May 2023)
£9.99
Marooned in a sprawling farmhouse in Norfolk, teenage Linda Radlett feels herself destined for greater things.She longs for love, but how will she ever find it? She can't even get a signal on her mobile phone. Linda's strict, former rock star father terrifies any potential suitors away, while her bohemian mother, wafting around in silver jewellery, answers Linda's urgent questions about love with upsettingly vivid allusions to animal husbandry. Eventually Linda does find her way out from the bosom of her deeply eccentric extended family, and she escapes to London.
She knows she doesn't want to marry 'a man who looks like a pudding', as her good and dull sister Louisa has done, and marries the flashy, handsome son of a UKIP peer instead. But this is only the beginning of Linda's pursuit of love, a journey that will be wilder, more surprising and more complicated than she could ever have imagined. A razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud novel that re-imagines the cast of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love.
The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
£9.99
FROM THE AUTHOR OF RULES OF CIVILITY AND A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW'Deserves a place alongside Kerouac, Steinbeck and Wolfe as the very best of the genre' OBSERVER'An absolute beauty of a book. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it again' TANA FRENCH'Welcome to the enormous pleasure that is The Lincoln Highway . .. in which the miles fly by and the pages turn fast' ANN PATCHETTIn June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett returns home to his younger brother Billy after serving fifteen months in a juvenile facility for involuntary manslaughter. They are getting ready to leave their old life behind and head out to sunny California.
But they're not alone. Two runaways from the youth work farm, Duchess and Wolly, have followed Emmett all the way to Nebraska with a plan of their own, one that will take the four of them on an unexpected and fateful journey in the opposite direction - to New York City. 'Already feels like an American coming of age classic' RED'The best novel I've read in years' CHRIS CLEAVE'Wise and wildly entertaining .
The Romantic, William Boyd (paperback July 2023)
£9.99
Soldier. Farmer. Felon.Writer. Father. Lover.
One man, many lives. Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace.
He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days.
As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic. From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century.
Horse, Geraldine Brooks ( paperback June 2023)
£9.99
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner tells a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South.When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamour of any racetrack. New York City, 1954.
Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a 19th equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse-one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred, Lexington, who became America's greatest stud sire, Horse is an original ,gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America.
She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb ( paperback)
£9.99
Meet Dolores Price. She's thirteen, wise-mouthed but wounded. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the chocolate, crisps and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies.When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly up. In his extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch an incredible ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.
At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably loveable, Dolores is as poignantly real as our own imperfections.
Foster, Claire Keegan ( paperback)
£8.99
From the author of the Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These, a heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers. 'A real jewel.' Irish Independent'A small miracle.' Sunday Times'A thing of finely honed beauty.' Guardian'Thrilling.' Richard Ford'As good as Chekhov.' David MitchellIt is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm, not knowing when she will return home.
In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. But in a house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers how fragile her idyll is.
Now a stunning and emotional film, The Quiet Girl ( part Irish / Eng with subtitles)
Kick The Latch, Kathryn Scanlan ( paperback Jan 2023)
£9.99
Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman’s life at the racetrack – the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner’s circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the ‘particular language’ of ‘grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody’ – with economy and integrity.
Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony. As Scanlan puts it, ‘I wanted to preserve – amplify, exaggerate – Sonia’s idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self.’ Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.
‘Terrific . . . Kathryn Scanlan makes the mundane details of everyday life hum with electricity.’ 5 stars, Telegraph
‘A series of taut, electrifying vignettes . . . by turns exultant and brutal.’ LA Review of Books
Really Good, Actually - Monica Heisey ( paperback end Sept 2023)
£9.99
I feel like when you get a divorce everyone's wondering how you ruined it all, what made you so unbearable to be with.If your husband dies, at least people feel bad for you. Maggie's marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she's fine - she's doing really good, actually. Sure, she's alone for the first time in her life, can't afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere .
. . but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcee (TM).
Soon she's taking up 'sadness hobbies' and getting back out there, sex-wise, oversharing in the group chat and drinking with her high-intensity new divorced friend Amy. As Maggie throws herself headlong into the chaos of her first year of divorce, she finds herself questioning everything, including: Why do we still get married? Did I fail before I even got started? How many Night Burgers until I'm happy? Laugh-out-loud funny, razor sharp and painfully relatable, Really Good, Actually is an irresistible debut novel about the uncertainties of modern love, friendship and happiness from a stunning new voice in fiction, Monica Heisey. 'A smart, funny and warm debut with such a strong voice' Cathy Rentzenbrink
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow :Gabrielle Zevin ( Paperback 29 June 2023)
£9.99
This is not a romance, but it is about love. 'One of the best books I've ever read' JOHN GREEN Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987. Sadie is visiting her sister, Sam is recovering from a car crash.The days and months are long there, but playing together brings joy, escape, fierce competition -- and a special friendship. Then all too soon that time is over, and they must return to their normal lives. When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment.
The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - creating virtual worlds to delight, challenge and immerse, finding an intimacy in the digital realm that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money.
Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect.
The End of Nightwork, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, (paperback Jan 2024)
£9.99
Pol suffers from a very rare hormonal disorder that ages him erratically: when he was thirteen, his body aged ten years overnight, and now in his early thirties, he still has the outward appearance of a twenty-three-year-old. But with his condition dormant, Pol and his wife Caroline manage to live an ordinary life in London. They're happy enough, even if having a young child has put something of a strain on their marriage.
That and Pol's obsessive interest in the writings of an obscure seventeenth-century Puritan prophet, Bartholomew Playfere, and his premonitions of ecological disaster and the end of the world. But while Pol is failing to complete his research on Playfere, he encounters a radical new movement that argues that all economic and political events are part of an aeon-long struggle between the old and the young - that the 'hoarist' habit of violence, their need to conquer, has also affected how they treat the planet. The leader of this popular movement predicts an imminent inter-generational conflict - father against son, mother against daughter - that echoes Playfere's own prophecies.
paperback Jan 2024 cover TBC
The Good Mother, Sue Miller ( paperback Jan 2023 - reissue)
£9.99
A reissue of the powerful and troubling debut sensation - which spent over six months at top of the New York Times bestseller list on its original publication thirty years ago.
Recently divorced, Anna Dunlap has two passionate attachments: her daughter, four-year-old Molly, and her lover, Leo, the man who makes her feel beautiful - and sexual - for the first time. Swept away by happiness and passion, Anna feels she has everything she's ever wanted. Then come the shocking charges that would threaten her new love, her new family - that force her to prove she is a good mother.
The Leviathan, Rosie Andrews ( paperback Jan 2023)
£8.99
A beguiling tale of superstition, myth and murder from a major new voice in historical fiction
Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.
Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before. Something has awoken, and now it will not rest. Richly atmospheric and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political and religious turbulence.
It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding mystery and a story of impossible things...
Amazing Grace Adams, Fran Littlewood ( paperback Jan 2024)
£8.99
Grace Adams is one bad day away from saving her life. One hot summer day, stuck in traffic on her way to pick up the cake for her daughter's sixteenth birthday party, Grace Adams snaps.She doesn't scream or break something or cry. She simply abandons her car and walks away. But not from her life - towards it.
To the daughter who won't live with her anymore and has banned her from the party. To the husband divorcing her. Towards the terrible thing that has blown their family apart .
. . Today she'll show her daughter that no matter how far we fall we can always get back up again.
Because Grace Adams was amazing. Her husband and daughter once thought so. They and the world might have forgotten.
But Grace is about to remind them . . .
Amazing Grace Adams tells the story of a life, a marriage, a family, set against a single north-London day. A rollercoaster ride of redemption and discovery, it's a powerful celebration of womanhood. 'An absolute gut punch of a book that throbs with all the rage of a middle-aged woman who refuses to go quietly' RED 'Readers will relish the letting loose of one woman's long-suppressed righteous rage .
My Father’s House, Joseph O’Connor ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them. September 1943: German forces occupy Rome.
SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway.
He gathers a team to set up an Escape Line. But Hauptmann's net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmas, it's too late to turn back.
Based on a true story, My Father's House is a powerful thriller from a master of historical fiction. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances. 'A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie' Sunday Times'A masterwork...
so urgent, so incredibly alive... A searing and beautiful example of storytelling's infinite importance' Donal Ryan
Paperback Feb 2024
Mothers Boy, Patrick Gale ( paperback Feb 2023)
£9.99
Laura, a laundress, meets her young husband when they are both placed in service in Teignmouth in 1914. They have a baby, Charles, but his father returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave Laura a widow.
As a new war looms, Charles signs up for the navy as a coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to a more colourful life in action sees him blossom, as he experiences the possibility of death, and the excitement - even terror - of a love that is as clandestine as his work.
'Stands with the best queer literary fiction of a historical bent, illuminated as it is by Gale's devilish wit and talent for both social observation and intricacies of character' Sydney Morning Herald
Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez ( paperback Jan 2023)
£9.99
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro 'Prieto' Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying, Latinx neighbourhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the wedding planner for Manhattan's power brokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy.Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the one percent, but she can't seem to find her own . . .until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.
Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream - all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.
Violeta, Isabel Allende ( paperback Feb 2023)
£8.99
One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story.Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life - of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.
Queen K, Sarah Thomas ( paperback July 2023)
£9.99
Her dazzling debut is both a gripping mystery and a treatise on the dangers of wealth without limits' Emma Stonex, author of The LamplightersOn a balmy evening in late March, an oligarch's wife hosts a party on a superyacht moored in the Maldives. Tables cover the massive deck, adorned with orchids, champagne bottles, name cards of celebrities.Uniformed staff flank a red carpet on the landing dock. This is what Kata has wanted for a long time: acceptance into the glittering world of high society. But there are those who aim to come between Kata and her goal, and they are closer to home than she could have imagined.
Witness to the corruption and violence underneath the shiny surfaces is Mel, a young English woman employed to tutor Kata's precocious daughter and navigate her through the class codes of English privilege. Now the closest Mel gets to such privilege is as hired help to the wealthy, and she is deeply resentful. Exquisitely written and deliciously unreliable, Queen K takes the reader to some of the most luxurious places in the world.
But a dark refrain sounds from the very beginning of the story and grows towards its operatic finale: a novel about insatiable material desire can only ever be a tragedy.
Last House Before The Mountain, by Monika Helfer ( paperback Nov 2023)
£14.99
Maria and Josef live with their children in a valley in westernmost Austria.
When the First World War breaks out and Josef is drafted into the army, Maria is left to provide for her family alone. Every day is a struggle against starvation, the harsh alpine climate and the hostile nearby villagers who see Maria as little more than a beautiful temptress out for the men left behind. But when a red-haired stranger arrives in the village, Maria feels happiness seep back into her life and she faces a choice whose consequences will affect the lives of her family for generations to come.
Based on the internationally bestselling and award-winning Austrian novelist Monika Helfer's own family history, Last House Before the Mountain is a propulsive, haunting, multi-layered saga about love, family, and the hidden wages of war.
Beautiful and heartbreaking ... I absolutely loved it' Monica Ali, Sunday Times Bestselling author of Love Marriage'
The Yellow Kitchen, Margaux Vialleron ( paperback March 2023)
£8.99
Expectation meets Julie and Julia, The Yellow Kitchen is a brilliant exploration of food, belonging and friendship. London E17, 2019. A yellow kitchen stands as a metaphor for the lifelong friendship between three women: Claude, the baker, goal-orientated Sophie and political Giulia.They have the best kind of friendship, chasing life and careers; dating, dreaming and consuming but always returning to be reunited in the yellow kitchen. That is, until a trip to Lisbon unravels unexplored desires between Claude and Sophie. Having sex is one thing, waking up the day after is the beginning of something new.
Exploring the complexities of female friendship, The Yellow Kitchen is a hymn to the last year of London as we knew it and a celebration of the culture, the food and the rhythms we live by. Praise for The Yellow Kitchen: 'Rich and thoroughly intoxicating, The Yellow Kitchen is a sensual journey into friendship, food and female sexuality, full of complex, fascinating characters and bold ideas. I loved it' Rosie Walsh 'A heady mix of politics, friendship, sex and food, poignant, provocative and utterly distinctive' Paula Hawkins 'An exquisite novel - beautifully rendered, powerfully told, and so deeply felt.
Nothing Special, Nicole Flattery ( hardback Mar 2023, paperback March 2024)
£9.99
A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol's Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New YorkNew York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother's sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets.When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement.
Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.
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At The Table, Claire Powell ( paperback March 2023)
£9.99
To Nicole and Jamie Maguire, their parents seem the ideal couple - a suburban double act, happily married for more than thirty years. So when Linda and Gerry announce that they've decided to separate, the news sends shockwaves through the siblings' lives, forcing them to confront their own expectations and desires. Hardworking - and hard-drinking - Nicole pursues the ex she unceremoniously dumped six years ago, while people-pleasing Jamie fears he's sleepwalking into a marriage he doesn't actually want.But as the siblings grapple with the pressures of thirtysomething life, their parents struggle to protect the fragile facade of their own relationship, and the secrets they've both been keeping. Set in 2018, Claire Powell's beautifully observed debut novel follows each member of the Maguire family over a tumultuous year of lunches, dinners and drinks, as old conflicts arise and relationships are re-evaluated. A gripping yet tender depiction of family dynamics, love and disillusionment, At the Table is about what it means to grow up - both as an individual, and as a family.
Old Babes in The Wood, Margaret Atwood ( March 2023)
£9.99
'Gripping... a writer in full possession of her powers' Financial Times'
Winter Soldier, or Piano Tuner, Daniel Mason ( paperbacks)
£9.99
Daniel Mason is a doctor by trade, but writes in his spare time. His stories are reminiscent of William Boyd, often including travel, historical context and a gripping tale. Very enjoyable and well written, one of our favourites.
The Piano Tuner
One misty London afternoon in 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives an unusual request from the War Office: he must leave his quiet life and travel to the jungles of Burma to repair a rare grand piano owned by an enigmatic army surgeon.
So begins an extraordinary journey across Europe, the Red Sea, India and onwards, accompanied by an enchanting yet elusive woman. Edgar is at first captivated, then unnerved, as he begins to question the true motive behind his summons and whether he will return home unchanged to the wife who awaits him. .
The WInter Soldier
Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, only to find himself posted to a remote field-hospital ravaged by typhus. Supplies have all but run out, the other doctors have fled, and only a single nurse remains, from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine.
Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the course of his life. From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front, The Winter Soldier is the story of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and of the mistakes we make and the precious opportunities to atone.
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, Maddie Mortimer ( paperback March 2023)
£9.99
Lia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia's body, too, and everything is about to change. As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family's deepest fears.
But Lia hopes: for more time, for more love, for more Iris. Dancing between voices within Lia's body and without, flitting back and forth in time, this sweeping, dazzling story of a life and what it is to let go marks the arrival of an extraordinary novelist. '
- Longlisted for the Booker Prize
- Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
- Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
- Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize
- Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize
Hang The Moon, Jeannette Walls (Pre Order paperback 25 April 2024 )
£16.99
From Jeannette Walls, the bestselling author of The Glass Castle, a riveting new novel about an indomitable young woman in Prohibition-era Virginia. Walls writes a really good, fast paced narrative - highly recommended.
Most folk thought Sallie Kincaid was a nobody who'd amount to nothing. Sallie had other plans. Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid.
Born at the turn of the twentieth century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother, who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is the Duke's daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother's son, timid and cerebral.
When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out. Nine years later, she returns, determined to reclaim her place in the family. That's a lot more complicated than Sallie expected, and she enters a world of conflict and lawlessness.
Sallie confronts the secrets and scandals that hide in the shadows of the Big House, navigates the factions in the family and town, and finally comes into her own as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger.
