AMERICAN FICTION / USA
I've always had a soft spot for fiction writers out of the USA and hence we maintain and curate a collection of the best classic and contemporary American writers.
Shark Heart, Emily Habeck ( paperback June 2024)
£10.99
For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He's turning into a great white shark, and has less than a year left to live as a human.
At first, Wren resists her husband's fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis fully transforms?But as Lewis changes, day by day, Wren begins to make peace with the inevitable. After all, this isn't the first time she's lost a loved one.
An extraordinary novel of love, loss, hope and happiness, Shark Heart explores the shapes that love takes, in all its many forms, and asks us to ask ourselves: what makes us human?
'Every page bursts with heart' Anthony Doerr, author of All The Light We Cannot See'Compelling, moving, lyrical' - Claire North, author of Ithaca
Three Days in June, Anne Tyler ( hardback Feb 2025)
£14.99
It's the day before her daughter's wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job - or quits, depending who you ask.
Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for the festivities. He doesn't even have a suit. Instead, he's brought memories, a shared sense of humour - and a cat looking for a new home.
Just as Gail is wondering what's next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret... As the big day dawns, the exes just can't agree on what's best for Debbie. Gail is seriously worried, while Max seems more concerned with whether to opt for the salmon or prime rib at the reception, if they make it that far.
The day after the wedding, Gail and Max prepare to go their separate ways again. But all the questions about the future of the happy couple have stirred up the past for Gail. Because 'happy' takes many forms, and sometimes the younger generation has much to teach the older about secrets, acceptance and taking the rough with the smooth.
'Razor sharp on family, love and marriage' DAVID NICHOLLS
The Peacock and the Sparrow, IS Berry ( paperback Oct 2024)
£9.99
WINNER OF THE 2024 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
WINNER OF THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL - WINNER OF THE 2024 BARRY BEST FIRST MYSTERY OR CRIME NOVEL AWARD - WINNER OF THE 2024 MACAVITY BEST FIRST MYSTERY AWARD
‘Gritty, propulsive, dark and twisty’ David McCloskey, author of Damascus Station
‘It’s fantastic, I loved it’ Steve Cavanagh, author of Thirteen
‘..the most impressive debut of the year to date and a spy novel to rank alongside the best of Mick Herron’s Slough House series.’ The Irish Times
‘Sensational…feels like every inch of the real world of espionage’ Alex Gerlis, author of Every Spy a Traitor
‘I.S. Berry is at the vanguard of a new generation of American spy novelists who have electrified the genre.’ Charles Cumming, author of Judas 62
The thrilling debut from author and former CIA officer I.S. Berry, following an American spy’s last dangerous mission.
Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask.
When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he’s caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa’s love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain’s secrets end and America’s begin.
House of Leaves, Mark Z Danielewski ( hardback)
£40.00
First-ever UK hardback publication* Deluxe edition with foil cover* Complete final FULL-COLOUR text* Special embossed 'maze' case design
Now published in hardback in the UK for the first time, the nightmarish story of a house that is bigger on the inside than the outside - a tale that continues to inspire devotion among its ever-growing army of fans.
"A genuinely scary chiller, a satire on the business of criticism and a meditation on the way we read" Observer newspaper.
A young couple - Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson and his partner Karen Green - move into a small house on Ash Tree Lane. But something is terribly wrong - their new home is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Neither Will nor Karen are prepared to face the consequences of this impossibility until the day their two small children wandered off, and their voices eerily began to tell another story - of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams and create nightmares.
What happened next is loosely recorded on videotapes and interviews, and impelled an eccentric old man to compile - on loose sheets of paper, stained napkins, crammed notebooks - a definitive account of what took place at Ash Tree Lane that seems to unveil a thrilling and terrifying history. Because these scraps prove to be far more than the deranged ramblings of a reclusive old man.
Impossible to forget. House of Leaves is thrilling, terrifying and unlike anything you have read before.
Tell Me Everything- Elizabeth Stroud ( hardback Sept 2024)
£14.99
It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been.
Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.
Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat.
QUEER ROMANCE : Anyone's Ghost, and I Will Greet the Sun Again ( August 2024)
£16.99
Anyone's Ghost: August Thompson
Set over twenty years, August Thompson's debut Anyone’s Ghost will break your heart. It took three car crashes to kill Jake. The lonely life of fifteen-year-old Theron David Alden is transformed when he meets Jake. Older, cooler, more confident and startlingly beautiful, Jake likes the same bands, the same drugs, and has the same drive to oblivion. Over the course of two decades, Theron and Jake get high, drift apart, and are brought hurtling back together, until a final collision tears them apart forever. Theron wants Jake, and he wants to be Jake. But is Jake brave enough to want him back?
I Will Greet the Sun Again, Khashayar J. Khabushani
Three young brothers leave Los Angeles in the dead of night for Iran, taken by their father from their mother to a country and an ancestral home they barely recognize.
They return to the Valley months later, spit back into American life and changed in inexorable ways. Under the dazzling light of the California sun, our protagonist, the youngest brother, begins to piece together a childhood shattered by his father's violence, a queer adolescence marked by a shy, secret love affair with a boy he meets on the basketball court, and his ever-changing status as a Muslim in America at the turn of the new millennium.
Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner ( hardback July 2024)
£20.00
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble comes a darkly exhilarating novel about an American family and its inheritance - the safety and wealth that they fought for, and the precarity of their survival that is their legacy. In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of the nicest part of Long Island.
He is brutalised, held for ransom and then returned to his family. Miraculously, Carl, his wife and his three kids are left to move on with their lives, and resume their prized places in the ongoing saga of the American dream. But nearly forty years later, when Carl's mother dies, the trauma that has been bubbling beneath the Fletchers' lives all this time surfaces at last.
It becomes apparent that Carl has been quietly pursuing closure to the kidnapping for all these years, and his wife and children must face that the money that they believed bought them safety was actually never capable of doing any such thing. Long Island Compromise spans generations, winding through decades of history all the way through to the wild present, dealing along the way with all the mainstays of American Jewish life and the timeless questions about wealth, trauma, and the American soul.
Too many good reviews to copy!
Evil Eye, Etaf Rum ( paperback August 2024)
£9.99
The powerful and poignant novel from the author of the much-loved A Woman is No Man.
Raised in a conservative Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur. Now, she has a good job at the local college, and balances that with raising her two daughters and taking care of their home. Yara knows that her life is more rewarding than her mother’s – so why doesn’t it feel like enough? After Yara responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, she is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counselling.
Her mother blames a family curse for Yara’s troubles, and while Yara doesn’t believe in superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy about falling victim to the same mistakes as her mother. Yara’s carefully constructed world begins to implode and suddenly she must face up to the difficulties of her childhood, not fully realising how that will impact not just her own future, but that of her daughters too. * * * Praise for Etaf Rum: ‘A love letter to storytelling’ New York Times ‘Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns … a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice’ Refinery
Day, by Michael Cunningham ( paperback August 2024)
£9.99
As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, falling in and out of love, losing the things that are most precious – and learning to go on. In a cosy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. A married couple does their best to hide their growing rift from their children.
A brother seeks solace from his break-up in a glamorous online avatar. A son takes his first uncertain steps towards independence, and a daughter obsesses over keeping her family safe. Set on the same day for three consecutive years and against the unsettling backdrop of the pandemic, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on growing older, love and loss and the limitations of family life, from the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham.
‘A brilliant novel from our most brilliant of writers’ Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon
Same As It Ever Was, Claire Lombardo ( hardback July 2024)
£20.00
The author of THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD returns with a brilliantly observed family drama, in which a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present. "It was such a pleasure to bury myself in this book, a literary novel of family life which moved and surprised me" CLARE CHAMBERS, author of SMALL PLEASURES'
At fifty-seven, Julia Ames has found herself with an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination towards self-sabotage, she has a husband she loves, two happy children and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs. But, out of the blue, things begin to change. Her always well-behaved son is acting strangely.
Her beloved but belligerent teenage daughter is about to depart for college. And, in the local grocery store, Julia encounters a woman she hasn't seen for twenty years - a woman whose friendship was once both her lifeline and, very nearly, her downfall. All of a sudden, Julia's peaceful family setup and her long, affection-filled marriage face imminent derailment from events both past and present.
Anyone’s Ghost, August Thompson ( hardback July 2024)
£16.99
A gorgeous modern love story about the lives that change us, and the loves that haunt us.
Set over twenty years, August Thompson's debut Anyone’s Ghost will break your heart. It took three car crashes to kill Jake. The lonely life of fifteen-year-old Theron David Alden is transformed when he meets Jake.
Older, cooler, more confident and startlingly beautiful, Jake likes the same bands, the same drugs, and has the same drive to oblivion. Over the course of two decades, Theron and Jake get high, drift apart, and are brought hurtling back together, until a final collision tears them apart forever. Theron wants Jake, and he wants to be Jake.
But is Jake brave enough to want him back?'You know those books that you take with you everywhere? That you won’t stop talking about to your friends? That bring it all back? That change you? Anyone’s Ghost is that book' - Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Perfect for fans of A Little Life and One Day.
The Trackers, Charles Frazier ( paperback, July 2024)
£9.99
The stunning new novel from the author of international million-copy bestseller Cold Mountain.
Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch.
Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives.
One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down. Journeying from ramshackle Hoovervilles to San Francisco nightclubs to the swamps of Florida, Val's search for Eve narrows, and he soon turns up secrets that could spark formidable changes for all of them.
The Polite Act of Drowning by Charleen Hurtubise (paperback July 2024)
£9.99
An atmospheric, emotional coming-of-age novel with themes of generational trauma, sexual identity and coping with mental illness at its heart, as well as the silence of women drowning in plain view in their daily lives.
Michigan, 1985. The drowning of a teenage girl causes ripples in the small town of Kettle Lake, though for most the waters settle quickly. For sixteen year old Joanne Kennedy, however, the tragedy dredges up untold secrets and causes her mother to drift farther from reality and her family. When troubled newcomer Lucinda arrives in town, she offers Joanne a chance of real friendship, and together the teenagers push against the boundaries of family, self-image, and their sexuality during the tension of a long, stifling summer. But the undercurrents of past harms continuously threaten to drag Joanne and those around her under...
If you enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen you will like this.
James, Percival Everett (paperback from 27 Feb 2025)
£9.99
From the Booker-prize shortlisted author of Erasure, adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction'This is the work of an American master at the peak of his powers' – Financial TimesEnthralling and ferociously funny, James by Percival Everett is a profound meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love. It is also a bold reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as the enslaved Jim emerges to reclaim his voice, defying the conventions that have consigned him to the margins. The Mississippi River, 1861.
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond.
As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most dangerous, and life-changing, odyssey of them all .
. . 'James has the potential to become a classic .Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' – Roddy Doyle
James is a profound and ferociously funny novel from one of our greatest living writers, Percival Everett. The Sunday Times
Come and Get It, Kiley Reid ( hardback Jan 2024)
£16.99
Everything comes at a price. But not everything can be paid for…Millie wants to graduate, get a job and buy a house. She’s slowly saving up from her job on campus, but when a visiting professor offers her an unusual opportunity to make some extra money, she jumps at the chance.
Agatha is a writer, recovering from a break-up while researching attitudes towards weddings and money for her new book. She strikes gold when interviewing the girls in Millie’s dorm, but her plans take a turn when she realises that the best material is unfolding behind closed doors. As the two women form an unlikely relationship, they soon become embroiled in a world of roommate theatrics, vengeful pranks and illicit intrigue – and are forced to question just how much of themselves they are willing to trade to get what they want.
Sharp, intimate and provocative, Come and Get It takes a lens to our money-obsessed society in a tension-filled story about desire, consumption and bad behaviour. ‘Smart, funny and perceptive’ i‘A perfect read’ STYLIST
Paperback May 2025
The Divorcées, Rowan Beaird ( hardback May 2024)
£16.99
Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage.
In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce - except in Reno, Nevada. At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno's 'divorce ranches' Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks' residency that is the state's only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it's as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, was prim and stifling.
But it isn't until Greer Lange arrives that Lois's world truly cracks open . . .
Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met - and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. But how much can she really trust her mysterious new friend? And how far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, THE DIVORCEES is a deliciously slow-burn, atmospheric page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire, and freedom.
River East River West, Aube Rey Lescure ( paperback May 2024)
£9.99
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024
Shanghai, 2007: feeling betrayed by her American mother’s engagement to their rich landlord Lu Fang, fourteen-year-old Alva begins plotting her escape. But the exclusive American School – a potential ticket out – is not what she imagined. Qingdao, 1985: newlywed Lu Fang works as a lowly shipping clerk.
Though he aspires to a bright future, he is one of many casualties of harsh political reforms. Then China opens up to foreigners and capital, and Lu Fang meets a woman who makes him question what he should settle for... A mesmerising reversal of the east–west immigrant narrative set against China’s economic boom, River East, River West is a deeply moving exploration of race, identity and family, of capitalism’s false promise and private dreams.
Last Summer on State Street ( Toya Wolfe) paperback March 2024
£9.99
State Street Chicago, 1999. One summer that changes everything. An unlikely trio: Felicia 'Fe Fe' Stevens, daughter of fiercely protective mother; Precious Brown, daughter of a prominent church Elder; and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin.They have a simple friendship, whiling away sunny days with games of Double Dutch. But when Fe Fe invites mysterious Tonya into their fold, life as they know it will never be the same again. Last Summer on State Street is a profound coming-of-age story about the restorative power of community, the claiming of one's own past, and the defining friendships which form the heartbeat of our lives.
Martyr! Kaveh Akbar (paperback from 6 Feb 2025)
£9.99
This book is thrilling. It's like watching the novel itself be reinvented' - Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake'This book vibrates with love of life, beauty and language. I’m in awe...' - Natalie Portman
Cyrus Shams is lost. Ever since his mother’s plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby, Cyrus has been grappling with her death. Now, newly sober, he is set to learn the truth of her life. When an encounter with a dying artist leads Cyrus towards the mysteries of his past – an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as an Angel of Death, a haunting work of art by an exiled painter – he finds himself once again caught up in the story of his mother, who may not have been who or what she seemed.
As Cyrus searches for meaning in the scattered clues of his life, a final revelation transforms everything he thought he knew. Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! was an instant New York Times bestseller w/c 27/1/24
Paper Names, Susie Luo ( paperback March 2024)
£9.99
Taut, panoramic and powerful; Paper Names is an unforgettable debut about the long shadows of our parents, the ripple effects of our decisions and the ways in which our love transcends difference. Outside a New York apartment building, an attempted mugging alters the lives of three people. Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life.His daughter, Tammy, who grapples with the expectations surrounding a first-generation American as she grows into an ambitious young woman. And Oliver, a charming white lawyer with a dark family secret, who is continuously propelled towards Tammy and Tony, whether by fate or his choices. Set in New York and China over three decades, Paper Names explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives.
As Tony, Tammy and Oliver each strive for their own American dream, and make sacrifices to attain it, every joyous and heart-breaking twist in their stories begs the question: was it all worth it?
The Women, Kristin Hannah ( paperback Feb 2025)
£9.99
The Women is a story of devastating loss and epic love. It would be the journey of a lifetime. . .. ‘Women can be heroes, too’. When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances “Frankie” McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation.
Raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path.
As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America.
Big Swiss, Jen Beagin ( paperback Dec 2023)
£9.99
Juicy, salacious and compelling. Trauma shouldn't be this fun.' SARA PASCOEGreta liked knowing people's secrets. That wasn't a problem.Until she met Big Swiss. Big Swiss. That's Greta's nickname for her - she is tall, and she is from Switzerland.
Well that's how Greta imagines her; they haven't actually met in person. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland. What Greta doesn't know is that she's about to bump into Big Swiss in the local dog park.
A new - and not entirely honest - relationship is going to be born. A relationship that will transform both of their lives . .
. Readers are obsessed with Big Swiss:'This thing is a riot. I laughed out loud regularly.
I've never read anything quite like it.''This book is f u n n y''The premise is bizarre but brilliant! I am ready to move to Hudson, NY to meet these folks!''I haven't read a book this engrossing for a long time.''The blend of real and wit made for a wonderfully sublime experience.'
Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff ( paperback Sept 2024)
£9.99
A profound and explosive novel about a spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive. A servant girl escapes from a settlement. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her.
The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how -and if - we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
Pre-Order Paperback from September 2024.
Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward ( paperback August 2024)
£9.99
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother’s resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother – how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness.
When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth. A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light.
North Woods, Daniel Mason (paperback August 2024)
£9.99
North Woods has been heaped with praise and hype, and deservedly so. This is a book that treats life as a miracle and demands the proper awe from its readers' Antonia Senior, The Times 'This is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic .A SINGLE HOUSE DEEP IN THE WOODS OF NEW ENGLAND. A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision.
Inseparable twin sisters. A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son.
A ruthless con man and a stalking panther. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope.
All are connected. The dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive. Exhilarating, daring and playful, NORTH WOODS will change the way you see the world.
'A monumental achievement . . .
I loved it' Maggie O'Farrell'
Lucy By The Sea (paperback Sept 23)
£9.99
In March 2020 Lucy's ex-husband William pleads with her to leave New York and escape to a coastal house he has rented in Maine. Lucy reluctantly agrees, leaving the washing-up in the sink, expecting to be back in a week or two. Weeks turn into months, and it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the sea.
Rich with empathy and a searing clarity, Lucy by the Sea evokes the fragility and uncertainty of the recent past, as well as the possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this miraculous novel are the deep human connections that sustain us, even as the world seems to be falling apart. 'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own' Hilary Mantel
Also available : the two 'prequels' with the same characters : My Name is Lucy Barton, and Oh William!
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano (paperback from 24th July 2024)
£9.99
A gorgeous, life-affirming novel about four sisters and the love affair that fractures their family for generations.
Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls are seen as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Italian-American neighbourhood, bringing loving chaos with them wherever they go. William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So, when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano, it's as if the world has lit up around him.
With Julia comes her family- Sylvie, the family's dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. But when darkness from William's past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante. The result is a catastrophic rift that leaves the family inhabiting two sides of a fault line.
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett ( paperback June 2024)
£9.99
This is a story about Peter Duke who went on to be a famous actor. This is a story about falling in love with Peter Duke who wasn't famous at all. It's about falling so wildly in love with him - the way one will at twenty-four - that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight.There was no way to foresee the mess it would come to in the end. It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear - of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. 'One of our greatest living chroniclers of love and marriage ...
Go As A River, Shelley Read ( PB 25 April 2024)
£9.99
On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a dishevelled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.
So begins the mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength. Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever. GO AS A RIVER is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power.
If you enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing you'll love this.
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver ( paperback May 2023)
£9.99
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends.
'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.
Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.
Barbara Kingsolver is an astounding writer (The Poisonwood Bible, Flight Behaviour, The Lacuna) and this contemporary retelling of David Copperfield is both a tribute to Dickens and an insightful reworking. But you don't have to know anything about Copperfield to enjoy Copperhead!
Night Wherever We Go, Tracey Rose Peyton ( paperback March 2024)
£16.99
On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys-as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself-have decided to turn around the farm's bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a "stockman" to impregnate them.
But the women are determined to protect themselves. Now, each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily.
If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe.
Visceral and illuminating, Night Wherever We Go marks the arrival of a bold, lyrical and powerful new voice in fiction.
Paperback March 2024 £9.99
The Red Bird Sings, Aoife Fitzpatrick ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
West Virginia, 1897. When young Zona Heaster Shue dies only a few months after her wedding, her mother Mary Jane becomes convinced that Zona was murdered - and by none other than her husband, Trout, the handsome blacksmith beloved in their small Southern town. But when Trout is put on trial, no one believes he could have done it, apart from Mary Jane and Zona's best friend Lucy, who was always suspicious of Trout.
As the trial raises to fever pitch and the men of Greenbrier County stand aligned against them, Mary Jane and Lucy must decide whether to reveal Zona's greatest secret in the service of justice. But it's Zona herself, from beyond the grave, who still has one last revelation to make.
'Keeps you turning pages right until the end.
Based on a real-life murder trial in 1897 West Virginia, this dazzling debut arrives with a Southern Gothic slant and a feminist spirit' DAILY MAIL
Hang The Moon, Jeannette Walls ( 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles (paperback)
£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 .
