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 - in a separate collection now) . 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!
Note, we have the Irish fiction in a separate collection.
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles ( paperback)
£9.99
A supremely uplifting novel ... It's elegant, witty and delightful - much like the Count himself.' - Mail on Sunday,
_On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.
Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?
A Little Unsteadily into Light : New Dementia-Inspired Fiction ( 2 Sept 2022)
£14.99
To live with dementia is to develop extraordinary and various new ways of being – linguistically, cognitively and practically. The storyteller operates similarly, using words and ideas creatively to reveal a slightly different perspective of the world.
In this anthology of fourteen new short stories, commissioned by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers from Ireland and the UK powerfully and poignantly explore the depths and breadth of the real dementia experience, traversing age, ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent.
Each writer’s story is drawn from their own personal experience of dementia and told with outrageous and dark humour, empathy and startling insight. Here are heroes and villains, tricksters and saints, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, characters whose past has overshadowed their present and characters who are making a huge impact on the world they currently find themselves in. They might have dementia, but dementia is only a small part of who they are. They will challenge, frustrate, inspire and humble you.
Above all, these brilliant pieces of short fiction disrupt the perceived notions of what dementia is and, in their diversity, honesty and authenticity begin to normalise an illness that affects so many and break down the stigma endured by those living with it every day.
A Net For Small Fishes, Lucy Jago ( paperback April 2022)
£8.99
Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world.
Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked.
Frankie sweeps Anne into a world of splendour that exceeds all she imagined: a Court whose foreign king is a stranger to his own subjects; where ancient families fight for power, and where the sovereign's favourite may rise and rise - so long as he remains in favour. With the marriage of their talents, Anne and Frankie enter this extravagant, savage hunting ground, seeking a little happiness for themselves. But as they gain notice, they also gain enemies; what began as a search for love and safety leads to desperate acts that could cost them everything.
Based on the true scandal that rocked the court of James I, A Net for Small Fishes is the most gripping novel you'll read this year: an exhilarating dive into the pitch-dark waters of the Jacobean court.
Terrific, rich in colour, character, place and time' Sarah Dunant
paperback from April 2022
A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson ( paperback March 2022)
£9.99
Mary Lawson is an overlooked writer in the UK, but since Graham Norton's approval on a recent BBC bookclub TV show, perhaps this is the year to discover her. This is her new book.
Clara's sister is missing. Angry, rebellious Rose, had a row with their mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Eight-year-old Clara, isolated by her distraught parents' efforts to protect her from the truth, is grief-stricken and bewildered.
Liam Kane, newly divorced, newly unemployed, newly arrived in this small northern town, moves into the house next door, a house left to him by an old woman he can barely remember and within hours gets a visit from the police. It seems he's suspected of a crime. At the end of her life Elizabeth Orchard is thinking about a crime too, one committed thirty years ago that had tragic consequences for two families and in particular for one small child.
She desperately wants to make amends before she dies. Set in Northern Ontario in 1972, A Town Called Solace explores the relationships of these three people brought together by fate and the mistakes of the past. By turns gripping and darkly funny, it uncovers the layers of grief and remorse and love that connect us, but shows that sometimes a new life is possible.
'Poised, elegant prose, paired with quiet drama that will break your heart. The sort of book that seems as if it has always existed because of its timeless perfection' GRAHAM NORTON
( note image is of hardback, now only available as paperback)
A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk ( hardback Sept 2024)
£16.99
From the bestselling author of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, discover the illuminating historical novel about the extraordinary life of pioneering writer, poet and feminist, Mary Wortley Montagu. ‘
'I shall be a thousand different Marys and, in such manner, shall find the one I wish to be...'Lady Mary Wortley Montagu longs for adventure, freedom and love, believing that only by truly living can she ever escape the stalking crow of Death... An aristocratic woman in 18th century England is expected to act in certain ways.
But Mary has never let society's expectations stifle her: she writes celebrated poetry and articles advocating for equality, as well as endless, often scandalous, letters to her many powerful friends. However, Mary wants more from the world. Using her charm and connections, she engineers a job offer for her husband as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Travelling to Constantinople, Mary finally discovers the autonomous life she dreams of. And when she observes Turkish women 'engrafting' children against smallpox, she resolves to bring the miracle cure back to England. Despite this, Mary's reputation becomes increasingly tainted.
Her inability to abide by the rules, her outspoken opinions on women's rights, and her search for love and desire at all costs gains her powerful enemies. While Mary tries to ensure her name will live on by arranging the publication of her diaries after her death, her own daughter works against her, afraid of what they might contain... An illuminating and beautiful novel, A Woman of Opinion gives a voice to the tragically unremembered yet extraordinary life of pioneering poet and feminist, Mary Wortley Montagu.
Absolutely and Forever, Rose Tremain ( paperback June 2024)
£9.99
How do you find the courage to make your own life? An electrifying novel about first love Set in 1960s London from the bestselling Rose Tremain.
Marianne is fifteen when she falls helplessly and absolutely in love with Simon. Simon owns a Morris Minor, is in his final year at school and has a dazzling future ahead of him. Desperate to escape the stifling 1950s suburbs she has been raised in, Marianne feels sure she will be able to find true happiness with him.
However a twist of fate sees Simon’s glittering future dashed and with it Marianne’s dreams. He flees the country and Marianne, realising she will now have to make a life of her own, moves to London determined to reinvent herself. But Marianne cannot let go of that first all-encompassing love and all the while Simon is in Paris, nursing a secret that will alter everything.
‘A perfect Tremain novel… English, dark and yearning… Remarkable… Tremain shows us the things that make every human life extraordinary’ The Times
Act of Oblivion, Robert Harris ( paperback June 2023)
£9.99
'From what is it they flee?'He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, 'They killed the King.'1660.Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross the Atlantic. Having been found guilty of high treason for the murder of Charles the I, they are wanted and on the run. A reward hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive.
In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. Act of Oblivion is an epic journey across continents, and a chase like no other.
'A ripping page-turner' FINANCIAL TIMES'You could not do better than this' DAILY TELEGRAPH
All the Little Bird-Hearts, by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (paperback Feb 2024)
£10.99
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023
For readers who loved Sorrow and Bliss or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - an unforgettable story of a mother and daughter whose lives are upended when a charming new couple move in next door.
Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods.
Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly - her clever, headstrong, teenaged daughter. Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday's book.
Soon they are in and out of each others' homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's polish lies something else, something darker. For beneath Vita's charm lies a desperation and a certain entitled ambition - to have a daughter just like Dolly, all to herself.
Annihilation, Michael Houellebecq ( hardback Sept 2024)
£22.00
sIt is 2027. France is in a state of economic decline and moral decay. As the country plunges into a closely-fought presidential campaign, the French state falls victim to a series of mysterious and unsettling cyberattacks.
The sophisticated nature of the attacks leaves the best computer scientists at the DGSI – the French counter-terrorism agency – scrambling for answers. An advisor to the country’s Finance Minister, Paul Raison is close to the heart of government. His wife Prudence is a Treasury official, while his father Édouard, now retired, has spent his career working for the DGSI.
When Édouard has a stroke, his children have an opportunity to repair their strained relationships, as they determine to free their father from the medical centre where he is wasting away. Michel Houellebecq’s Annihilation reveals new sides to his writing, adding compassion and tenderness to the emotions of rage and irony that have powered both him and his earlier works to international fame
Assembly, by Natasha Brown ( paperback May 2022)
£9.99
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment.Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things.
Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness.
But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself.
As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart? Assembly is a story about the stories we live within - those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life. 'One of the most talked-about debuts of the year .
'Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society' Diana Evans
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.
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?
Black Butterflies, Priscilla Morris ( paperback April 2023)
£9.99
A moving, compelling, deeply human novel about love, hope and resilience in a city under siege. Everyone should read it' Emma Stonex, bestselling author of The Lamplighters
Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents - whether Muslim, Croat or Serb - push the makeshift barriers aside.
When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over.
Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.
Blue Sisters, Coco Mellors (hardback May 2024)
£16.99
It will make you laugh, cry deeply, and want to call your siblings’ Cosmopolitan The Blue sisters have always been exceptional – and exceptionally different. Avery, a strait-laced lawyer living in London, is the typical eldest daughter, though she’s hiding a secret that could undo her perfect life forever. Bonnie was a boxer but, following a devastating defeat, she's been working as a bouncer in LA – until a reckless act one night threatens to drive her out of the city.
And Lucky, the rebellious youngest, is a model in Paris whose hard-partying ways are finally catching up with her. Then there was Nicky, the beloved fourth sister, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie and Lucky reeling. When, a year later, the three of them must reunite in New York to stop the sale of their childhood home, they find that it's only by returning to each other that they can navigate their grief, addiction and heartbreak and learn to fall in love with life again.
'Even better than Cleopatra and Frankenstein' Grazia
Brotherless Night, V.V. Ganeshananthan (paperback April 2024)
£9.99
"A heart-breaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war. This beautiful, nuanced novel follows a young doctor caught within conflicting ideologies as she tries to save lives. I couldn't put this book down" BRIT BENNETT
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 / WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION
Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm?
Ganeshananthan is a superb writer...I wept at many points in this novel and I also wept when it was over" Sunday Times
Careering, Daisy Buchanan (pb March 2023)
£9.99
So perceptive and wise about the media, privilege, the differing but equally troubling pressures that women of all ages face, while still being moving, laugh out loud funny, and inspiring. I loved it.' Louise O'Neill
'A witty tale of the toxic world of modern work' Independentcareering (verb) 1. working endlessly for a job you used to love and now resent entirely2.moving in a way that feels out of control *Imogen has always dreamed of writing for a magazine. Infinite internships later, Imogen dreams of any job. Writing her blog around double shifts at the pub is neither fulfilling her creatively nor paying the bills.
Harri might just be Imogen's fairy godmother. She's moving from the glossy pages of Panache magazine to launch a fierce feminist site, The Know. And she thinks Imogen's most outrageous sexual content will help generate the clicks she needs.
But neither woman is aware of the crucial thing they have in common. Harri, at the other end of her career, has also been bitten and betrayed by the industry she has given herself to. Will she wake up to the way she's being exploited before her protege realises that not everything is copy? Can either woman reconcile their love for work with the fact that work will never love them back? Or is a chaotic rebellion calling...
Hilarious and unflinchingly honest, Careering takes a hard look at the often toxic relationship working women have with their dream jobs. *'The zeitgeisty read tackles the myth of the girl boss, with feelings of imposter syndrome, burnout and comparison rife throughout. Though entertaining - you can't help but cringe at some of the situations Imogen finds herself in - the novel takes a hard look at the very real challenges women still face in the workplace today.
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.
Einstein’s Secretary, Matthew Reilly ( paperback August 2024)
£10.99
All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics - but her world is suddenly turned upside-down and she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life: as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy. From racist gangs in Berlin to mobsters in New York City, and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna encounters some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive. She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses - from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein .
Thrilling, action-packed adventure from cover to cover' Guardian'
'Get ready for a wild ride' Daily Telegraph'
Fairy Tale, Stephen King ( paperback June 2023)
£9.99
WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER...
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But when Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. When Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe - inside the shed is a portal to another world.
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher - for their world or ours.
Fifteen Wild Decembers, Karen Powell ( paperback Sept 2023)
£14.99
Isolated from society, Emily Bronte and her siblings spend their days inventing elaborate fictional realms or roaming the wild moors above their family home in Yorkshire. When the time comes for them to venture out into the world to earn a living, each of them struggles to adapt, but for Emily the change is catastrophic. Torn from the landscape to which she has become so passionately bound, she is simply unable to function.
To the outside world, Emily Bronte appears taciturn and unexceptional, but beneath the surface her mind is in a creative ferment. A violent phenomenon is about to burst forth that will fuse her imaginary world with the landscape of her beloved Yorkshire and change the literary world forever. Fifteen Wild Decembers is the dazzling second novel from a writer who has been compared to Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene, and whose first novel was described as 'utterly stunning', 'mesmerizing' and hailed as 'a masterpiece.'
Described as Little Women for the Bronte's
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (paperback, 2020)
£9.99
***WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019****SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020*
From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . .
.A choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain' Elle 'Ambitious, flowing and all-encompassing, an offbeat narrative that'll leave your mind in an invigorated whirl... [It] unites poetry, social history, women's voices and beyond.'
Recently featured in our BooksPaperScissors bookclub, see BLOG for review.
Going Home, Tom Lamont (hardback June 2024)
£16.99
A beautiful, funny tale of London and lives new and old'SUNDAY TIMES'
'Very funny in places and deeply poignant in others - I loved it . . .word-perfect'INDIA KNIGHT'
Tom Lamont writes in clear, swift prose about the power struggles that exist in even the most loving of families and the longest of friendships.
Local boy Téo Erskine is back in the north London suburb of his youth, visiting his father - stubborn, selfish, complicated Vic. Things have changed for Téo: he's got a steady job, a brand-new car and a London flat all concrete and glass, with a sliver of a river view. Except, underneath the surface, not much has changed at all. He's still the boy seeking his father's approval; the young man playing late-night poker with his best friend, unreliable, infuriating Ben Mossam; the one still desperately in love with the enigmatic Lia Woods.
Lia's life, on the other hand, has been transformed: now a single mum to two-year-old Joel, she doesn't have time for anyone - not even herself. When the unthinkable happens, Joel finds himself at the centre of an odd constellation of men - Téo, Vic, Ben - none of whom is fully equipped to look after him, but whose strange, tentative attempts at love might just be enough to offer him a new place to call home.
Good Material, Dolly Alderton ( paperback August 2024)
£18.99
Every relationship has one beginning. This one has two endings.Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.
Now he is. . .
1. Without a home2. Waiting for his stand-up career to take off3.
Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't lookingSet adrift on the sea of heartbreak at a time when everything he thought he knew about women, and flat-sharing, and his friendships has transformed beyond recognition, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of their broken relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.
From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a sharply funny, beautifully observed and exquisitely relatable story of heartbreak and friendship, and how to survive both.
Greek Lessons, Han Kang ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
Book of the Year 2023 according to New Yorker, TIME magazine, Kirkus
A powerful novel of the saving grace of language and human connection, from the celebrated author of The Vegetarian. 'Breathtaking . .
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice.
Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son.
For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages. Greek Lessons is a tender love letter to human connection, a novel to awaken the senses, vividly conjuring the essence of what it means to be alive. 'Another stunning gem: quiet, sharply faceted, and devastating' Kirkus'
Hamnet , Maggie O’Farrell ( paperback Apr 2021)
£9.99
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times'A thing of shimmering wonder' David MitchellTWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE.A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART. On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever.
Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.
Haunted Tales : Ghostly stories for the darkest nights by Adam Macqueen (Hardback Oct 24)
£12.99
A brilliantly eclectic mix of dark, unsettling tales' Joanne Burn, author of The Bone Hunters'Guaranteed to give you goosebumps' Best Magazine'Atmospheric collection of spooky stories' Observer'Inspired by all the great ghost story writers' BBC Open Book Editor's Pick'Tis the season to be hauntingAn unexpected and unwelcome voice on the world’s first radio broadcast in 1908. A son who won’t stop messaging his family on Facebook, although he’s been dead for quite some time now. A frozen forest in a far north land where the sinister elf-kin lurk in the snow.
A Scottish island where the locals make very sure their old folk don’t go hungry through the long winter. Over the past two decades Adam Macqueen has sent a Haunted Tale to his family in place of a Christmas card. A collection in the grand tradition of ghost stories – to be read by the fire in the depths of winter – it proves that terror lurks in many places, and the dead take on infinite guises .
Illuminations, Alan Moore ( paperback Sept 23)
£9.99
In his first-ever short story collection, which spans forty years of work and features many never-before-published pieces, international bestselling author and legendary creator of From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and other modern classics, Alan Moore, presents nine stories full of wonder and strangeness, each taking us deeper into the fantastical underside of reality. In A Hypothetical Lizard, two concubines in a brothel for fantastical specialists fall in love, with tragic ramifications.In Not Even Legend, a paranormal study group is infiltrated by one of the otherworldly beings they seek to investigate. In Illuminations, a nostalgic older man decides to visit a seaside resort from his youth and finds the past all too close at hand. And in the monumental novella What We Can Know About Thunderman, which charts the surreal and Kafkaesque history of the comics industry over the last seventy-five years through several sometimes-naive and sometimes-maniacal people rising and falling on its career ladders, Moore reveals the dark, beating heart of the superhero business.
From ghosts and otherworldly creatures to theoretical Boltzmann brains fashioning the universe at the big bang, Illuminations is exactly that - a series of bright, startling tales from a contemporary legend that reveal the full power of imagination and magic
In Memoriam, Alice Winn ( paperback 29 Feb 2024)
£9.99
In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood.
They're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been. When Gaunt's mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches.
Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next. An epic tale of the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut
Paperback end Feb 2024
I’m Sorry You Feel that Way, Rebecca Wait ( paperback March 2023)
£9.99
For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial.There is their mother, who takes a divide-and-conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is also their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything .
. . As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they'd intended.
They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments. From the author of the Waterstones Book of the Month Our Fathers comes a compelling domestic comedy about complex family dynamics, mental health and the intricacies of sibling relationships.
Juice, Tim Winton ( hardback Oct 24)
£22.00
'A hold-your-breath adventure set in an utterly plausible, sun-hammered future, Juice will stab your conscience and break your heart’ - Emma Donoghue'A blistering cli-fi epic' - The Guardian, Best Books of the AutumnSurvival is only the beginning. Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site.
They’re exhausted, traumatized, desperate now, and this is a forsaken place, but as a refuge it’s the most promising they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.
Problem is, they’re not alone . . .
So begins a searing, epic journey through a life where the challenge is not only to survive; it’s keeping your humanity if you do. Juice is a stunning novel for fans of Station Eleven and The Road, from twice Booker-shortlisted author Tim Winton.
Julia, Sandra Newman ( paperback August 2024)
£9.99
London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics.
She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive. But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.
Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original
Last Song of Penelope, Claire North ( paperback Feb 2025)
£9.99
Following the critically acclaimed Ithaca and House of Odysseus comes the final novel in Claire North's Songs of Penelope trilogy - an exquisite, gripping tale that breathes life into ancient myth. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Many years ago, Odysseus sailed to war and never returned.
For twenty years his wife Penelope and the women of Ithaca have guarded the isle against suitors and rival kings. But peace cannot be kept forever, and the balance of power is about to break . .. A beggar has arrived at the Palace. Salt-crusted and ocean-battered, he is scorned by the suitors - but Penelope recognises in him something terrible: her husband, Odysseus, returned at last.
Yet this Odysseus is no hero. By returning to the island in disguise, he is not merely plotting his revenge against the suitors - vengeance that will spark a civil war - but he's testing the loyalty of his queen.
But first, Penelope must use all her cunning to win a war for the fate of the island and keep her family alive, whatever the cost . . .
This is an impassioned plea for the lost, disenfranchised queens of ancient Greece, a love letter to the silenced women of history' Booklist
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?
Levitation for Beginners, Suzannah Dunn ( paperback Jan 20250
£9.99
A sharp eye and keen wit are brought to bear on the secrets and lies of a small rural community - secrets and lies that may prove deadly. It's 1972 and ten-year-old Deborah is living a ten-year-old life: butterscotch angel delight and Raleigh chopper bikes, and Clunk Click, and Crackajack and Jackanory, Layla and the Bee Gees, flares and ponchos. But new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school, pretty as a picture and full of gossip and speculation, as well as unlikely but thrilling stories about levitation.
The other girls are dazzled but Deborah is wary and keeps her distance. That same week, eighteen-year-old brickie Sonny turns up on her doorstep with a stray tortoise and begins an unlikely friendship with her young widowed mum. That's bad enough, Deborah thinks, but then Sonny starts work on a site opposite the school and Sarah-Jayne decides he's the latest love of her life.
Nothing escapes Sarah-Jayne, and Deborah fears what she'll make of her mum. It's good to be different, her mum often says; but not, Deborah knows, too different. So, Deborah changes tactics, keeping her friends close and her enemy closer, even stepping up for some of Sarah-Jayne's levitation sessions.
Then she's invited to Sarah-Jayne's lovely house, where she meets her charming family and encounters Sarah-Jayne's big sister's fiance, Max, which is when she senses that all isn't quite as it seems.
Love After Love, Ingrid Persaud (paperback, Jan 2021)
£9.99
WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2020
Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love. Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household.
Happy in their differences, they build a home together. Home: the place keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world - until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart. Brave and brilliant, steeped in affection, Love After Love offers hope to anyone who has loved and lost and has yet to find their way back.
Love is Blind, by William Boyd (paperback May 2019)
£9.99
A real treat for the many fans of William Boyd. A rich story of the talented piano tuner Brodie Moncur, who escapes a suffocating family life in the Scottish Borders and heads off to Paris for adventure in the late 19th century.
Around the turn of the twentieth century young pianist Brodie Moncur quits Edinburgh's slate skies for the lights of Paris, his preacher father's words of denunciation ringing in his ears. There he joins forces with the fiery Irish virtuoso John Kilbarron and together the pair take Europe by storm. But when he falls for Kilbarron's lover - the mesmerizing Russian soprano Lika Blum - Brodie quickly realizes that the tide has turned and he must flee across a continent, haunted by his love for Lika, and pursued by the vengeful wrath of his rival.
A perfect mix of historical context, immersive narrative and engaging prose. William Boyd is a master !
Love Marriage, Monica Ali ( paperback 2 Feb 2023)
£9.99
TWO CULTURES. TWO FAMILIES. TWO PEOPLE.
The new novel from the bestselling, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of BRICK LANE
Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine, and a charming, handsome fiancee, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But as the wedding day draws closer and Yasmin's parents get to know Joe's firebrand feminist mother, both families must confront the unravelling of long-held secrets, lies and betrayals. As Yasmin dismantles her own assumptions about the people she holds most dear, she's also forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means.
Love Marriage is a story about who we are and how we love in today's Britain - with all the complications and contradictions of life, desire, marriage and family. What starts as a captivating social comedy develops into a heart-breaking and gripping story of two cultures, two families and two people trying to understand one another. 'Ali's wit and insight illuminate the complications of modern love in Britain today.
Loved and Missed, Susie Boyt ( Paperback August 2022)
£9.99
Susie Boyt writes with a mordant wit and vivid style, which are at their best in Loved and Missed.
When your beloved daughter is lost in the fog of addiction and you make off with her baby in order to save the day, can willpower and a daring creative zeal carry you through?
Examining the limits, disappointments and excesses of love in all its forms, this marvellously absorbing novel, full of insight and compassion, delights as much as it disturbs. ~'She takes the study of love into uncharted territory and every sentence has its depth and pleasure' Linda Grant 'I am so moved: it carries a huge emotional power... I ache for them all'
If you enjoy an emotional read such as A Little Life, you will enjoy this.
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
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.
