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.
Most of these books can be personally recommended!
Wild Geese, Soula Emmanuel ( hardback March 2023)
$21.00
New home, new name and newly thirty: Phoebe Forde has stepped into emigrant life in Copenhagen with her anxious dog, Dolly. Almost three years into her gender transition, she has learned to move through the world carefully, savouring small moments of joy. A woman without a past can be anyone she wants - that is, until an unexpected visit from Grace, her first love, brings memories of Dublin and a life she thought she'd left behind.
Over the course of a single weekend, as their old romance kindles something sweet and radically unfamiliar, Grace helps Phoebe to navigate the jagged edges of migration, nostalgia and hope.
'Searingly sharp, deliciously funny, profound' Danielle McLaughlin
Good Material, Dolly Alderton ( hardback Nov 23)
$25.00
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.
The Little Liar, Mitch Alborn ( hardback Nov 2023)
$23.00
A moving new novel from the beloved author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
When the Nazis invade Salonika, Greece, eleven-year-old Nico Crispi is offered a chance to save his family. He is instructed to convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading towards the east, where they are promised jobs and safety. He dutifully goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe.
Only after it is too late does Nico discover that the people he loved would never return. In The Little Liar, Nico's story is interweaved with other individuals impacted by the occupation: his brother Sebastian, their schoolmate Fanni and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, the consequences of what they endured come to light.
Exploring honesty, survival, revenge and devotion, The Little Liar is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to redeem us.
Wild Geese, Soula Emmanuel ( hardback March 2023)
$21.00
Searingly sharp, deliciously funny, profound' Danielle McLaughlinNew home, new name and newly thirty: Phoebe Forde has stepped into emigrant life in Copenhagen with her anxious dog, Dolly. Almost three years into her gender transition, she has learned to move through the world carefully, savouring small moments of joy. A woman without a past can be anyone she wants - that is, until an unexpected visit from Grace, her first love, brings memories of Dublin and a life she thought she'd left behind.Over the course of a single weekend, as their old romance kindles something sweet and radically unfamiliar, Grace helps Phoebe to navigate the jagged edges of migration, nostalgia and hope.
High Time, Hannah Rothschild ( hardback June 2023)
$23.00
Ayesha Scott has a perfect life. Home is an art-filled Cornish castle with her stratospherically wealthy, titled husband and their beloved daughter.But behind every realised dream lurks an unexploded nightmare and in the course of one day Ayesha discovers that she will be penniless, homeless and powerless unless she can outwit the international mafia, infiltrate the world of high finance and make backstreet deals with the shadiest members of the art world. Hurt and betrayed, she's determined to fight for herself and her daughter - but can she do it without enlisting the help of her beloved, deeply eccentric but estranged family?Sharp escapist fiction, High Time is a novel about high stakes and high jinx set in the world of high art and high finance.
Love Untold, Ruth Jones ( paperback July 2023)
$13.00
Love, mess, secrets; this story of four generations of women is shot through with Ruth Jones's warmth and wisdom.' JOJO MOYES'A hug in a book'
The funny, moving and uplifting new novel from Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin & Stacey and author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Never Greener and Us Three. Grace is about to turn ninety and she doesn't want parties or presents or fuss. She just wants a quiet celebration: her daily swim in the sea and a cup of tea with granddaughter Elin and great-granddaughter Beca.
More than anything, she wants to heal the family rift that's been breaking her heart for decades. And to do that she must find her daughter, Alys - the only person who can help to put things right. But thirty years is a long time.
And many words have been left unsaid. So is it too late now to heal the pain of the past?This is a story about mothers and daughters: the love inherent in that bond and the heartache that miscommunication can bring. More than anything, it's about the importance of being true to oneself.
Orbital, Samantha Harvey ( hardback Nov 2023)
$20.00
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans.Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home.
They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it.
They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?'One of the most beautiful novels I have read in a very long time'MARK HADDON, author of The Porpoise A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas'GUARDIAN
The Future, Naomi Alderman ( hardback Nov 23)
$26.00
A page-turner of a book.
'A little Atwood, a little Gibson, all Alderman, it's brilliant and I loved it' LAUREN BEUKES
The new novel from the Women's Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Power, The Future is a white-knuckle tour de force and dazzling exploration of the world we have made and where we are going. The Future is where the money is.
The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction. The Future is a handful of friends hatching a daring plan. The Future is the greatest heist ever? Or the cataclysmic end of civilisation...
The Future is here. 'A rollicking, fun-packed thriller with juicy stakes, constantly escalating twists, and a cast of characters who feel like they already exist somewhere out there in our fragile, free-wheeling present' Alastair Reynolds, author of Eversion
In Memoriam, Alice Winn ( hardback March 2023)
$20.00
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
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, Hwang Bo-reum (hardback Oct 23)
$20.00
There was only one thing on her mind. 'I must start a bookshop.' Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart.Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge.
From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster, and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju - they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live. A heart-warming story about finding comfort and acceptance in your life - and the healing power of books.
'An incredibly exciting debut novel. At once gentle and invigorating. I devoured it' Sarah Crossan
Julia, Sandra Newman ( hardback October 2023)
$25.00
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. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
A Stroke of the Pen, Lost Stories - Terry Pritchett ( hardback Oct 2o23)
$26.00
A truly unmissable, beautifully illustrated collection of unearthed stories from the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett: award-winning and bestselling author, and creator of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. Twenty early short stories by one of the world's best loved authors, each accompanied by exquisite original woodcut illustrations.These are rediscovered tales that Pratchett wrote under a pseudonym for newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst none are set in the Discworld, they hint towards the world he would go on to create, containing all of his trademark wit, satirical wisdom and fantastic imagination. Meet Og the inventor, the first caveman to cultivate fire, as he discovers the highs and lows of progress; haunt the Ministry of Nuisances with the defiant evicted ghosts of Pilgarlic Towers; visit Blackbury, a small market town with weird weather and an otherworldly visitor; and go on a dangerous quest through time and space with hero Kron, which begins in the ancient city of Morpork...
A STROKE OF THE PEN is a must-have collection for fans of all ages.
The Dead Romantics. Ashley Poston ( paperback Sept 2022)
$12.00
Florence Day is a ghost-writer with one big problem. She's supposed to be penning swoon-worthy novels for a famous romance author but, after a bad break-up, Florence no longer believes in love. And when her strict (but undeniably hot) new editor, Benji Andor, won't give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye.Although when tragedy strikes and Florence has to head home, the last thing she expects to see is a ghost at her front door. Not just any ghost, however, but the stern form of her still very hot - yet now unquestionably dead - new editor. As sparks start to fly between them, Florence tells herself she can't be falling for a ghost - even an infuriatingly sexy one.
But can Benji help Florence to realise love isn't dead, after all? If you fell in love with Beach Read, The Love Hypothesis and The Hating Game, this laugh-out-loud romance packed with sizzling chemistry will give you all the feels! ***
Weirdo, Sara Pascoe ( hardback Sept 2023)
$20.00
Deep in Essex and her own thoughts, Sophie had a feeling something was going to happen and then it did. Chris has entered the pub and re-entered her life after Sophie had finally stopped thinking about him and regretting what she'd done. Sophie has a chance at creating a new ending and paying off her emotional debts (if not her financial ones).All she has to do is act exactly like a normal, well-adjusted person and not say any of her inner monologue out loud. If she can suppress her light paranoia, pornographic visualisations and pathological lying maybe she'll even end up getting the guy she wants? Then she could dump her boyfriend Ian and try to enjoy Christmas. What readers are saying:'Acutely and profoundly observed.''Brilliantly relatable and painfully honest.''A book that will make you laugh, think, and feel a little bit better about being yourself.''A funny, insightful and unusual perspective on growing into yourself.
The Secret Diaries of Charles Igatius Sancho ( hardback Oct 2023), by Paterson Joseph
$13.00
For fans of The Miniaturist and The Confessions of Frannie Langton comes this award-winning novel of illuminating historical fiction.
Meet Charles Ignatius Sancho: his extraordinary story, hidden for three hundred years, is about to be told. I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more...
It's 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man, especially one who has escaped slavery. After the twinkling lights in the Fleet Street coffee shops are blown out and the great houses have closed their doors for the night, Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse. The man he hoped would help - a kindly duke who taught him to write - is dying.
Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the King, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain and lead the fight to end slavery?It's time for him to tell his story, one that begins on a tempestuous Atlantic Ocean, and ends at the very centre of London life. And through it all, he must ask: born amongst death, how much can you achieve in one short life?
An absolutely thrilling, throat-catching wonder of a historical novel. Hugely recommended.' STEPHEN FRY
Mountain Lion, Jean Stafford ( paperback edition August 2023)
$13.00
'One of the best novels about adolescence in American literature' (New York Times) two siblings come of age in a mountainous wilderness ... '
She would not feel safe until the beautiful animal was dead. Ralph and Molly are inseparable siblings: united against the stupidity of daily routines, their prim mother and prissy older sisters, the world of adult authority.
One summer, they are sent from their childhood home in suburban Los Angeles to their uncle's Colorado mountain ranch, where they write, hunt, roam. But this untamed wilderness soon becomes tainted by dark stirrings of sexual desire - and as the pressures of growing up drive an irrevocable rift between them, their innocent childhoods hurtle towards a devastating end . .
. 'Beautiful, and sensitive, and quickening.' Eileen Myles'A glimmer of genius.' Rumaan Alam'Breathtakingly original.
The Wake Up Call, Beth O’Leary (hardback Sept 2023)
$23.00
Two sworn enemies. One failing hotel. Love is the last thing they need .
. . It's the busiest time of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart.
So when sworn enemies Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel's front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside. The hotel won't stay afloat without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest's lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management this might fix everything.
With four rings still sitting in lost property, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel - and their jobs. As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there's more at stake here than the hotel's future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?'
Magical' Lindsey Kelk'Heart-warming, touching, sharp and sexy' Lia Louis'Gorgeous, evocative' Carley Fortune'Bursts with Beth's signature heart, wit, and charm' Amy Lea'
The Glutton, AF Blakemore (hardback September 2023)
$20.00
One man with an insatiable hunger: a novel of desire and destruction in Revolutionary France, based on a true story, from the Desmond Elliott Prize-winning author of The Manningtree Witches. Sister Perpetue is not to move. She is not to fall asleep.She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient's room. She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed.
But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon. Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means.
The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it's not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.
Beasts of England, Adam Biles ( paperback Sept 2023)
$15.00
Manor Farm has reinvented itself as the South of England’s premium petting zoo. Now, instead of a working farm, humans and beasts alike are invited (for a small fee) to come and stroke, fondle, and take rides on the farm’s inhabitants.But life is not a bed of roses for the animals, in spite of what their leaders may want them to believe. Elections are rigged, the community is beset by factions, and sacred mottos are being constantly updated. The Farm is descending into chaos. What’s more, a mysterious ‘illness’ has started ripping through the animals, killing them one by one ...
In Beasts of England, Adam Biles honours, updates and subverts George Orwell’s classic, all the while channelling the chaotic, fragmentary nature of populist politics in the Internet age into a savage farmyard satire.
North Woods, Daniel Mason (hardback Sept 2023)
$23.00
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'
Fifteen Wild Decembers, Karen Powell ( paperback Sept 2023)
$20.00
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
Illuminations, Alan Moore ( paperback Sept 23)
$13.00
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
Lucy By The Sea (paperback Sept 23)
$13.00
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!
The Singularities, John Banville (paperback Sept 23)
$13.00
Felix Mordaunt, recently released from prison, steps from a flashy red sports car onto the estate of his youth. But there is a new family living in the drafty old house: descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley.Felix must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request...
The Fraud, Zadie Smith ( hardback September 2023)
$26.00
Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter.
Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor.
And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise. Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what's true can prove a complicated task. 'As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith's mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself.
Lazy City, Rachel Connolly ( hardback August 2023)
$23.00
Following the death of her best friend, Erin has to get out of London. Returning home to Belfast, an au pair job provides a partial refuge from her grief and her volatile relationship with her mother. Erin spends late nights at the bar where her childhood friend Declan works.There Erin meets an American academic who is also looking to get lost. Parallel to this she reconnects with an old flame, Mikey. This brings its own web of complications.
With a startlingly fresh and original voice - jarringly funny, cranky, often hungover - Lazy City depicts the strange, meandering aftermath that follows disaster.
The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut ( hardback Sept 2023)
$26.00
'Monstrously good... Reads like a dark foundation myth about modern technology but told with the pace of a thriller' Mark Haddon
John von Neumann was a titan of science. A Hungarian wunderkind who revolutionized every field he touched, his mathematical powers were so exceptional that Hans Bethe - a Nobel Prize-winning physicist - thought he might represent the next step in human evolution.
After seeking the foundations of mathematics during his youth in Germany, von Neumann emigrated to the United States, where he became entangled in the power games of the Cold War; he designed the world's first programmable computer, invented game theory, pioneered AI and digital life, and helped create the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was the darling of the military industrial complex, but when illness unmoored his mind, his work pushed further into areas beyond human comprehension and control. The MANIAC places von Neumann at the center of a literary triptych about the dark foundations of our modern world and the nascent era of AI.
It begins with Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian physicist and close friend of Einstein, who fell into despair when he saw science and technology become tyrannical forces; it ends a hundred years later, in the showdown between the South Korean Go Master, Lee Sedol, and the AI program AlphaGo. Braiding fact with fiction, Benjamin Labatut takes us on a journey to the frontiers of rational thought, where invention outpaces human understanding and offers godlike power, but takes us to the brink of Armageddon.
Learned By Heart, Emma Donoghue ( hardback August 2023)
$23.00
The heartbreaking story of the love of two women - Anne Lister, the real-life inspiration behind Gentleman Jack, and her first love, Eliza Raine - from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder. 'Donoghue conjures a whole new world' - The ObserverIn 1805, at a boarding school in York, two fourteen-year-old girls first meet. Eliza Raine, the orphan daughter of an Indian mother, keeps herself apart from the other girls, tired of being picked out for being different.Anne Lister, a gifted troublemaker, is determined to conquer the world, refusing to bow to society's expectations of what a woman can do. As they fall in love, the connection they forge will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Full of passion and heartbreak, evocative and wholly unique, Learned by Heart is the dazzling novel from acclaimed author Emma Donoghue.
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano (hardback July 2023)
$23.00
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.
This Other Eden, Paul Harding ( hardback Feb 2023)
$23.00
Longlisted for the Booker 2023
Set at the beginning of the twentieth century and inspired by historical events, This Other Eden tells the story of Apple Island: an enclave off the coast of the United States where waves of castaways - in flight from society and its judgment - have landed and built a home. Benjamin Honey- American, Bantu, Igbo- born enslaved- freed or fled at fifteen- aspiring orchardist, arrived on the island with his Irish wife, Patience, and discovered they could make a life together there. More than a century later, the Honeys' descendants remain, with an eccentric, diverse band of neighbours.
Then comes the intrusion of 'civilization': officials determine to 'cleanse' the island, and a missionary schoolteacher selects one light-skinned boy to save. The rest will succumb to the authorities' institutions or cast themselves on the waters in a new Noah's Ark. Full of lyricism and power, Paul Harding's This Other Eden explores the hopes and dreams and resilience of those seen not to fit a world brutally intolerant of difference.
'Harding invites comparisons with authors such as William Faulkner, Robinson and even Elizabeth Strout . . .This Other Eden begs to be widely read.' Spectator
Talking At Night, Claire Daverley (hardback August 2023)
$20.00
Will and Rosie meet as teenagers. They're opposites in every way.
She overthinks everything; he is her twin brother's wild and unpredictable friend. But over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer - destined to be one another's great love story. Until, one day, tragedy strikes, and their future together is shattered.
But as the years roll on, Will and Rosie can't help but find their way back to each other. Time and again, they come close to rekindling what might have been. What do you do when the one person you should forget is the one you just can't let go
'Spellbinding, beautiful, lyrical and tender...a dazzling debut.
I loved every word and was left longing for more' ROSIE WALSH, author of THE MAN WHO DIDN'T CALL
The Women Could Fly, Megan GIddings ( paperback August 2023)
$13.00
Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered.That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behaviour raises suspicions and a woman - especially a Black woman - can find herself on trial for witchcraft.
Finally ready to let go of the past, Jo's future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30 - or forfeit their autonomy by registering to be monitored. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage, feeling she has never understood her mother more.
When offered the opportunity to honour one last request from her mother's will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time. Reminiscent of the works of Margaret Atwood, Deborah Harkness, and Octavia E. Butler, The Women Could Fly is a feminist speculative novel that speaks to our times - a piercing dystopian tale, set in a world in which magic is real and single women are closely monitored in case they are shown to be witches .
Medusa, Jessie Burton ( paperback Feb 2023)
$12.00
If I told you that I'd killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next? Monster. Man-hater. Murderess.Forget everything you've been told about Medusa. Internationally bestselling author Jessie Burton flips the script in this astonishing retelling of Greek myth, illuminating the woman behind the legend at last. Exiled to a far-flung island after being abused by powerful Gods, Medusa has little company other than the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair.
Haunted by the memories of a life before everything was stolen from her, she has no choice but to make peace with her present: Medusa the Monster. But when the charmed and beautiful Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is blown apart, unleashing desire, love... and betrayal.
Adapted from the hardback illustrated by Olivia Lomenech-Gill, this paperback edition is perfect for readers who loved Circe and Ariadne, as Medusa comes alive in a new version of the story that history set in stone long ago.
Almost English, Charlotte Mendelson (paperback August 2023)
$13.00
In a tiny flat in West London, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother and three ancient Hungarian relatives. Imprisoned by her family's crushing expectations and their traditions, she knows she must escape. At Combe Abbey, a traditional English private boarding school in the Dorset countryside, Marina realizes she's made a terrible mistake.Here, among the boathouses, chapel services and unspoken social hierarchy, she is the awkward half-foreign girl who doesn't know how to fit in, flirt, or even exist. Meanwhile, her mother has her own painful secrets to deal with - especially the surprising return of the very last man she'd expect to see. And Marina's disastrous spiral at Combe Abbey is going unnoticed .
. . 'A deliciously funny tale of dysfunctional families.
Gods of Want ( Stories), K-Ming Chang ( paperback August 2023)
$13.00
In her singular, electrifying style, K-Ming Chang peels back questions of body, power and identity, and the relationships of Asian American women, with vivid imagination. A stream of women adjust to American life by sneaking kisses from women at temple and buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests.Ghost-cousins cross space, seas and skies to haunt their living cousin. Two girls explore each other's bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark. Brimming with moths and mothers, nine-headed birds and storm-chasers, these queer, fabulist tales delve viscerally into myth and memory, corporeality and ghostliness, beauty and the grotesque.
The River Capture, Mary Costello ( paperback 2020)
$12.00
Shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Dalkey Literary Awards and the Kerry Group Awards
Luke O'Brien has left Dublin to live a quiet life on the bend of the River Sullane. Alone in his big house, he longs for a return to his family's heyday and turns to books for solace. One morning a young woman arrives at his door, presenting Luke and his family with an almost impossible dilemma.
If you like Claire Keegan, this is another moving and eloquent, dramatic author to watch out for.
The Love of my Life, Rosie Walsh ( paperback July 2023)
$12.00
Who are you?Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she'd do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have got away with it, if it weren't for her husband's job.Leo is an obituary writer and Emma is a well-known marine biologist, so, when she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best - reading and writing about her life. But as he starts to unravel her past, he discovers the woman he loves doesn't really exist. Even her name is fictitious.
When the very darkest moments of Emma's past life finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . .
But first, she must tell him about the love of her other life. 'Stunning' Daily Mail'A winning combination of big emotions and didn't-see-that-coming twist' Good Housekeeping
Bellies, Nicola Dinan ( Hardback June 2023)
$20.00
It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at a university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a charming young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom's awkward energy, and their connection is instant.Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming's orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he's already mapped out their future together. But, shortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition. From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face shifts in their relationship in the wake of Ming's transition.
Through a spiral of unforeseen crises - some personal, some professional, some life-altering - Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?
Though The Bodies Fall, Noel O’Regan ( large paperback August 2023)
$17.00
From an exciting new voice in Irish fiction, a powerful novel set on an Irish clifftop - a story about duty, despair and the chance encounters upon which fate turns. Micheal Burns lives alone in his family's bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot.Micheal's mother saw the saving of these lost souls - these visitors - as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, Micheal finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past.
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett ( hardback August 2023)
$25.00
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 ...
