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, and American fiction, in a separate collection.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudedsey, Sean Lusk ( paperback May 2023)
£9.99
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick and Sunday Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month, for fans of PANDORA, THE ESSEX SERPENT and THE NIGHT CIRCUS. Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023.
Zachary Cloudesley is gifted in a remarkable way. But not all gifts are a blessing...
Leadenhall Street, London, 1754. Raised amongst the cogs and springs of his father's workshop, Zachary Cloudesley has grown up surrounded by strange and enchanting clockwork automata. He is a happy child, beloved by his father Abel and the workmen who help bring his father's creations to life.
He is also the bearer of an extraordinary gift; at the touch of a hand, Zachary can see into the hearts and minds of the people he meets. But then a near-fatal accident will take Zachary away from the workshop and his family. His father will have to make a journey that he will never return from.
And, years later, only Zachary can find out what happened. A beautifully crafted historical mystery of love and hope, and the adventure of finding your place in the world. ------'Packed with intrigue, vividly drawn characters and heartstopping emotion, this beautifully written, ingeniously crafted debut is absolutely enthralling' - Sunday Express'
. . intricately plotted, and peopled with intriguing characters' - Daily MailWhat readers are saying:'an excellent historical, magical realist novel''beautifully written''full of love and humour''original and rich in historical detail''my best book of 2022''totally engrossing .
The Measure, Nikki Erlick ( paperback May 2023)
£9.99
Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like just another morning.Around the world, people wake up, check the news, open the front door. On every doorstop is a box. Inside that box is the exact number of years that person has left to live.
Whether they open it or hide it under their bed, each person must learn to live in this new world: a couple who thought they didn't have to rush their life together, a doctor who cannot save himself from his own fate, best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything... Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.
The Wind Knows My Name, Isabelle Allende ( paperback July 2024)
£9.99
What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time' - COLUM MCCANN
No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht - the night their family loses everything. As her child's safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel's mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England.
He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States.
But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita's mother.
Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers - and never stop dreaming.
Oh Sister, Jodie Chapman ( paperback March 2024)
£9.99
Meet Isobel, Jen and Zelda. Three women whose bodies and minds are not their own.They belong to the Church. Life and death decisions are taken by others on their behalf. Who they might marry.
Whether they start a family. Isobel and Jen know nothing of the world. But when Isobel's husband leaves her and Jen challenges those in charge, the Church turns its back on them.
Zelda - never one for doing what is expected - dares to find hope on the outside. Meet Isobel, Jen and Zelda. Three women desperate to find a life to call their own .
. . This is a novel about what it is like to live inside a prison of the mind and how to break out of it - if you can.
The Love of my Life, Rosie Walsh ( paperback July 2023)
£8.99
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
Talking At Night, Claire Daverley (paperback June 2024)
£8.99
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 Fraud, Zadie Smith ( paperback June 2024)
£9.99
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.
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
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
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
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.
Piglet, Lottie Hazel ( paperback Jan 2025)
£9.99
For Piglet (an unshakable childhood nickname ) getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss - effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding ...
But if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is. Thirteen days before they are due to be married, Kit reveals an awful truth, cracking the facade Piglet has created. It has the power to strip her of the life she has so carefully built, so smugly shared.
To do something about it would be to self-destruct. But what will it cost her to do nothing?As the hours count down to their wedding, Piglet is torn between a growing appetite and the desire to follow the recipe, follow the rules. Surely, with her husband, she could be herself again.
Wouldn't it be a waste for everything to curdle now?Piglet is the searing, unforgettable and original debut which is set to take readers by storm in 2024. - The prose is rich, you will feel hungry and satisfied with this entertaining novel!
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.
The House of Broken Bricks, Fiona WIlliams (paperback Jan 2025)
£9.99
A clever, heartbreaking, heartwarming depiction of family love, grief and the possibility of hope.'JO BROWNING WROE, author of A Terrible Kindness'
Ain't nothing wrong with being broken. Nothing at all. You're like these houses, not a whole brick in em and look how strong they are. As Tess traces the sunrise over the floodplains, light that paints the house a startling crimson, she yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was. Instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen - Tess and Richard's 'rainbow twins' - Tess absorbs the quiet.
The nights draw in, the soil cools and Richard fights to get his winter crops planted rather than deal with the discussion he cannot bear to have. Secrets and vines clamber over the broken red bricks and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, in the damp, crumbling soil Sonny knows that something is stirring . .
As the seasons change, and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal. This is the story of a broken family, what they see and what they cannot say laid bare in their overlapping perspectives.
Fiona Williams' stunning nature-writing and poetic prose, turns a relatively simple story into a hauntingly beautiful experience. ( Paperback from January 2025)
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'
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese ( paperback March 2024)
£10.99
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere.
At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch - known as Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.
OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
Evenings and Weekends, Oisin McKenna (paperback from April 2025)
£9.99
Summer in London stops for no-one. Not the half-naked boozers, stoners, and cruisers, the hen parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried fags.
It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive. Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant and broke.
Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harbouring secret dreams of his own. Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith.
But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.
As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. It’s the hottest summer on record and the weekend is about to begin.
I found this a surprisingly touching and raw look at contemporary love and friendship - Linda
The Safe Keep, Yael Van Der Wouden ( hardback May 2024, paperback from 12 June 2025)
£16.99
Booker Longlisted, and Women's Prize shortlisted !
It's 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline.
But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season... Eva is Isabel's antithesis: sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn't. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house-a spoon, a knife, a bowl-Isabel' suspicions spiral out of control.
In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to desire - leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva - nor the house in which they live - are what they seem. 'Surprising, chilling, and electric' Alice Winn, bestselling author of IN MEMORIAM'The Safekeep is a dream of a novel — mesmerizing and shockingly good...
Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri ( paperback June 2024)
£9.99
From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies comes an exquisitely crafted work of fiction. In these short stories Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city of Rome, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins. A man recalls a summer party that awakens an alternative version of himself.
A couple haunted by a tragic loss return to seek consolation. An outsider family is pushed out of the block in which they hoped to settle. A set of steps in a Roman neighbourhood connects the daily lives of the city’s myriad inhabitants.
This is an evocative fresco of Rome, the most alluring character of all: contradictory, in constant transformation and a home to those who know they can’t fully belong but choose it anyway. Rich with Lahiri’s signature gifts, Roman Stories is a masterful work from one of the finest writers of our time. Translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley ( paperback March 2025)
£9.99
In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'.
With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?
'I loved its combination of extreme whimsy, high seriousness and cool understatement' THE TIMES
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
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
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
The Voyage Home, Pat Barker ( paperback from April 2025)
£20.00
THE FOLLOW-UP TO THE WOMEN OF TROY AND THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS
After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle. Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa.
Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come. Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.
As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever. ‘The queen of literary historical fiction, Barker is an unflinching guide for a trip across ancient Greece’ National Geographic‘
9780241995679 paperback from April 2025
A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk (paperback May 2025)
£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.
The Glassmaker, Tracy Chevalier ( paperback May 2025)
£20.00
Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano.
Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle. Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men.
But perfection may take a lifetime. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss. The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her? Tracy Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is vivid, inventive, spellbinding: a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.
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.
Our London Lives, Christine Dwyer Hickey ( Sept 24 HB, PB from June 2025)
£20.00
A profound love story...Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hickey captures the pulse of the living moment' COLUM McCANN'
A London novel that captures the living moment of the city across decades' PAUL LYNCH
1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away. Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.
Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she's ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives.
Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.
Placeholders, James Roseman ( Paperback Sept 2024)
£10.99
An unflinching and emotionally insightful debut about cultural identity, homesickness, love and loss. In the five years following his brother's death, Aaron has built himself a life of solitary routines. After moving from Dublin to Boston, and illegally overstaying her visa, Róisín has done the same.
When the two meet on a night out, they each find in the other something missing in their lives. A semblance of home. Their relationship is complicated by their disparate religious backgrounds - Aaron is Jewish; Roísín is atheist - and by the harsh realities of everyday life.
Just as they're pushed to their breaking point, Roísín realises she is pregnant. Placeholders is a poignant story of loneliness corrected and the transformative power of love.
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 .
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
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'
Going Home, Tom Lamont (paperback from March 2025)
£9.99
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.
Sword of the War God, Tim Hodkinson ( hardback and paperback 2024)
£20.00
Featuring breathtaking battles, fearsome foes, and vehement vows of vengeance, SWORD OF THE WAR GOD is an epic historical adventure adventure set amongst the blood and tumult of fifth-century Europe, where the dying Roman Empire, the mighty Huns, and heroes from Norse mythology vie for power. 'Epic, violent storytelling and great fun to read' The Times'Tim Hodkinson has created a fascinating and undeniably epic tale... Highly recommended!' Theodore Brun'A relentless tale from start to finish that will leave you breathless for more.' Richard CullenIn a world of war and ruin, men and gods collide.
436 AD. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome's legions, for the Empire is weak. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before.
But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows no bounds.
Many years later, the Huns, led by the fearsome Attila, have become the deadliest enemies of Rome. Attila seeks the Burgundars’ treasure, for it includes the legendary Sword of the War God, said to make the bearer unbeatable. No alliance can defeat Attila by conventional means.
With Rome desperate for help, a one-eyed old warlord from distant lands and his strange band of warriors may have the answers... but oaths will be broken and the plains of Europe will run with blood before the end. Drawing on Norse mythology and European history, Sword of the War God is an epic historical adventure perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Joanne Harris, Neil Gaiman and Christian Cameron.
Levitation for Beginners, Suzannah Dunn ( paperback Jan 2025)
£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.
Tommy The Bruce, James Yorkstown ( paperback Jan 2025)
£10.99
Meet Tommy Bruce, an anti-hero as unlike his historical namesake as could be imagined - very nearly spineless and not at all the man to save himself, until you push him too far... Tommy Bruce is washed-up in a ramshackle hotel inherited from dead parents in the armpit of Perthshire. Saddled with debt, grotty premises that are falling down around him and a crippling loneliness, Tommy is slowly but determinedly drinking himself and his business out of existence.
Until one day, out of the blue, Fiona McLean blows into Tommy's life and the hotel. With the light she brings, Tommy's fortunes might just be turning around. But in her wake has also slipped in darkness - names and faces from the past who mean Tommy no goodwill at all, criminal forces that threaten to ruin him, the hotel and what little happiness he's managed, haplessly, to cobble together.
So Thrilled For You - Holly Bourne ( hardback Jan 2025)
£16.99
*THE BOOK FOR EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW*
An intense heatwave. A high-stakes baby shower. Will it all end in tears?Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university.
Now in their thirties, life is pulling them in different directions - but when Charlotte organises the baby shower of hell for pregnant Nicki, the girls are reunited. Under a sweltering hot summer day, tensions rise - and by the end of the day, nothing will ever be the same. Someone started a fire at the house - and everyone's a suspect...
Is it Steffi, happily child-free but feeling judged by her friends? Is it Charlotte, desperate to conceive and jealous of those who have? Is it Lauren, who is finding motherhood far, far harder than she imagined? Or is it Nicki herself, who never wanted a baby shower anyway?In the aftermath, the police put together the facts - but the truth will shock everyone. Even you. BIG LITTLE LIES meets EXPECTATION in the incredible new novel from Holly Bourne - it's the book you'll want to read three times, then give to every woman in your life.
Ask Me Again, by Clare Sestanovich (paperback Jan 2025)
£10.99
One of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year'
A finely drawn portrait of the kind of friendship we rarely see in contemporary fiction' - Jonathan Lee, The Guardian
How much knowledge do you need in order to know someone?As her grandmother is dying, sixteen-year-old Eva wanders the halls of a hospital. There, she spots Jamie. Despite having little in common, from this chance-encounter stems a life-changing platonic love.
She is sixteen, living in middle-class Brooklyn; he is the same age, but from the super-rich of Upper Manhattan. She’s observant, cautious, eager to seem normal; he’s bold, mysterious, eccentric. Eva’s family is warm and welcoming, but Jamie avoids going home to his.
As Eva goes off to university and falls in and out of love, Jamie drops out and is drawn towards radical experiments in politics and religion. Their separate spheres seem to be spiralling away from each other, but it soon becomes clear that they are both circling the same question: how do you define yourself and your beliefs in a divided and unjust world?Written with precision and immense wit, Ask Me Again is a journey of intimacy across time. A love story of sorts, this coming-of-age novel explores how relationships can define us, change us and point us towards futures we might not have imagined for ourselves.
A Finalist for The Center For Fiction First Novel Prize
Hope, by Andrew Ridker ( paperback Jan 2025)
£10.99
Tragicomic, piercingly satirical and perceptive about the American dream’ - Observer‘Dark, funny and delightfully unhinged... I just loved this book’ Viv Groskop, author of One Ukrainian SummerThe Greenspan family are the envy of Brookline, Massachusetts. Scott Greenspan is a successful cardiologist.
His wife is a pillar of the community, his daughter works at a distinguished New York publishing house and his son is at medical school, preparing to follow in his footsteps. They are an exceptional family, living in exceptional times. But when Scott is caught faking blood test results, he sets in motion a series of scandals that threatens to shatter his family.
HOPE is an excruciatingly funny account of the tumultuous year that follows, written by one of the most brilliant young American novelists at work today.
Disappoint Me, Nicola Dinan ( Hardback Jan 2025)
£16.99
The brand-new novel from the critically acclaimed author of Bellies, a funny and poignant exploration of millennial angst, race, trans panic, and the allure of bougie domesticity.
Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. She’s living her best life! Or is she?The debris of years of dysphoria and failed relationships rattle around in her head.
When she tumbles down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party and wakes up in hospital alone, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Enter Vincent, corporate lawyer and hobby baker.
His trad friendship group may as well speak a different language to Max, and his Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman. It’s uncertain terrain, but Vincent cares for Max in a way she’d long given up on as a foolish fantasy. Yet Vincent is carrying his own baggage.
On his gap year in Thailand a decade prior, he vies for the attention of a gorgeous traveller, Alex, with secrets of her own. Is Vincent really the new face of the Enlightened Man, or will the ghosts of his past sabotage his and Max’s happiness?Funny, moving, and poignant, Disappoint Me reckons with the pressures of living the 'right' kind of life and making peace with the past.
‘A riveting, hilarious and totally devastating love story… will have you gripped and sets Dinan as a literary voice to watch’ Elle, ‘Best Books of 2025’
