You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
'A chilling read’ Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister, The Serial Killer 'Gripping . . . wonderfully written' Guardian 'Beautifully written and frighteningly honest' Sunday Express A mother moves to Geneva with her husband and their two young children. In their newly rented apartment, she is surrounded by everything she could possibly need to create a perfect family home. Her husband’s job means he is almost never present, and her entire world is caring for her children – making sure they are happy and fed and comfortable. But things aren’t perfect. Rather, they are unravelling, because the loneliness, the lack of sleep and the demands of two little ones are getting to this mother. She has never been so isolated, and once the children are in bed, the apartment itself begins to feel like a threat . . . Kyra Wilder’s Little Bandaged Days is a beautifully written, painfully claustrophobic story about a woman’s descent into madness. Unpredictable, frighteningly compelling and brutally honest, it grapples with the harsh conditions of motherhood and this mother’s own identity, and as the novel continues, we begin to wonder just what exactly she might be driven to do.
In My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is, the extraordinary follow-up to his prize-winning novel Forbidden Line, Paul Stanbridge tells us about remarkable things. He tells us about the plains of Doggerland, lost under the North Sea. He tells us about ancient horses, carved into chalk hillsides. He tells us about the mysteries of trees. My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is is a book bursting with the joy of discovery, the beauty of the world, and the rich, warm pulse of life. It is also a book about death. In 2015, Paul's brother took his own life, leaving behind pitifully few possessions and an irreducible complex of questions. In his search for answers, Paul discovers that facts can be the opposite of truth, and that to see something fully, we must sometimes look away. Blending fiction and memoir, knowing and unknowing, love and loss, My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is is a heartbreaking and generous exploration of grief. A beautiful and painful tribute to Paul's brother, it stands alone.
'I blame Literature. All those f*cking lovely writers who made me want to be a writer. Toby Literature.' A Writer's Diary is a year in the life of a man called Toby Litt. Day by day, Toby offers intimate details about his family and well-being, insights into creative writing, and other fascinating reflections, ranging from the immediate surroundings of his desk and study out into the world and on to infinite possibility. As the year unfolds an increasingly urgent narrative starts to build. A Writer's Diary becomes a compulsive page-turner, full of stories and characters we have grown to love – and full of questions we need answered. W ill Toby Litt find the perfect pencil sharpener? Will everyone he loves make it through the year? And will he be the same person at the end of it? Blending fact and fiction, invention and memoir with joyful creativity and remarkable ambition, A Writer's Diary is a year in a life and a life in a year. .
Adam Biles's anarchic return to Animal Farm is a warped fable; a state-of-the-farmyard novel about back-stabbers, truth-twisters and corrupt charlatans. Manor Farm has reinvented itself as the South of England's premium petting zoo. Now 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 murky, the community is beset by factions, and sacred mottos are being constantly updated. Manor Farm is descending into chaos. What's more, a mysterious illness has started ripping through its residents, killing them one by one... In Beasts of England, Adam Biles honours, updates and subverts George Orwell's classic, all the while channelling the chaos of populist politics in the internet age into a savage farmyard satire.
JOSEPH is trying to focus on a plumbing job, but is too distracted by the terrible things that have been happening in his family. JOSEPH believes that his son has tried to murder his wife. JOSEPH is afraid that his wife is going to leave him. JOSEPH is terrified that his son will try to kill again. Insignificance – the debut novel for adults from Carnegie Medal-nominee James Clammer – unfurls over the course of twenty-four hours, placing the reader right inside the head of its struggling narrator. A tender act of empathy for the uncertainty and awkwardness of a vulnerable man, Insignificance is also a masterclass in burning tension – as we start to fear not just for the safety of Joseph's family, but that Joseph himself may not even make it through the day....
'There are three kinds of strike I'd recommend: a housework strike, a labour strike, and a sex strike. I can't wait for the first two.' Things Are Against Us is the first collection of essays from Booker Prize-shortlisted Lucy Ellmann. Bold, angry, despairing and very, very funny, these essays cover everything – from matriarchy to environmental catastrophe to Little House on the Prairie. Ellmann calls for a moratorium on air travel, rages against bras, gives Doris Day and Agatha Christie a drubbing, and pleads for sanity in a world that – well, a world that spent four years in the company of Donald Trump, that 'tremendously sick, terrible, nasty, lowly, truly pathetic, reckless, sad, weak, lazy, incompetent, third-rate, clueless, not smart, dumb as a rock, all talk, wacko, zero-chance lying liar'. Things Are Against Us is electric. It's vital. These are essays bursting with energy, and reading them feels like sticking your hand in the mains socket. Lucy Ellmann is the writer we need to guide us through these crazy times.
NATHAN TREEVES IS DEAD, murdered by the Master of Mordew, his remains used to create the powerful occult weapon known as the Tinderbox. His companions are scattered, making for Malarkoi, the city of the Mistress, the Master's enemy. They are hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety. They find neither – and instead become embroiled in a life and death struggle against assassins, demi-gods, and the cunning plans of the Mistress. Only Sirius, Nathan's faithful magical dog, has not forgotten the boy. Bent on revenge, he returns to the shattered remains of Mordew – only to find the city morphed into an impossible mountain, swarming with monsters. He senses something in the Manse at its pinnacle – the Master is there, grieving the loss of his manservant, Bellows – and in the ruins of the slums Sirius finds a power capable of destroying his foe, if only he has the strength to use it. The stage is set for battle, sacrifice, magic and treachery in the stunning sequel to Mordew. ... Welcome to Malarkoi..
Eleven-year-old Barclay Thorne yearns for the quiet life of a mushroom farmer, but after unwittingly bonding with a beast in the forbidden Woods, he must seek Lore Keepers to break the bond and return home.
Best Bi Short Stories is the first book of its kind, a literary anthology bringing together the very finest representations of bisexuality in fiction. The bisexuality of characters, like in real people, can be invisible to readers unless explicitly brought to their attention. Invisibility leads to underrepresentation, and on bookstore shelves that has certainly been true. Best Bi Short Stories hopes to change that by presenting the very best quality, cast in a bold light. With an all-star author lineup ranging from Katherine Forrest to Jane Rule, Ann Herendeen to Jan Steckel, and curated by longtime bi activist Sheela Lambert, Best Bi Short Stories encompasses several genres. The authors are...
A DEBUTIFUL 'BEST BOOK OF 2023 JAN-JUNE' 'I was blown away by this book... At once somber and joyful, sly and earnest, nimble and painstaking, perverse and profoundly invigorating.' Lydia Kiesling, award-winning author of The Golden State The baby I hold in my arms is a leech, let’s call her Button. Button is crying. There is a before, and there is an after. In her cramped New York apartment, a mother wilts beneath the intense August heat, struggling to adapt to her role as the silent interpreter of her newborn baby’s needs. She is not the first woman to give birth, to hold and carry and soothe and cradle. But the walls of her home seem to press ever closer as she balances on the fragile...