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'Tremendously good' Observer 'The most vivid and compelling portrait of late Victorian London since The Crimson Petal and the White' Sarah Perry 'Part Wilkie Collins, part Conan Doyle' Guardian 'Huge fun' Daily Mail 'Has everything you could want in a novel' Stylist 'Dickens is whirling enviously in his grave ... Read by a fire on a cold winter evening' Irish Times 'Ladies and gentlemen, the darkness is complete.' It is the winter of 1893, and in London the snow is falling. It is falling as Gideon Bliss seeks shelter in a Soho church, where he finds Angie Tatton lying before the altar. His one-time love is at death's door, murmuring about brightness and black air, and about those she calls t...
'Compulsive reading . . . rich, strange, beautiful' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk 'A strange, new and captivating look at a magical realm . . . Lavishly entertaining' Independent 'Enthralling . . . a literary feast' Stylist The world had forgotten Mr Crowe and his mysterious gifts. Until he killed the poet. He lived a secluded life in the fading grandeur of his country estate. His companions were his faithful manservant and his ward, Clara, a silent, bookish girl who has gifts of her own. Now Dr Chastern, the leader of a secret society, arrives at the estate to call Crowe to account and keep his powers in check. But it is Clara's even greater gifts that he comes to covet most. She must learn to use them quickly, if she is to save them all.
'Atmospheric, creepy and impossible to put down.' the TIMES 'A compelling and moving story, expertly told, that will draw you in and keep you in its grip until the last page.' DAILY EXPRESS 'Magnificent ... his writing is evocative and perfect. His grasp of human loneliness and longing is beautiful and comforting.' MARIAN KEYES 'I raved about Holding two years ago ... A Keeper is even better. A powerful, very sad story, beautiful writing, two time frames that are perfectly balanced. Outstanding. Will easily be one of my books of 2018.' JOHN BOYNE 'A gripping, thoughtful tale about the search for identity, belonging and self-possession.' OBSERVER 'Moving and darkly funny.' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING '...
Wolf Hall meets The Favourite in this beguiling debut novel that brilliantly brings to life the residents of a small English town in the grip of the seventeenth-century witch trials and the young woman tasked with saving them all from themselves. "This is an intimate portrait of a clever if unworldly heroine who slides from amused observation of the 'moribund carnival atmosphere' in the household of a 'possessed' child to nervous uncertainty about the part in the proceedings played by her adored tutor to utter despair as a wagon carts her off to prison." —Alida Becker, The New York Times Book Review England, 1643. Puritanical fervor has gripped the nation. And in Manningtree, a town deplet...
'A work of genius' Donal Ryan Nevada; the near future; a family in crisis Biologist and single mother Naomi is worried about the impact her ground-breaking research might have on the world. And of the impact the world might have on her painfully awkward, home-schooled, ever-growing teenage son, Colt. Colt is so brilliant he can code virtual realities our world hasn’t even thought of yet; and so socially inept that he struggles to order takeaway pizza. When Colt secretly sends his mother’s breakthrough research paper to a biotech conference in New York, and the conference is closed down, Naomi’s worst fears come true. Colt’s father crashes back into their lives, backed by the secretiv...
Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, h...
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Advocate and Tor.com A love story of two very real, unusual people, and a novel rich with wonders that shines a radically different light on society's marginal figures. Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive, but graceful, unique and with surprising depths. Perhaps that's why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector's magazine. Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped; and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her. On his journey through the old towns of England he reads the fairytales of Ewa Chaplin—potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice—to remain alone with their painful pasts or break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.
A hypnotic, unforgettable Gothic page-turner soon to be a cult classic One night in 2012, Zhang Guo Xing takes a group of European clients to a fashionable high-end nightclub in Shanghai. While there, he meets a strikingly beautiful young Finnish woman called Naemi Vieno Kuusela. The physical attraction between them proves irresistible, and they embark on an intoxicating affair. But Naemi is not what she appears to be... To Zhang's surprise, she veers between passion and wariness, conducting the relationship entirely on her own terms. He feels compelled to find out more about her, and is swiftly drawn into a web of intrigue, mystery, and horror. Is she a ghost? A demon? Do the living dead walk the streets of twenty-first century Shanghai?
‘Brilliant . . . A deeply unsettling, excellent read’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under 'A potent contemporary fable . . . riveting' - Guardian ‘Genuinely thrilling . . . one long beautiful scream’ - Evie Wyld Lucy lives with her husband Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days mapped out by their finely tuned routine. Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know. Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for the children’s sake, but in order to even the score, they agree that she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return . . . Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal. ‘Utterly compelling . . . precise and darkly truthful’ Esther Freud
A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 'Ingenious ... touching, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking.' Guardian 'If you're itching to read a new novel by David Mitchell ... try this.' The Times _______________ In Tokyo - one of the world's largest megacities - a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers - from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer. 'Masterfully weaves together seemingly disparate threads to conjure up a vivid tapestry of Tokyo; its glory, its shame, its characters, and a calico cat.' David Peace, author of THE TOKYO TRILOGY One of the Independent's best debuts