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The first weapon I ever held was my mother's hand. On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother s resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness. When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth. A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light. This is a story of beauty, love, rebirth and reclamation a masterwork for the ages. Gripping, mythic, bone-pulverising ... A spectacular achievement ANTHONY DOERR. Jesmyn Ward is one of the greatest writers of all time. And Let Us Descend, once again, proves it JACQUELINE WOODSON. Transcendent ... The best book I ve read in years LOUISE KENNEDY. Published 24th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Our lives are digital, exposed and always-on. We track our friends and family wherever they go. We have millennia of knowledge at our fingertips. We know everything about our world. But we know nothing about theirs. We have changed, but our ghosts have not. They've simply adapted and innovated, found new channels to reach us. They inhabit our apps and wander the metaverse just as they haunt our homes and our memories, always seeking new ways to connect. To live amongst us. To remind us. To tempt us. To take their revenge. These stories are not ours to tell. They are the stories of the dead - of those we've lost, loved, forgotten... and feared. Some are fiction. But some may not be. Published 5th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Jordan Peele, the visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of brand new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but also the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our world. Featuring an introduction by Jordan Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a masterclass in horror, and - like his spine-chilling films - its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world, and redefine what it means to be afraid. Very afraid... A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes in place of the headlights of cars that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama, where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the watery depths in search of the demon that killed her parents. Here you'll find monster-hunters fighting monsters, humanoid AIs fighting for their rights, and an Igbo woman standing up to a powerful spirit. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele's anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djeli Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor and Cadwell Turnbull. Published 3rd October 2023 - Order Now. -
Sixty years later, Hill House is occupied again Playwright Holly Sherwin is close to her big break. Having received a grant to develop her new play, all she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. Then on a weekend away, she stumbles upon Hill House - an ornate if crumbling gothic mansion, near-hidden outside a small town. Soon Holly's troupe of actors - each with ghosts of their own - arrive at Hill House for a creative retreat. But before long they find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. For something has been waiting patiently in Hill House all these years. Something no longer content to walk alone. 'Scary and beautifully written, imbued with the same sense of dread and inevitability as Jackson's original' NEIL GAIMAN. 'It's so vivid, full of totemic menace and with a heart-in-your-mouth, can't-look-away frisson' BRIDGET COLLINS 'Hill House is back and as haunting as ever. Some of the most striking scares I've read in years' ANA REYES Published 3rd October 2023 - Order Now. -
It's 1986 and a nuclear reactor has exploded in Chernobyl. Syvert Loyning returns home from military service to live with his mother and brother on the outskirts of a town in Southern Norway. One night, he dreams of his late father, and can't shake him from his mind. Searching through his father's belongings for clues and connections, he finds a cache of letters that lead to the Soviet Union. In present-day Russia, Alevtina is trying to balance work and family. She has always sought the answers to life's big questions, but is preoccupied with care of her young son. Her friend Vasilisa offers some nourishment: she is writing a book about an ancient feature of Russian culture, the belief in eternal life. Meantime, Alevtina is heading towards a meeting that will redraw the contours of her world. A searching and humane novel, The Wolves of Eternity is an intimate journey into the experiences of a half-brother and half-sister in their two different - yet deeply connected - lives. The second novel in Karl Ove Knausgaard's extraordinary new series, it expands the universe of The Morning Star in the decades before the blazing and mysterious star descends. Published 5th October 2023 - Order Now. -
The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, white-haired pianist who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his Barcelona concert. Although Beatriz, who is married, is initially unimpressed by Wittold, she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world. As he sends her letters, extends countless invitations to travel, and even visits her husband's summer home in Mallorca, their unlikely relationship blossoms, though only on her terms. As the power struggle between them intensifies -- Is it Beatriz who limits their passion by controlling her emotions? Or is it Wittold, trying to force into life his dream of love? Evocative of Joyce's 'The Dead,' The Pole is a haunting work, evoking the 'inexhaustible palette of sensations, from blind love to compassion' (El Pais) typical of Coetzee's finest novels. Published 19th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead. He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven. Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse. As life in the cities gets more complicated, and our systems of electronic control begin to fall apart, Q flourishes in the wild Cornish countryside. His new way of life brings him back in tune with his teenage children, his ex-wife, and his own sense of who he is. He also grows close to Eva, energetic and enchanting, who is committed to her own quest for love and meaning. In this entertaining and heart-warming novel Louis de Bernieres pokes fun at modern mores, and makes us reconsider what is really precious in our short and precarious lives. Published 12th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Sasha is well and truly over it all: work (all-consuming), friendships (on the back burner), sex-life (non-existent). Sasha has hit a brick wall (literally). Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga and find solitude, she heads to the Devon resort she loved as a child. But it's off-season, the hotel is falling apart and now she has to share the beach with someone else: a grumpy, stressed-out guy called Finn. How can she commune with nature when he's sitting on a rock, watching her? Especially when they don't agree on burnout cures. Sasha: manifesting, wild swimming, secret Mars bars; Finn: drinking whisky. But when curious messages start appearing on the beach, Sasha and Finn are forced to begin talking - about everything. What's the mystery? Why are they both burned out? What exactly is 'manifesting', anyway? They might discover that they have more in common than they think... 'I'll drop anything for a new Sophie Kinsella. The Burnout is hilarious, sparky and joyful - just the book you need if you're desperate for a break' BETH O'LEARY. 'I devoured The Burnout in one greedy gulp. Funny, sad, relatable, and so brilliantly done. Sophie Kinsella is the queen of romantic comedy' JOJO MOYES. Published 12th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Minoru Aose is an architect whose greatest achievement is to have designed the Yoshino house, a prizewinning and much discussed private residence built in the shadow of Mount Asama. Aose has never been able to replicate this triumph and his career seems to have hit a barrier, while his marriage has failed. He is shocked to learn that the Yoshino House is empty apart from a single chair, stood facing the north light of nearby Mount Asama. How can he live with the rejection of the work he had put his heart and soul into, the dream house he would have loved to own himself? Aose determines that he must discover the truth behind this cruel and inexplicable dismissal of the Yoshino house and in doing so will find out a truth that goes back to the core of who he is. Plotted with the subtlety of his bestselling masterpiece Six Four, The North Light is Yokoyama at his elusive, tantalising and surprising best. Published 12th October 2023 - Order Now. -
From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies comes an exquisitely crafted work of fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city, 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. Published 12th October 2023 - Order Now. -
A darkly funny debut novel about work, debt and how we live now, from a thrilling new voice in fiction. Jonathan Abernathy is a loser. Unemployed and behind on his student loan repayments, the only thing Abernathy has in abundance is debt. When a secretive government loan forgiveness programme offers him a job he can literally do in his sleep, Abernathy thinks he's found his big break. He finds himself auditing the dreams of white-collar workers, flagging their anxieties for removal at night so they'll be more productive in the day. If Abernathy can at least appear competent at this new job, might he have a chance at a new life? As Abernathy tries to find his footing in this new gig, reality and morality begin to warp around him. Soon, the lines between life and work, right and wrong, and even sleep and consciousness, have blurred and Abernathy begins to wonder just what he might have signed away... Wildly imaginative, laced with black humour and full of close-to-the-bone truths, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind is the cult workplace novel that's like nothing else you've read before. 'Trippy, incisive and riotously funny' Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine. 'A wonder ... Precision, humour, heart, this is a stunner' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, bestselling author of Chain-Gang All-Stars. Published 26th October 2023 - Order Now. -
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 routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia. A diligent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League (though she is secretly promiscuous) 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 - when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note - a potentially suicidal gesture - 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. 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. -
Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling. Tunde, the man at the centre of this novel, reflects on the places and times of his life, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, and a traveller drawn to many different kinds of stories: from history and the epic; of friends, family, and strangers; those found in books and films. One man's personal lens refracts entire worlds, and back again.A weekend spent shopping for antiques is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speak out from a pulsing metropolis. Tremor is a startling work of realism and invention that examines the passage of time and how we mark it. It is a reckoning with human survival amidst "history's own brutality, which refuses symmetries and seldom consoles" - but it is also a testament to the possibility of joy. This is narration with all its senses alert, a surprising and deeply essential work from a beacon of contemporary literature. Published 19th October 2023 - Order Now. -
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. Published 26th October 2023 - Order Now. -
A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thanks to a receptionist who recommends a nearby hike. Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant. This is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative, most universal, and finest. This is Death Valley. 'A journey unlike any you've read before' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars. 'Vulnerable, witty, trippy and conceptually dazzling all at once' Kimberly King Parson, author of Black Light. Published 24th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Growing up , TJ was Cam's boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ's parents - Mae and Jin - took him in. Their family bakery became Cam's safe place. Until he left, and it wasn't anymore. Years later, Cam's world is falling apart. The love of his life, Kai, is gone: but his ghost keeps haunting Cam, and won't let go. And Cam's not sure he wants to let go, not sure he's ready. When he has a chance to return to his home town, to work in a gay bar clinging on in a changing city landscape, he takes it. Back in the same place as TJ, they circle each other warily, their banter electric with an undercurrent of betrayal, drawn together despite past and current drama. Family is family. But TJ is no longer the same person Cam left behind; he's had his own struggles. The quiet, low-key, queer kid, the one who stayed home, TJ's not sure how to navigate Cam - utterly cool, completely devastated and self-destructing - crashing back into his world. When things said - or left unsaid - become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Nourishment has many forms: eating croissants, sitting together at a table with bowls of curry, sharing history, confronting demons, growing flowers, showing up. This is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love, and by their necessary presence, create a family. Published 12th October 2023 - Order Now. -
Miss Lydia Bennet may be the youngest, but what she lacks in maturity and responsibility, she more than makes up for in energy, fun - and magic. In this exuberant reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story from her own perspective. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves; Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs. But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat, and Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would you expect from a demon? And if you think Mr. Darcy was uptight about dancing etiquette, wait till you see how he reacts to witchcraft. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that when you're a witch, promises have power... Full of enchantment, intrigue, danger, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Miss Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice - while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister. Published 3rd October 2023 - Order Now. -
An array of original stories from around the world bring a new and exciting twist to one of the most beloved figures in fiction: witches. Witches! Whether you know them from Shakespeare or from WICKED, there is no staple more beloved in folklore, fairy tale, or fantasy than these magical beings. Witches are everywhere, and at the heart of stories that resonate with many people around the world. This dazzling, otherworldly collection gathers new stories of witches from all walks of life. Whether they be maiden, mother, crone, or other; funny, fierce, light and airy, or dark and disturbing; witches are a vital part of some of the greatest stories we have, and new ones start here! Bringing together twenty-nine stories and poems from some of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers working today, including three tales from a BIPOC-only open submission period, THE BOOK OF WITCHES features Linda Addison, C.L. Clark, P Djeli Clark, Indrapramit Das, Amal El Mohtar, Andrea Hairston, Millie Ho, Saad Hossain, Kathleen Jennings, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Cassandra Khaw, Fonda Lee, Darcie Little Badger, Ken Liu, Usman T. Malik, Maureen F. McHugh, Premee Mohammed, Garth Nix, Tobi Ogundiran, Tochi Onyebuchi, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Kelly Robson, Angela Slatter, Andrea Stewart, Emily Teng, Sheree Renee Thomas, Tade Thompson, and E. Lily Yu-and contains illustrations from three-time Hugo award-nominated artist Alyssa Winans throughout. This extraordinary anthology vividly breathes life into one of the most captivating and feared magical sorceresses and will become a treasured keepsake for fans of fantasy, science fiction, and fairy tales everywhere. Published 26th October 2023 - Order Now. Great for Ages 15+. Published 24th October 2023 - Order Now.
