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Spare Us!: A Harrody
by Bruno Vincent'All I had ever wanted was privacy. In order to get it, it seemed that an exceptionally detailed 500,000-word book was in order...' He was born into an ancient powerful dynasty and, through no fault of his own, became one of the most recognisable men on the planet.His life was a constant barrage of press intrusion and manipulation. Until finally, he demanded that it stop. In order to get the privacy he so craved, he has written a frostbite-and-all book that goes deep inside the castle walls and exposes every shouting match, fist-fight, betrayal, teddy bear, awkward hug and tear-stained wedding rehearsal for the world to feast their eyes on. All for privacy!This is his story.
The Nightingale's Castle: A thrillingly evocative and page-turning gothic historical novel for fans of Stacey Halls and Susan Stokes-Chapman
by Sonia Velton'I was blown away by this dark, enchanting story of witchcraft, power and injustice. ..nothing short of brilliant' Mary ChamberlainErzsébet Báthory, whose infamous place in history characterises her as the 'Blood Countess', was accused of the murder of over 600 peasant girls in Hungary, 1610. The Nightingale's Castle tells the story of a woman fighting for her survival and the complicated, often cruel, household over which she presides.Praise for The Nightingale's Castle'Moving, fascinating and haunting.. A mesmerising combination of gothic horror and elegant restraint' Francesca De Tores, author of Saltblood'Gripping... a fascinating exploration of women's struggle to have their truth heard' Louise O'NeillIn 1573, Countess Erzsébet Báthory gave birth to an illegitimate child. The infant, a girl, was swiftly bundled up and handed to a local peasant family to be brought up in one of the hamlets surrounding the Castle. Many years later, 15-year-old Boróka reluctantly leaves the safety of the only home she has ever known in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Trusted members of the countess's household have been sent out to gather new serving girls, and the kindly old man who has taken care of Boróka for almost all her life knows that it is dangerous to turn them away.Boróka struggles to find her place at Cachtice Castle: she is frightened of the countess's reputation as an alleged murderer of young girls, and the women who run the castle are terrifyingly cruel. When plague comes into the heart of the castle, a tentative bond begins to form between Boróka and the Countess Báthory. But powerful forces are moving against a woman whose wealth poses such a threat to the king: can the countess really trust the women who are so close to her? And when the show trial begins against the infamous 'Blood Countess' where will Boróka's loyalties lie?
Black Baby
by Clare BoylanAs a child Alice had paid the nuns half a crown to adopt a black baby from the mission in Africa - a baby that never appeared. Now a loveless spinster of sixty-seven, still yearning for a daughter, Alice's life is one of dull predictability, unbroken by the ritual visit from her middle-aged relatives.Then one evening Dinah storms into her home. Bawdy, busty and black, enigmatic friend to the wayward and eccentric, Dinah is about to take on Dublin and transform Alice's life - creating a world of unlimited love and miraculous possibilities...
Black Baby
by Clare BoylanAs a child Alice had paid the nuns half a crown to adopt a black baby from the mission in Africa - a baby that never appeared. Now a loveless spinster of sixty-seven, still yearning for a daughter, Alice's life is one of dull predictability, unbroken by the ritual visit from her middle-aged relatives.Then one evening Dinah storms into her home. Bawdy, busty and black, enigmatic friend to the wayward and eccentric, Dinah is about to take on Dublin and transform Alice's life - creating a world of unlimited love and miraculous possibilities...
The Collected Stories
by Clare BoylanFocusing on the dilemmas of contemporary women and issues of responsibility and choice, Clare Boylan's writing has become a much-loved voice of contemporary fiction. Here, published in a single volume for the first time, are all three of her collections: A NAIL ON THE HEAD, CONCERNING VIRGINS and THAT BAD WOMAN. The stories are bewitching as they unsettle, confirming Clare Boylan's ability to subvert our reactions with irony as subtle and deft as a surgeon's blade.
Emma Brown
by Clare BoylanWhen Charlotte Bronte died in 1855, she left behind the beginnings of a new novel - twenty pages of a work in progress called Emma. Now, almost 150 years later, Clare Boylan has returned to this most intriguing of fragments, and turned them into an astonishing story of mystery, atmosphere and page-turning suspense.When Conway Fitzgibbon arrives at Fuchsia Lodge with his daughter Matilda, the headmistress Miss Wilcox couldn't be more delighted. The ladies' school is limited in numbers and eager for new pupils, particularly ones so finely dressed, and boasting a father who is 'quite the gentleman'. But as Christmas approaches, and Miss Wilcox inquires about arrangements for the holidays, she is in for a shock. Conway Fitzgibbon, like the address he left behind, does not exist. So who is Matilda? With Miss Wilcox unable to extract any information out of the girl, it falls to a local lawyer, Mr Ellin, and a young widow, Isabel Chalfont, to unravel the truth. What they discover is a tale that travels the highs and lows of nineteenth-century England, an investigation that begins as curiosity and ends up changing all their lives forever . . .
Room For A Single Lady
by Clare Boylan'A sharp eye for detail that makes reading Boylan's work such a pleasure' Sunday TimesTo Eugene Rafferty, girls are like money - they have to be saved. Despite living in 1950s Dublin, his three daughters, Bridie, Kitty and Rose, seem doomed to a Victorian childhood. However, as fortunes decline the Rafferty's are forced to take in lodgers and these independent but eccentric outsiders introduce the girls to new experiences - sex and superstition, of spite, of true love and tragedy. For in a world caught between the aftershock of the war and the transforming liberalism of the 1960s there are two states of womanhood: single, and caught up in the comic and desperate search for a suitable husband, or married and enduring the claustrophobia of suburban life. Evoking the magic of childhood and adolescence with rare subtlety, wit and warmth, Room For A Single Lady is both delightfully comic and genuinely moving.
Room For A Single Lady
by Clare Boylan'A sharp eye for detail that makes reading Boylan's work such a pleasure' Sunday TimesTo Eugene Rafferty, girls are like money - they have to be saved. Despite living in 1950s Dublin, his three daughters, Bridie, Kitty and Rose, seem doomed to a Victorian childhood. However, as fortunes decline the Rafferty's are forced to take in lodgers and these independent but eccentric outsiders introduce the girls to new experiences - sex and superstition, of spite, of true love and tragedy. For in a world caught between the aftershock of the war and the transforming liberalism of the 1960s there are two states of womanhood: single, and caught up in the comic and desperate search for a suitable husband, or married and enduring the claustrophobia of suburban life. Evoking the magic of childhood and adolescence with rare subtlety, wit and warmth, Room For A Single Lady is both delightfully comic and genuinely moving.
The Final Curtain: A Mystery (The Detective Kaga Series #4)
by Keigo HigashinoThe Final Curtain brings the story of Detective Kaga to a surprising conclusion in a series of rich, surprising twists with a confounding murder in Tokyo connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga's own mother.A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo - and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo - the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani's past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.Praise for the Detective Kaga series'Clever and charming' The Sunday Times'Keigo Higashino combines Dostoyevskian psychological realism with classic detective-story puzzles reminiscent of Agatha Christie and E.C. Bentley' Wall Street Journal'Keigo Higashino again proves his mastery of the diabolical puzzle mystery with Malice, a story with more turns, twists, switchbacks and sudden stops than a Tokyo highway during Golden Week' New York Times Book Review
God On The Rocks: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize (Abacus Books)
by Jane Gardam'A meticulously observed modern classic' IndependentDuring one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. Her father, preaching the doctrine of the unsavoury Primal Saints; her mother, bitterly nostalgic for what might have been; Charles and Binkie, anchored in the past and a game of words; dying Mrs Frayling and Lydia the maid, given to the vulgar enjoyment of life; all contribute to Margaret's shattering moment of truth. And when the storm breaks, it is not only God who is on the rocks as the summer hurtles towards drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce.'Tantalising, funny, sharp' Daily Telegraph'So charming a novel that you don't want to give away a single one of the many twists of its plot' New York Times'Jane Gardam has a spectacular gift' Times Literary Supplement'Exact, piquant and comical' Observer
God On The Rocks (Abacus Books)
by Jane Gardam'A meticulously observed modern classic' IndependentDuring one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. Her father, preaching the doctrine of the unsavoury Primal Saints; her mother, bitterly nostalgic for what might have been; Charles and Binkie, anchored in the past and a game of words; dying Mrs Frayling and Lydia the maid, given to the vulgar enjoyment of life; all contribute to Margaret's shattering moment of truth. And when the storm breaks, it is not only God who is on the rocks as the summer hurtles towards drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce.'Tantalising, funny, sharp' Daily Telegraph'So charming a novel that you don't want to give away a single one of the many twists of its plot' New York Times'Jane Gardam has a spectacular gift' Times Literary Supplement'Exact, piquant and comical' Observer
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories
by Keith Ridgway Helen Oyeyemi Joshua Cohen Ali Smith Yiyun Li Naomi Alderman Elif Batuman Tommy Orange Charlie Kaufman Leone RossA collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka - published to commemorate the centenary of his death*Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European*Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories
by Keith Ridgway Helen Oyeyemi Joshua Cohen Ali Smith Yiyun Li Naomi Alderman Elif Batuman Tommy Orange Charlie Kaufman Leone RossA collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka - published to commemorate the centenary of his death*Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European*Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.
Captain de Havilland's Moth: Tales of High Adventure from the Golden Age of Aviation
by Alexander NormanA nostalgic celebration of the golden age of aviation - and the iconic DH60 Moth in its centenary year'Vivid and entertaining' TLS'A wonderfully affecting, highly entertaining, at times elegiac account of a legendary aircraft' JOHN NICHOL'A joy... Alexander Norman brings to life a golden era in aviation history in such a vivid and entertaining way' ROWLAND WHITEThe most iconic of all light aircraft, the DH60 Moth was the brain-child of Geoffrey de Havilland, visionary son of an angry and disappointed Victorian clergyman. A successful designer of military aircraft, Geoffrey dreamed of doing for aircraft what Ford had done for cars. The emergence of his Moth in February 1925 marked the beginning of an important but neglected episode in British social history - the craze for flying which gripped a war-weary world for more than a decade. The most successful aircraft of its era, the Moth was the one in which people had the greatest adventures. And it was the Moth which showed that flying was safe, practical and, potentially, open to all. True, many early Mothists were uber-privileged. The Prince of Wales had one, as did his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Beryl Markham, who had affairs with both, learned to fly in a Moth. But Laura Ingalls, who did 980 successive loops in hers, Aspy Engineer, the Indian schoolboy who won the Aga Khan Trophy in his and Amy Johnson, the typist from Hull who flew hers to Australia showed that, to be a pilot, you didn't need to be a superhero or super wealthy. Just a little mad, perhaps. Captain de Havilland's Moth brings to life a golden age in aviation and an astonishing cast of characters whose courage, determination and epic eccentricity is shown in the light of what it is actually like to fly these remarkable aeroplanes.
Captain de Havilland's Moth: Tales of High Adventure from the Golden Age of Aviation
by Alexander NormanA nostalgic celebration of the golden age of aviation - and the iconic DH60 Moth in its centenary year'Vivid and entertaining' TLS'A wonderfully affecting, highly entertaining, at times elegiac account of a legendary aircraft' JOHN NICHOL'A joy... Alexander Norman brings to life a golden era in aviation history in such a vivid and entertaining way' ROWLAND WHITEThe most iconic of all light aircraft, the DH60 Moth was the brain-child of Geoffrey de Havilland, visionary son of an angry and disappointed Victorian clergyman. A successful designer of military aircraft, Geoffrey dreamed of doing for aircraft what Ford had done for cars. The emergence of his Moth in February 1925 marked the beginning of an important but neglected episode in British social history - the craze for flying which gripped a war-weary world for more than a decade. The most successful aircraft of its era, the Moth was the one in which people had the greatest adventures. And it was the Moth which showed that flying was safe, practical and, potentially, open to all. True, many early Mothists were uber-privileged. The Prince of Wales had one, as did his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Beryl Markham, who had affairs with both, learned to fly in a Moth. But Laura Ingalls, who did 980 successive loops in hers, Aspy Engineer, the Indian schoolboy who won the Aga Khan Trophy in his and Amy Johnson, the typist from Hull who flew hers to Australia showed that, to be a pilot, you didn't need to be a superhero or super wealthy. Just a little mad, perhaps. Captain de Havilland's Moth brings to life a golden age in aviation and an astonishing cast of characters whose courage, determination and epic eccentricity is shown in the light of what it is actually like to fly these remarkable aeroplanes.
House of Huawei: Inside the Secret World of China's Most Powerful Company
by Eva DouThe untold story of the mysterious company that shook the world'Authoritative... a tale that sits at the heart of the most significant geopolitical relationship today' Financial Times'Explosive' Sunday Times'Groundbreaking' Dan Wang'Riveting, robustly researched' TLS 'Essential reading' Chris Miller, author of Chip WarOn the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world's most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies' female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the U.S.-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the international spotlight.In House of Huawei, Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou pieces together a remarkable portrait of Huawei's reclusive founder Ren Zhengfei and how he built a sprawling corporate empire - one whose rise Western policymakers have become increasingly obsessed with halting. The book dissects the global web of power, money, influence, surveillance, bloodshed and national glory that Huawei helped to build - and that has also ensnared it.Based on wide-ranging interviews and painstaking archival research, House of Huawei tells an epic story of familial and political intrigue that presents a fresh window on China's rise from third-world country to U.S. rival, and shines a clarifying light on the security considerations that keep world leaders up at night.House of Huawei holds a mirror up to one of the world's most mysterious companies as never before.
Freedom In Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet
by His Holiness The Dalai LamaThe autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the greatest contemporary spiritual leaders'An extraordinary story' Daily Mail'Compelling, fascinating, eye-opening' Washington Post'A vital historical witness, not only to inhumanity but to compassion' Los Angeles Times'Forthright... often amusing' New York TimesIn 1938 a two-year-old boy was recognised through a traditional process of discovery as being the reincarnation of all previous Dalai Lamas, the spiritual rulers of Tibet. Taken away from his parents, he was brought up in Lhasa according to a monastic regimen of rigorous austerity and in almost total isolation. Aged seven he was enthroned in the 1000-room Potala palace as the supreme spiritual leader of a nation the size of Western Europe, with population of six million. And at fifteen, he became head of state.With Tibet under threat from the newly Communist Chinese, there followed a traumatic decade during which he became the confidant of both Chairman Mao and Jawaharal Nehru as he tried to maintain autonomy for his people. Then in 1959, he was finally forced into exile - followed by over 100,000 destitute refugees. Here, in his own words, he describes what it was like to grow up revered as a deity among his people, reveals his innermost feelings about his role, and discusses the mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism.
Animal Dreams
by Barbara KingsolverFrom Barbara Kingsolver, the acclaimed author of Flight Behavior, The Lacuna, The Bean Trees, and other modern classics, Animal Dreams is a passionate and complex novel about love, forgiveness, and one woman's struggle to find her place in the world.At the end of her rope, Codi Noline returns to her Arizona home to face her ailing father, with whom she has a difficult, distant relationship. There she meets handsome Apache trainman Loyd Peregrina, who tells her, 'If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life'.Filled with lyrical writing, Native American legends, a tender love story, and Codi's quest for identity, Animal Dreams is literary fiction at its very best.
Screams: Shrieks of Horror and Yelps of Pleasure from Modern Life
by Ysenda Maxtone GrahamA gently humorous take on the modern world - from the pitfalls of knicker-envy to the weaponising of email sign-offsScreams is Ysenda Maxtone Graham's idiosyncratic and gently funny take on the modern world. She pinpoints all those small things that irritate, but which have a disproportionate effect on our wellbeing (for example, agonising waits for HMRC while stuck in a loop playing the Four Seasons; deep-seated recycling fears; friends that gaslight you with too many xxxs) and also takes pleasure in the small victories that bring surprising joy (lunch from leftovers and finding a miraculous parking space against all odds).
The Conditions of Unconditional Love (Isabel Dalhousie Novels #27)
by Alexander McCall SmithBOOK 15 IN THE MUCH-LOVED ISABEL DALHOUSIE SERIES'You can't go out of the house without tripping over a philosophical question.' That is a remark made by Isabel Dalhousie to Jamie, the bassoonist who is her handsome younger husband. Isabel's own life, of course, points to the truth of this observation: she seems to attract philosophical problems in much the same way as a magnet attracts iron filings.In this latest movement in the symphony of her life, Isabel is faced with novel challenges, each of which tests her resolution to do the right thing. Dawn, a nurse in an infectious diseases ward, is let down by her lover and needs a place to live. Not surprisingly, Isabel offers her a roof over her head. What do you do, though if your house-guest locks herself away and avoids all contact?And then there is the pompous and slippery Professor Robert Lettuce. He is planning a prestigious conference, and involves Isabel in it. But look at the budget: why is there such a large payment for Lettuce himself and for a young female assistant? Isabel is suspicious.Other intriguing problems abound, including Isabel's involvement in a book group threatened by discord and bickering. Isabel remains calm. Of course she does. She knows the power of love, reason, and a clear head to resolve all of these issues, and more.PRAISE FOR THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE NOVELS:'Isabel Dalhousie's charm is undeniable' Sunday Times'The No. 2 Lady Detective . . . anyone who loves Precious cannot fail to be charmed' Mail on Sunday'Delightful . . . McCall Smith is a writer who celebrates kindness, in short supply in the world today' Sunday Telegraph'McCall Smith's greatest gift as a writer - and God knows this is just one of many - is that he can write likeable characters' New Statesman
The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee (44 Scotland Street #17)
by Alexander McCall Smith Alexander McCall SmithBook 17 in the hugely popular 44 Scotland Street series by worldwide bestselling author Alexander McCall SmithGlasgow for Bertie is the promised land. The city of pies and Irn Bru, far from his controlling mother, Irene - his place of escape. But how will he respond to the news of the proposed merging of Edinburgh and Glasgow? A new member of Bertie's class at school is causing ripples in his social circle. She is called Galactica MacFee and is going to be a match for Olive and her lieutenant, Pansy. And, an incredible new discovery: a Pictish stone, that is said to have the first-know written poem carved into it is the talk of the town. But, when the poem is eventually translated, it is thought it is best to keep it under wraps. In this new instalment in the perennially popular 44 Scotland Street series, we are back in the world of Angus and Domenico, Bruce, Matthew and Elspeth, and, of course, Bertie and his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson.
You Can't Say That Any More
by Bruno VincentIs The Sound of Music insensitive to deaf people, or The Barber of Seville cruel to the follicly challenged? In this age of gender fluidity, is the title Guys and Dolls acceptable when the more tasteful People of Unspecified Gender would do?Protecting delicate sensibilities from the harmful values of yesteryear, You Can't Say That Any More reveals the shocking danger around us in the books, films and TV shows we used to cherish. From Bambi to Bleak House, from the lack of balcony safeguarding in Romeo and Juliet to the troubling depiction of body dysmorphia in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we are surrounded on all sides by danger, depravity and profoundly harmful messaging. Titles taken to task and put on the naughty step (at long last!) include: Postman Pat, Middlemarch, Happy Days, My Fair Lady, the Bible, Pride and Prejudice, Peanuts, Dante's Divine Comedy, The Wombles, Star Wars, the weather forecast, Bagpuss, Casablanca, Homer's Iliad and many, many more!Each entry includes trigger warnings, suggested edits, alternative plots and helpful rewritings of deeply problematic books, films, plays, television series and musicals.Over 100 all-time favourites disapproved of at length and in detail.
The Broom Of The System
by David Foster WallaceA visionary, a craftsman, a comedian and as serious as it is possible to be without accidentally writing a religious text. He can do anything with a piece of prose, and it is a humbling experience to see him go to work on what has passed up till now as "modern fiction". He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him' Zadie SmithThe mysterious disappearance of her great- grandmother and twenty-five other elderly inmates from a Shaker Heights nursing home has left Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman emotionally stranded on the edge of the Great Ohio Desert. But that is simply one problem of many for the hapless switchboard operator, seriously compounded by her ongoing affair with boss Rick Vigorous; the TV stardom of her talking cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler; and other minor catastrophes that threaten to elevate Lenore's search for love and self-detemination to new heights of spasmodic weirdness.
Girl With Curious Hair
by David Foster Wallace'A visionary, a craftsman, a comedian... he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddam him' Zadie Smith, Guardian'David Foster Wallace turns the short story upside down and inside out, making the adjectives ''inventive'', ''unique'' and ''original'' seem blasé' T. Coraghessan Boyle'Truly funny surreal humour' San Francisco ChronicleGirl With Curious Hair is replete with the prodigious talent of David Foster Wallace and his remarkable and unsettling re-imaginations of reality. From an eerily 'real', almost holographic evocation of Lyndon B. Johnson, to over-televised game-show hosts and late-night comedians, to the title story, where terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, the familiar strange.
Ordinary Love: 'An exquisitely tender portrayal of enduring love' Observer
by Marie RutkoskiA STYLIST BEST NEW RELEASE OF 2025'This summer's smart beach read' GRAZIA, '25 Things for 2025''Profoundly moving' EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL, bestselling author of STATION ELEVEN'A sweeping, decades-spanning tale of queer desire' MARIE CLAIRE'Almost unbearably beautiful' EMILIA HART, bestselling author of WEYWARD'Had me hooked from the first page' JENNIE GODFREY, bestselling author of THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS_________________________________________________________________________There's no such thing as an ordinary love storyWhen Emily catches sight of Gennifer Hall at a party, she is transported back to the moment they fell in love as teenagers. Their connection was electric, and they thought it was forever.Twenty years later, Gen is an Olympic runner, the career she strived for, while Emily is living a picture-perfect life: Manhattan townhouse, two young children and a wealthy husband, Jack. But Jack's controlling behaviour is spiralling, and Emily has lost sight of who she once was.Now, despite Emily's fracturing marriage and the pressures of Gen's career, they are drawn back together by a magnetic attraction. After years of heartbreak, missed chances and misunderstandings, will they finally get a second chance at first love?A sweeping love story about desire, friendship, mistakes and the possibility of second chances, for fans of The Paper Palace and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow_________________________________________________________________________'I loved this moving, tender story about lost love and second chances' RED'Immersive and insightful' LISA OWENS, author of NOT WORKING'[A] raw, gorgeous debut' THE i PAPER'A tender romance' WOMAN & HOME'A gorgeously written love story' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING'Shining with rare clarity' SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINEREADERS ARE ALREADY RAVING:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'So raw and so real . . . If there's one book you read this year, it should be this one' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I absolutely devoured this one . . . You will want to clear your afternoon to read this one straight through' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'The characters were so real that I miss them now the book's over. This novel is one for the ages' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Boy did this pack a punch, have a box of tissues by your side - you will need these' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Sexy and sensual . . . I found myself not wanting to stop reading' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'So emotionally wrecked by this book [that I'm] still thinking about it obsessively months later' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I fell in love with this story and these characters right from the beginning'