Odd Hours

ODD HOURS is a sharp, tender, and timely excavation of the myth of a perfect life. Carrying us through suburban London with a complex yet relatable protagonist, it is a story about human connection, unexpected happiness, and the many forms of love. ODD HOURS will be published as a lead title by Welbeck later this month – you can read the Bookseller announcement here.

Meet Gosia: about to turn 30, she works shifts as a cashier in a well-lit budget supermarket and lives in a badly-lit Zone 3 flat share. She spends her precious spare-time trying to be an online poet if only to avoid her prying flatmate Lyndsay and the endless crossfire between her Irish mother and Polish father. She’s a sensitive soul with a filthy mind and problems with intimacy, and spends hours inside her own head. That is, until a chance encounter snaps her out of her reverie.

When the man of her dreams sidles up to her checkout, the quest for his affections propels Gosia to do things she has never done before. Quitting her job to become a personal trainer, she makes a very unlikely friend in Steve, invests in a self-help bible, ups her romance skills by going on practice dates, travels back to Poland, falls out with her mother and loses her job. The prickly yet warm-hearted Gosia begins her excavation of the ‘perfect’ life so many dream of. After all, could there be more to it than she imagined?

Ania Bas grew up in Poland and moved to the UK 15 years ago to pursue a career in the arts. She has worked with Tate, Whitechapel Gallery and others as an artist and arts organiser. She began writing ODD HOURS on the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course. ODD HOURS will be published by Welbeck on 23^rd June 2022, and Ania is represented by Ben Dunn at DunnFogg literary agency.