Jemma has lived a thousand lives through books. The only life she isn’t living is her own.
That is, until the day she finds a note from a stranger in her favourite library book. When she replies, the pair begin a longhand conversation about their love of novels that sees Jemma finally coming out of her shell. Is she ready to fall in love for the first time – with someone she’s never met?
Clara has always run away from her problems, but this might finally be one she can’t escape.
Everyone wants to know what happened to Clara in America – but Clara isn’t talking. Instead she’s focusing all her energy obsessing over a hot new actor, starring in the TV adaptation of her twin Jemma’s favourite book. Soon, Clara is reading every interview, trawling his social media, and following him to showbiz parties in the hopes he’ll notice she’s The One.
As the sisters fall hard for two men they’ve never met, it’s time to ask the question: Can either relationship survive the real world?
The first novel in a dazzling epic fantasy trilogy inspired by Japanese folklore and Studio Ghibli, set within a mythical archipelago brimming with dragons and Sun Spirits, high-tech hackers and bubble tea.
Life is hard for the inhabitants of Rainshadow City, a place where poverty and corruption are rife and where they are terrorised by an underground criminal organisation known as the Lucky Crows.
Toshiko, Jun and Mei Kawakami are a family, bonded through loyalty if not blood, who live outside the law and who are seeking revenge for the murder of their beloved ‘aunt’ Reiko. Haru is the son of the Emperor, destined to one day rule over the Archipelago and uphold his mother’s ignoble legacy, but he is more interested in making friends with the magical Sun Spirits it seems only he can see. Theo, forced to leave his homeland, is a reluctant foot-soldier for the Lucky Crows. He doesn’t want to be a gangster, but as an illegal immigrant to the city, his choices are severely limited.
When Toshiko steals a dragon pearl from the leader of the Crows, it sets them all on a thrilling path which will determine the future of Rainshadow City. Set across two days and peopled with unforgettable characters, The Rainshadow Orphans blends fantasy and science fiction to explore what it means to stand up to corruption and take charge of destiny.
With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, whilst also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family.
With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and break-ups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is timely and vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the 21st century, and where it might lead us in the future.
They say you should keep your enemies closer…
For Fliss, the prospect of a team building work trip fills her with dread. Mostly because she cannot stand her pushy colleague James, who often attempts to derail her brilliant plans. But when the two arrive in the Scottish Highlands, they find themselves facing a unique challenge: their boss has abandoned them in the middle of nowhere with only one tent, two sleeping bags and a few protein bars.
Cut off from the outside world, the pair are forced to put aside their differences to weather the unpredictable elements of the Highlands and get home. As they set out on a journey across miles of rugged wilderness – pushing each other to survive and testing their physical and emotional limits – they remain fully aware of their boss’s manipulative plan to orchestrate a hook up between them.
But even with only each other for company, Fliss and James stand firm in their resolve: they won’t give in to any romantic notions. Or will they?
It’s not dust she’s looking for . . . it’s dirt.
Esmie is meant to be invisible. A cleaner for an exclusive gated neighborhood in Ireland, Esmie fades into the background, slipping in and out of kitchens and closets, quietly observing her clients’ perfect domestic lives. These entitled families only see a quiet woman with a mop in hand, who speaks with an accent they don’t bother to place, and this is exactly what she wants.
Esmie is well aware that her employers don’t truly see her. To them, she’s a foreigner who cleans up their messes. But there’s one mess she refuses to clean up. Because Esmie is not a cleaner. She’s come to this neighborhood for one purpose and one purpose only. Revenge. Armed with a duster and a cunning plan, Esmie could soon find herself entangled with the very people she came to destroy.
The Cleaner exposes the dark underbelly of a protected society, revealing the dirty truths that lie beneath its polished facades of privilege.
Spring, 1985. Twelve year old Phoebe MacDonald’s world is falling apart.
She has just buried her parents, a fire at their family home claiming both in a freak accident. Now she must leave Scotland, the only place she has ever known, and go to live with her uncle Louis and aunt Maude in their home in the Welsh woods.
As spring turns to summer, Phoebe falls slowly into the rhythm of life with her eccentric guardians in their curious home. But there is no one her age in the nearby village, and she is lonely until she meets a strange girl, Gwyneth, who wanders the surrounding forest barefoot and alone.
Outsiders both, the two girls form a strong bond, though nobody else seems to believe that Gwyneth is real. Phoebe knows better, and soon with her new friend’s help, she begins to see the woods for what they truly are – a place of magic and wonder, where the line between life and death is blurred. Where spirits roam and secrets fester.
Something happened here, a lifetime ago. A wrong that yearns to be put right. The answer is within Phoebe’s grasp, but will revealing it put her in grave danger?
For the woods hold a dark truth, and some will do anything to keep it in the shadows.
‘A great book, an important book that will start a discussion that needs to be had…my heart was in my mouth’ Marian Keyes
‘Exhilarating, viscerally thrilling and SO timely – an ambitious dark comedy that really delivers. Hugely smart, with so much emotional depth and resonance’ Daisy Buchanan
‘More relevant with every day that passes, Don’t Make Me Laugh is written with a comedy insider’s knowledge and a woman’s rage. Sharp, dark and outrageously funny, it’s the #MeToo book we’ve all been waiting for’ Marianne Levy
‘This is an honest, funny, devastating and timely book’ Jenny Colgan
Don’t Make Me Laugh balances anger and humour with the deftest of touches. It is a story about power and control and manipulation, about gendered roles in both the workplace and our personal lives, and about how women are set up in competition with each other. And ultimately – satisfyingly – it’s a story about fighting back.
Two sisters find themselves falling for imaginary men . . . but are they both too good to be true?
Jemma has always loved books. Fiction, non-fiction, the dictionary. She has lived a thousand lives apart from, maybe, her own.
Her favourite book is a romance called Too Good to Be True. She’s got a first edition and all the special editions, but it doesn’t stop her from taking it out from the library whenever she can. Except recently someone keeps taking it out too and she’s forever on the waiting list for it. And worse still, one day there is a note from the mystery borrower – scolding her for bending the cover!
Her twin sister, Clara, can’t understand Jemma’s obsession – surely you should only ever need to read a book once. Clara likes reality and drama – even more so when it’s on TV. Her latest infatuation happens to be the TV adaptation of Too Good to Be True. Especially because the actor is gorgeous.
When Jemma and her book thief start to exchange longer and longer notes, and Clara’s infatuation grows, both sisters find themselves falling for men they have never actually met.
