THE FESTIVAL is the gripping new psychological thriller by Welsh author, Louise Mumford. Set in the beautiful Welsh countryside and taking place over a festival that’s steeped in folklore and eeriness this is an atmospheric novel that takes us on a wild ride into the heart of the UK’s coolest festival
Libby can’t believe her luck when she wins two tickets to the biggest event of the summer: Solstice, a music festival celebrating the longest day of the year.
Wanting to escape their problems for a few days, Libby, and her best friend Dawn head deep into the Welsh countryside for a weekend of sun, fun and festivities. But what promised to be an exciting trip quickly turns into Libby’s worst nightmare.
The scorching heat intensifies, the music becomes wilder, the people more unpredictable. When Dawn goes missing, Libby worries that something sinister has happened to her friend. And as Libby learns more about the festival’s dark origins, she begins to fear that something might happen to her too…
Louise Mumford was born and lives in South Wales. From a young age she loved books and dancing, but hated having to go to sleep, convinced that she might miss out on something interesting happening in the world whilst she dozed – much to her mother’s frustration! Insomnia has been a part of her life ever since. She studied English Literature at university and as a teacher she tried to pass on her love of reading to her students (and discovered that the secret to successful teaching is . . . stickers! She is aware that that is, essentially, bribery). Louise lives in Cardiff with her husband and spends her time trying to get down on paper all the marvellous and frightening things that happen in her head.
After losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon returns to her childhood home in the Korean countryside to look after her elderly father. There, the discovery of a chest of letters compels her to piece together the violent, vibrant story of his life.
More than just a portrait of one man, I Went to See My Father asks us to look at the ones we love, uncover the secrets they keep, and finally see who they really are..
The new girl in her West Country school, she recently arrived with her troubled mother, prone to letting Sissy fend for herself.
But from the day Sissy fights a boy in front of Tegan, she’s no longer alone.Bonded by violence, they grow so close they feel like one being: wrapped around each other in bed at sleepovers, sending photographs to men they meet online, and scaring each other with reports of the girls being snatched at night in their town.
over the course of the school year, they find themselves on the threshold of girlhood, with threats gathering thick and fast around them. And as their make-believe worlds bleed into their daily lives ,Sissy feels herself transforming into something strange and terrifying.
A father and daughter build a life for themselves on an isolated beach. But the outside world is pressing in. It’s only a matter of time before their secret refuge is discovered.
A young disabled woman opts to receive a perfect, pain-free body. Soon, however, she finds herself haunted by the one she cast off.
A travelling circus master discovers the ideal addition to his cabinet of curiosities: ‘damaged’, ‘grotesque’, gifted. He plans to make her the star of his show; she plans to take her revenge.
Monstrum captures the experience of characters excluded by a society that cannot accept their difference.
Said Hossain hates Tiwa Olatunji. And Tiwa would happily never see Said again in her life. Growing up, the two were inseparable, but they have barely spoken since the incident many Eids ago and both of them would like to keep it that way. But when Said comes home for a funeral and the town’s Islamic Centre burns down on the same day, they have to face each other again and sparks fly.
Both of them want to see the Islamic Centre rebuilt. For Tiwa, it represents the community that she loves and a way to keep her fractured family together. For Said, it’s an opportunity to build his portfolio for his secret application to art school, where he hopes that he’ll be able to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist, rather than a doctor.
Working with your sworn enemy is never easy, and this could be the hardest thing that Said and Tiwa have ever done. Can they save the Islamic Centre, Eid – and their relationship?
Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering.
Anna’s new life in Cambridge is full of promise – she’s the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man – but something is a little off. Perhaps it’s the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it’s something to do with her boyfriend’s icy reserve but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream.
When Anna and Caden’s lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden’s seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch… Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity?
Penang, 1971. When Suyin Lim is offered the opportunity of a lifetime – a place as a trainee nurse in London’s Bethnal Green Hospital – she jumps at the chance to leave her job as a seamstress and unite with her sister, who left for the same path a year before.
However, without warning her sister returns to Penang, a shadow of her former self and Suyin is forced to leave without any answers. Suyin soon finds herself starting a new life in London, falling in love with the vibrant city and its people and as she immerses herself in the gruelling but rewarding work of caring for her patients, she begins to understand what she really wants out of life . . .
A delightful read that offers escapist vignettes of interconnected lives.
The Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. Situated at the heart of rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, it’s a haven of peace and reflection for many locals.
And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd.
But there is a darker story behind the notebook, and before long the laundromat’s regulars are teaming up to solve the mystery and put the world to rights.
Instantly capturing the hearts of Korean readers, this is a novel about the preciousness of human relationships and the power of solidarity in a world that is increasingly cold, fast-paced, and virtual.
Kim Jiyun was born in 1992 and raised in Seoul. She studied at Dankook University, majoring in creative writing for four years. She also attended the Korean Broadcasting Writers’ Association training centre to learn how to write for screen, and later completed a drama course. One day, while walking down the noisy streets of Hongdae at night, she suddenly saw a laundromat with soft yellow lights on, and that gave her the first sentence of Yeonnam-dong’s Smiley Laundromat, her first novel. She now writes full time.
It’s 1981 in the suburbs of Blackburn and, as Rafi’s mother reminds him daily, the family moved here from Pakistan to give him the best opportunities. But Rafi longs to follow his own path. Flamboyant, dramatic and musically gifted, he wants to be a Bollywood star
Twenty years later, Rafi is flying home from Australia for his best friend’s wedding. He has everything he ever wanted: starring roles in musical theatre, the perfect boyfriend and freedom from expectation. But returning to Blackburn is the ultimate test: can he show his true self to his community?
Iqbal Hussain is a writer from Blackburn, Lancashire and he lives in London. His work appears in various anthologies and on websites including The Willowherb Review, The Hopper and caughtbytheriver. He is a recipient of the inaugural London Writers’ Awards 2018 and he won Gold in the Creative Future Writers’ Awards 2019. In 2022, he won first prize in Writing Magazine’s Grand Flash competition and was joint runner-up in the Evening Standard Short Story Competition. In 2023, his story I’LL NEVER BE YOUNG AGAIN won first prize in the Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature short story competition. He was also Highly Commended in the Emerging Writer Award from The Bridge Award. NORTHERN BOY is his first novel. He is represented for publishing by Robert Caskie.
Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the UK, is a desperate young football agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin” – an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Messi.
Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, the novel is both a tale of family and migration, and an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of football, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making.
Joseph O’Neill lives in New York and teaches at Bard College. He is the author of four novels, NETHERLAND which was developed as a feature by Sam Mendes and Christopher Hampton (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008), THE DOG, THIS IS THE LIFE and THE BREEZES, as well as a memoir, BLOOD-DARK TRACK. His short stories have been published in the New Yorker and Harper’s, and his literary criticism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Irish Times, the Atlantic, Granta and other publications.
