category: Fiction

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.

It’s a familiar trope: angry men berating each other in kitchens as pots furiously boil, sauces burn and a giant slab of beef rests in the background. The dominant view of a professional kitchen is one of chaos and pent-up fury – a gladiatorial contest of male ego. Why then do we also hear the misogynistic refrain that women ‘belong in the kitchen’ if, in a professional context, they’re all but erased from them?

A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen is the story of Sally Abé’s rise to become an award-winning chef in the brutal world of restaurant kitchens; how a girl from the midlands who used to cook herself Smash to get by is now one of the most successful fine-dining chefs working today.

More than that, Sally’s story is also a stirring manifesto – drawing back the curtain on restaurant kitchens to show how she is endeavouring to change them for the better. Filled with stories of Michelin-starred food, the relentlessness of kitchens, as well as the hope for the future of the culinary landscape, Sally’s memoir is set to become a classic.

Sally Abé is a fine-dining chef at the top of her profession. She has worked in some of the best establishments in the UK, including Claridge’s and the Ledbury, and she retained a Michelin star at the Harwood Arms gastropub. She currently runs the Pem, named after the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, which boasts a majority female staff in the kitchen. She is constantly working to get women into the hospitality industry and create fair, safe and happy living standards across the UK. She is represented for publishing by Rachel Neely at Mushens Entertainment.

For over a decade, the Lancasters were celebrity royalty, with millions tuning in every week to watch their reality show, Living with the Lancasters.

Because when the cameras are always rolling, it won’t be long until someone cracks.

L.C. North studied psychology at university before pursuing a career in Public Relations. Her book club thrillers – THE UGLY TRUTH and CLICKBAIT – combine her love of psychology and her fascination with the celebrities in the public eye. When she’s not writing, she co-hosts the crime thriller podcast, IN SUSPENCE. She lives on the Suffolk borders with her family. L.C. North is the pen name of Lauren North. She is represented by publishing by Amanda Preston at LBA Books.

This is the tale of four women.

Popo: brilliant, vulnerable and stuck. She’s determined to free herself from the traps of her past.

Mana Lala: a devoted mother – her only connection to her man is their little boy, and she will do anything to keep them close. 

For Doris, well he’s glorious and once she’s licked him into shape, her husband presents an opportunity to climb the social ladder. She’s heard the awful stories, but she’s sure they won’t be hers.

Rosie just wants to mind her business, her lover, Etty, and her store.

Four lives, connected and controlled by one man: the notorious, charismatic gangster Boysie Singh. Pull up a chair and let these women tell of the man they believed could love, help or free them, and how some of them survived to tell a tale at all.

Ingrid Persaud was born in Trinidad. Her debut novel, LOVE AFTER LOVE, won the Costa First Novel Award 2020 and the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award 2021. She also won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018 and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017. She read law at the LSE and was an academic before studying fine art at Goldsmiths and Central Saint Martins. Her writing has appeared in several newspapers and magazines, including Granta, Prospect, Five Dials, the Guardian and National Geographic. She is represented for publishing by Zoe Waldie at RCW Literary Agency.

Nayan Olak keeps seeing Helen Fletcher around town and on his daily run out to the Peaks. She’s come back to the old house at the end of the lane, with her teenaged son, Brandon, though nobody seems to remember much about her. Some trouble at school, back in the day. A certain defensiveness. Nayan is powerfully drawn to her, though he doesn’t quite know why.

He hasn’t risked love since he lost his young family in a terrible accident twenty years before. All his energy has gone into work at the union, where he’s now running for the leadership against accomplished newcomer, Megha. It’s a huge moment for Nayan, the culmination of everything he believes. But as he grows closer to Helen, and to the possibility that their pasts may have been connected, much more is suddenly threatened than his chances of winning.

Sunjeev Sahota is the highly acclaimed author of OURS ARE THE STREETS, THE YEAR OF THE RUNAWAYS and CHINA ROOMS. THE YEAR OF THE RUNAWAYS was shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize and the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and won the Encore Prize, the South Bank Sky Arts Award, and the European Union Prize for Literature. CHINA ROOM was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Sahota was chosen as one of the Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2013 and is a fellow of the RSL. He lives in Sheffield and teaches at Durham University. The Spoiled Heart is his fourth novel.

An atmospheric tale of loss and second chances that weaves together the stories of two women, Eliza and Iris, whose past mistakes bring them to London, and specifically, to the Hampstead Ponds, where both swim each morning. Told in the present day with flashbacks to 1995 school years, there’s a strong YA element, and Iris’ story introduces an unexplored take on missing people and how they are found again.

How long would you let someone else’s secret control your life?

Eliza has lived two lives – one before she fell into an obsessive teenage friendship with twins Eric and Maggie, and the one after it was destroyed in a single afternoon.

To Eliza, Eric and Maggie were irreplaceable, so she hasn’t. Instead, drifting through life alone, she works as a teacher, living in an isolated cottage on the edge of Hampstead Heath, spending every morning diving into her memories as she swims in the Ponds – her guilt never far below the surface.

Twenty years might have passed, yet Eliza still can’t help searching for Maggie everywhere. Then one day she spots a woman who looks just like her. Eliza has spent half her life wondering what really happened that afternoon and if Maggie is back, will it help her finally get answers?

But memories are deceptive, like ripples on water. As the past and present collide, Eliza begins to wonder: will learning the truth set her free – or will it only drag her down deeper?

When she’s not writing fiction, Hilary Tailor runs a design consultancy, specialising in colour and trend forecasting. She has worked with adidas and Puma and sits on the Pantone View colour committee. Hilary was raised on the Wirral Peninsula and graduated from the Royal College of Art. Her debut novel, The Vanishing Tide, was published in 2022 and has thousands of five-star reviews. Where Water Lies is her second novel. Hilary is represented by Rebecca Ritchie at AM Heath.

Sophia, Safa, Ella, Ajola and Caoimhe have been friends since school. Difficult, unlikeable women; funny sharp and clever ones. The sort that would have probably ended up burned at the stake, a few hundred years ago. They know exactly how dangerous it is to be this sort of woman – and when one of them is about to be framed for murder, they know exactly what to do.

After inextricably binding their fates together via some bin bags, a spade and a stone circle, the women must separate their lives, leaving each of them navigating the daily challenges of womanhood alone and in their own way. But when old secrets start to re-emerge, the group must come back together to get their stories straight – and find out who it is that seems to know the truth.

Surviving the patriarchy can be hard, but burying it isn’t easy either…

Marie O’Hare is 34 years old and splits her time between teaching, competing in cross-country running events and raising her 5-year-old son in a dual Irish and British Pakistani family. She was recently awarded a Master’s with Distinction in Novel Writing from Middlesex University. She is represented by Claire Wilson at RCW Literary Agency.