Electric Spark by Frances Wilson 5th June (£25.00). The word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is ‘puzzling’. Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code. Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers; the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine 19th June (18.99). Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to 18-year-old boys. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.
Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal 12th June (£16.99). Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother's funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam - adrift from his job, girlfriend and flat back in London - soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride.
A Bright Cold Day by Nathan Waddell 5th June (£22.00). When we think about Orwell, we imagine an angular, moustachioed sceptic crouched over a typewriter, who composes effortless streams of prose, unadorned but explosive. Much less often do we see him as a person caught up in the business of everyday life. A Bright Cold Day reveals how the principles that govern us begin in the mundane. From waking and showering to breakfast, work, lunch, the pub, sleep and dreaming, Orwell was never dulled to the routines of living. And in the details of the day, we can understand how power, money, freedom and choice play out, not just for Orwell’s literary characters, but for us all.
I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Sola 5th June (£14.99). Nestled among rugged mountains, in a remote part of Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, bandits, deserters, ghosts, beasts and demons, sits the old farmhouse called Mas Clavell. Inside, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed while family and caretakers drift in and out. All the women who have ever lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years' worth of memories unspool, and the house reverberates with the women's stories. I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness is a formally daring and entrancing novel in which Irene Solà explores the duality and essential link between light and darkness, life and death, oblivion and memory.
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis 26th June (£16.99). Many stories are told about the five Mansfield sisters. They are haughty, thinking themselves better than their neighbours in the picturesque village of Little Nettlebed. Accounts of their behaviour differ, but the villagers all agree that the girls are odd. One long summer, a heatwave descends. Bloated sea creatures wash up along the parched riverbed, animals grow frenzied, ravens gather on the roofs of those about to die. As the stifling heat grips the village, so does a strange rumour: the Mansfield sisters have been seen transforming into a pack of dogs.
Among Friends by Hal Ebbott 26th June (£18.99). Four friends. Amos and Emerson have been friends for more than thirty years. Despite vastly different backgrounds, the two now form an enviable portrait of middle age: their wives are close, their teenage daughters have grown up together, their days are passed in the comfortable languor of New York City wealth. They share an unbreakable bond, or so they think. This weekend, however, something is different. After gathering for Emerson’s birthday at his country home, celebration gives way to old rivalries and resentments which erupt in a shocking act of violence, one that threatens to shatter their finely made world. In its wake, each must choose: between whom and what they love most.
The Original by Nell Stevens 19th June (£16.99). Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls. Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live.
The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey 19th June (£16.99). The sudden, devastating breakup of a relationship in the winter of 2021 left Catherine Lacey depressed and adrift. She began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a process that led to the writing of fiction that was both entirely imagined and strangely, utterly true. The Möbius Book troubles the line between memory and imagination with an open-hearted defence of faith's inherent danger.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid 3rd June (£20.00). In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.
A Death on Location by Reverend Richard Coles 5 June (£22.00). It's spring 1990, and in Champton the whole village is aflutter as a glamorous Hollywood movie has taken over Lord de Floures' Champton House as its set location. As the actors and extras hired from the village don their farthingales, gowns and crowns for a masque set in the 1600s, a murder interrupts filming on set - and it's an ingenious one . . . Can Daniel solve the mystery with help from his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo - even when things are so sticky between them?
To the Moon by Jang Ryujin 19th June (£14.99). The bestselling South Korean phenomenon, To the Moon is a bittersweet tale of wealth and class, female friendship, and the promise of the future when good fortune seems to be just around the corner. In Seoul, three young women meet while working mundane desk jobs at a confectionary manufacturer. They become fast friends, taking their conversations out of the group chat as they bond over their ‘average’ employee report cards, the incompetence of their male team leader and a mutual longing for financial freedom amid mediocre raises.
plus the books you've been waiting to come out in paperback!
