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The Dog of the North: LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023
The darkly comic new novel from the bestselling author of The Portable Veblen
’Incredibly funny and very moving’ BELLA MACKIE
‘A blissful novel that I want to give to everyone I love’ NINA STIBBE
‘Even funnier, even more romantic than McKenzie’s wonderful last’ KAREN JOY FOWLER
Penny Rush has problems. Her marriage is over, she’s quit her job, her parents have been missing in the Australian outback for five years and now she’s back home in Santa Barbara, dealing with mounting family crises and living out of a borrowed van named The Dog of the North.
The Dog is replete with gingham curtains, wood panelling, a piñata, clunky brakes and difficult steering. It’s also Penny’s getaway car from the curveballs life’s throwing at her. With an uncertain future ahead of her, could the road she’s on lead her back to herself?
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£9.19£9.99 -
To Woo and to Wed: A smart and swoony Regency rom-com of second chances! (Regency Vows)
The final instalment in the “hilarious and steamy” (PopSugar) Regency Vows series follows the heir to a dukedom and a young widow, once very much in love, as they reunite years later to fake an engagement for the benefit of her sister.
If you love Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton, you won’t want to miss Martha Waters’ enticing new regency romantic comedy, To Woo and to Wed!
West, the Marquess of Weston, and Sophie, Lady Fitzwilliam Bridewell, have lately been spending a considerable amount of time together. But West and Sophie are not new acquaintances. In fact, years ago, they had once been nearly engaged until West’s almost fatal curricle accident and his meddling father threw them off course.
Now recently widowed, Sophie has put aside all thoughts of romance. But when her widowed sister, Alexandra, mentions a fondness for an earl, Sophie realizes that she may be holding her sister back. Alexandra won’t move forward with an engagement until Sophie, too, settles down again, and so Sophie approaches West with a plan. They will announce their engagement and break things off once Alexandra is happily married.
It’ll be simple. After all, it’s not like she is going to fall for West a second time, not when Sophie has sworn not to risk her heart again.
Are you up to date with all the Regency Vows books? Don’t miss:
To Have and to Hoax
To Love and to Loathe
To Marry and to Meddle
To Swoon and to Spar
To Woo and to Wed………….
Praise for Martha Waters’ ingenious rom-coms:
‘Waters’ prose harkens back to Georgette Heyer, but Emily and Julian’s individual journeys of learning to like their authentic selves are timeless’ BookPage
‘A worthy addition to the trend for historical romantic comedies and highly recommended for fans of Evie Dunmore’ Library Journal
‘Packed with saucy banter and delightful period details, this Regency rom-com is completely charming’ Hannah Orenstein
‘Pure fun on every page’ Sarah Hogle
‘A Regency author to watch. The sexual tension in this delightful debut was off-the-charts!’ Lauren Layne
‘A laugh-out-loud Regency romp – if you loved the Bridgertons, you’ll adore To Have and to Hoax!’ Lauren Willig
‘Delights with hilarious, high-concept romantic schemes . . . this joyful, elegant romp is sure to enchant’ Publishers Weekly, starred review
‘Cleverly conceived and brilliantly executed’ Booklist, starred review
‘To Have and to Hoax is an authentic romantic comedy . . . This fun and fresh historical debut will delight readers with humor and romance’ Shelf Awareness
‘Endlessly charming . . . absorbing and clever and at times laugh-out-loud funny’ Kate Clayborn
‘To Have and to Hoax is a delightful battle of wits that’s funny and touching all at once’ Jen DeLuca
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£10.11£10.99 -
Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites: 44 (British Library Tales of the Weird)
In the wood the grey stone rose from the grass, and she cried out and ran back in panicked terror. ‘What a silly little girl,’ the nurse had said. ‘It’s only the… stone.’Standing stones, stone circles, tumps, barrows and ancient clearings still remain across the British Isles, and though their specific significance may be obscured by the passing of time, their strange allure and mysterious energy persist in our collective consciousness.
Assembled here in tribute to these relics of a lost age are accounts of terrifying spirits haunting Stonehenge itself, stories of awful fates for those who impose modernity on the sacred sites and grim tales in which unwitting trespassers into the eternal rites of pagan worship find themselves part of an enduring legacy of blood. To represent the breadth of the sub-genre, authors include Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Rosalie Muspratt alongside lesser-known writers from the periodicals and journals of the British Library collections.
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£8.70£9.50 -
The Fraud: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller
THE GIFT EVERY ZADIE SMITH FAN WILL BE HOPING IS WAITING FOR THEM BENEATH THE CHRISTMAS TREE!
‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The Telegraph
Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.
Kilburn, 1873. The ‘Tichborne Trial’ has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be – or an imposter.
Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.
Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what’s true can prove a complicated task.
‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction? Or such a range of living, breathing, surprising characters with such an idiosyncratically structured narrative?’ Michael Frayn
‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times
‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent
‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ Guardian
SHOTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
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£12.30£19.00The Fraud: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller
£12.30£19.00
