sellable

  • Crook Manifesto

    Crook Manifesto

    16.95

    From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead comes the thrilling and entertaining sequel to Harlem Shuffle

    1971, New York City. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is going bankrupt, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney is trying to keep his head down, his business up and his life straight. But then he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up an old police contact, who wants favours in return.

    For Ray, staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

    1973. The old ways are being overthrown by the thriving counterculture, but Pepper, Carney’s enduringly violent partner in crime, is a constant.

    In these difficult times, Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem, finding himself in a world of Hollywood stars and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

    1976. Harlem is burning, while the country gears up for the Bicentennial.

    Carney is trying to come up with a celebratory July 4th advertisement he can actually live with, while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire seriously injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it, navigating a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt.

    In scalpel-sharp prose and with unnerving clarity and wit, Colson Whitehead writes about a city that runs on cronyism, threats, ego, ambition, incompetence and even, sometimes, pride.

    Crook Manifesto is a kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem, and a searching portrait of how families work in the face of chaos and hostility.

  • The Seventh Passenger

    The Seventh Passenger

    16.95

    Seven Titanic passengers disembark at Queenstown. One carries a secret.

  • Everyone Here Is Lying

    Everyone Here Is Lying

    14.95

    Welcome to Stanhope – a safe neighbourhood.

    A place for families.

    William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Avery unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.

    Hours later, Avery’s family declare her missing.

    Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe.

    And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged.

    Who took Avery Wooler?

  • Elsewhere

    Elsewhere

    15.50

    In her highly anticipated English-language debut, Yan Ge explores isolation in nine iridescent, witty and wondrous tales. Both contemporary and ancient, real and surreal, the stories in Elsewhere range from China to Dublin to London and Stockholm. From a group of writers lounging on the edge of a disaster zone to a mandarin ostracised from his old court trying to avoid assassination, and from a woman who inexplicably loses her voice to a couple who meet all too fleetingly at a cinema in Dublin, these are strange and beguiling stories of dispossession, longing and the diasporic experience.

  • None of This is True

    None of This is True

    15.95

    Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair.

    Josie is also celebrating her 45th birthday. They are, in fact birthday twins.

    A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for Alix’s series.

    She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

    Alix agrees to a trial interview. Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep digging.

    Slowly Alix starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life – and into her home.

  • The Rachel Incident

    The Rachel Incident

    16.95

    The Rachel Incident is an all-consuming love story.

    But it’s not the one you’re expecting. It’s unconventional and messy. It’s young and foolish.

    It’s about losing and finding yourself. But it is always about love.

    When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits.

    Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes’ and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can’t be taken back…

  • Kala

    Kala

    17.50

    In the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They – Helen, Joe and Mush – were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot centre.

    Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.

    Now it’s fifteen years later. Human remains have been discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing.

    As past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance, and to try to stop Kinlough’s violent patterns repeating themselves once again …

    Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its own secrets, in a story that builds from a smoulder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging, as well as the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.

  • The Wind Knows My Name

    The Wind Knows My Name

    17.50

    Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht the night their family loses everything. As her child s safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel s mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

    Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination.

    Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers and never stop dreaming.

  • A Death in the Parish

    A Death in the Parish

    15.95

    THE SEQUEL TO THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER MURDER BEFORE EVENSONG

    CANON DANIEL CLEMENT IS BACK…

    It’s been a few months since murder tore apart the community of Champton apart. As Canon Daniel Clement tries to steady his flock, the parish is joined with Upper and Lower Badsaddle, bringing a new tide of unwanted change.

    But church politics soon become the least of Daniel’s problems. His mother – headstrong, fearless Audrey – is obviously up to something, something she is determined to keep from him. And she is not the only one.

    And then all hell breaks loose when murder returns to Champton in the form of a shocking ritualistic killing…

  • Adventures in Wonderland

    Adventures in Wonderland

    15.95

    Irishman Paul Charles is one of the leading music agents on the planet. Over the past 40 years, he has worked with some of the biggest names in music, at different times managing the careers of Van Morrison, Ray Davies of The Kinks, Gerry Rafferty, The Waterboys and Dexys Midnight Runners, and launching Tanita Tikaram – the teenage star whose debut album sold almost 5 million copies – into the world.

    In his role with the Asgard agency, he has also promoted shows featuring many of the leading artists in the world, including The Police, U2, Van Morrison, Dire Straits, Carole King, Meatloaf, David Gilmour, BB King, Emmylou Harris and John Lee Hooker.

    Paul has also been involved since the early days with Glastonbury Festival, with his artists topping the bill on more than one occasion before he was invited by Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis to take on the daunting – and inspiring – task of booking the Acoustic Stage at the festival every year, a role he has carried out for the past 30 years.

    Packed with jaw-dropping stories, including the time when he was almost burned alive along with his precious record collection, and pen pictures of the kind of stars we all want to know more about, Adventures In Wonderland is also one of the most complete insights into the world – and the business – of music that you will ever encounter. It is a must-read for every music fan – and for students of how the world of rock ’n’ roll works alike.

    Powerfully honest, often hilarious, frequently touching, and with wonderfully evocative photos, Adventures in Wonderland is a thoroughly joyous trip that will inspire readers to fall in love with music – whether for the first time or, better still, all over again…

  • Atlas The Story of Pa Salt

    Atlas The Story of Pa Salt

    15.95

    Spanning a lifetime of love and loss, crossing borders and oceans, Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, co-authored by her son Harry Whittaker, draws Lucinda Riley’s saga to its stunning, unforgettable conclusion.

    1928, Paris. A boy is found, moments from death, and taken in by a kindly family. Gentle, precocious, talented, he flourishes in his new home, and the family show him a life he hadn’t dreamed possible. But he refuses to speak a word about who he really is.

    As he grows into a young man, falling in love and taking classes at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris, he can almost forget the terrors of his past, or the promise he has vowed to keep. But across Europe an evil is rising, and no-one’s safety is certain. In his heart, he knows the time will come when he must flee once more.

    2008, the Aegean. The seven sisters are gathered together for the first time, on board the Titan, to say a final goodbye to the enigmatic father they loved so dearly.

    To the surprise of everyone, it is the missing sister who Pa Salt has chosen to entrust with the clue to their pasts. But for every truth revealed, another question emerges. The sisters must confront the idea that their adored father was someone they barely knew. And even more shockingly: that these long-buried secrets may still have consequences for them today.

    In this epic conclusion to the Seven Sisters series, everything will be revealed.

  • Everything's Fine

    Everything’s Fine

    16.95

    When Jess first meets Josh at their Ivy League college she dislikes him immediately: an entitled guy in chinos, ready to take over the world. Meanwhile Jess is almost always the only Black woman in their class. And Josh can’t accept that life might be easier for him because he’s white.

    After graduating, Jess and Josh end up working together in the same investment bank. As they lunch, spar and pick each other’s brains, Jess begins to see Josh in a different light.

    Soon, their tempestuous friendship turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both, and Jess finds herself questioning who she really is and whether she’s willing to compromise that for love.

    Cecilia Rabess’ Everything’s Fine is an utterly original and deeply moving take on an age-old question from a dazzling new voice: what have you got to lose when you fall in love?

    Whip smart‘ KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of The Mercies

    A subtle, ironic, wise state-of-the-nation novel‘ NICK HORNBY, author of High Fidelity

  • The Moon Gate

    The Moon Gate

    17.50

    1939: On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania.

    Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel – Grace finally learns to live. But when Australian forces are called to the frontline, and Daniel with them, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them together.

    1975: Artist Willow Hawkins, and her new husband, Ben, can’t believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor leaves them a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. Confused and delighted, they set out to unmask Towerhurst’s previous owner – unwittingly altering the course of their lives.

    2004: Libby Andrews has always been sheltered from the truth behind her father Ben’s death.

    When she travels to London and discovers a faded photograph, a long-buried memory is unlocked, and she begins to follow an investigation that Ben could never complete. But will she realise that some secrets are best left buried . . .?

  • Limelight

    Limelight

    17.95

    Frankie has a love-hate relationship with the spotlight.

    She secretly craves attention, but she is ashamed of that craving. And after a lifetime of comparison to her perfect sister Bean, she has never felt more invisible. She only ever feels seen when she uploads risque photos to her small community of online fans.

    She creates a new her: confident, sexy and utterly unrecognisable from the real Frankie.

    Then the worst happens. Bean is diagnosed with cancer. While Frankie wants to fill the freezer with home cooked food, her mother decides she knows better and somehow launches a nationwide cancer fundraiser, with Frankie as the supportive-sister-spokesmodel.

    Inevitability, her account is found. Now everyone has their eyes on Frankie.

    With her family no longer speaking to her, Frankie flounders in her newfound notoriety. Feminists and misogynists rage at her online, while she attracts hundreds of new subscribers.

    Whether they’re demanding apologies or expecting an empowering call to arms, everyone wants Frankie to explain herself. But how can she explain what she barely understands?

  • I Will Be Good

    I Will Be Good

    18.50

    Meet Peig McManus, an unforgettable Dublin character whose story will make you laugh and cry. Her memoir of a 1940s’ childhood is recounted with candour and wit, as she describes her early years in the last of the city’s tenements, under the shadow of the Second World War. Even in the midst of sorrow, as the ravages of poverty and tuberculosis prevailed, there was always singing and laughter.

    Peig recalls happy family gatherings in their tenement rooms before their way of life was shattered when the slums were cleared, making way for the migration of inner-city families to Dublin’s new suburbs. Peig learned early about class distinction, chastity and shame, and fought against social prejudice to become one of Ireland’s foremost campaigners for educational reform. But a quiet sorrow lay at the heart of her life, one which could not be hidden forever.

    Now, in her eighties, Peig shares her story: an inspiring journey through the trials and triumphs of a remarkableIrish woman who refused to do what she was told.

  • Foreign Bodies

    Foreign Bodies

    19.95

    Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

    Characteristically, with Schama the message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope – in hospitals and prisons, palaces and slums – are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

    At the heart of it all, an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine. A gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as ‘the saviour of mankind’ for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.

    Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, ‘there are no foreigners, only familiars’.