KERRY HUDSON’S THIRST PUBLISHED IN PAPERPACK BY VINTAGE

Kerry Hudson’s THIRST is published today in paperback by Vintage, with a stunning new cover. THIRST has already gained spectacular recognition, making it onto Red’s 10 Best Summer Reads for August 2014 which called it ‘funny, inventive, delightful’ and from the Guardian, “THIRST explores the lives of people not generally considered fit for literature and does so with wit and a shrewdness that makes Hudson's subjects zing from the page... This is Love on the Dole 21st‑century style, featuring complex working-class characters faced with moral dilemmas.'

Alena and Dave are both on the run from disaster and meet during a London heatwave to begin a love affair as dark, joyful and frenetic as the city itself. Dave, who has built a carefully controlled world of self-denial and isolation, is drawn to Alena's passion for life, while Alena discovers that sex can be more than a transaction and that love and safety are priceless commodities.

But a relationship founded on secrets is easily shattered, and when Alena's ex-lover arrives, threatening to expose her, Alena flees. By the time Dave overcomes his mistrust about Alena and her past and follows her into the bitter Russian winter, he can only hope he's not too late to convince her that just as spring will come, second and even third chances can always be found. THIRST is a heartbreaking romance of almost unbearable fragility based in contemporary East London and rural Russia.

With Harper's Bazaar listing it as a Best British Read and calling it, ‘Fresh and original ... an unsentimental love story,’ THIRST changes the style of traditional love stories, and at its bruised heart lies a tender and tentative relationship like no other.

Born in Aberdeen, Kerry grew up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks which provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life and a love of travel. Kerry is strongly supported by both the British Council and Arts Council England, who awarded a grant for her to go to Russia for two months and research for THIRST, and who took her to Korea for a month to appear at several literary festivals. She was chosen as one of the Bookseller’s Rising Stars of 2014 for her work founding the Womentoring Project. Recently, Kerry has written an important and much-lauded provocation on diversity in the publishing industry, the full text for which you can read here.

Kerry’s profile was featured by the Observer where she talked about her career path, her travels and the journey to writing THIRST.

Visit Kerry's website and follow her on Twitter.

Praise for THIRST

‘Well-written and engaging.’ – Daily Mail

'Hudson excels at depicting twilight lives... tremendously affecting.. impressively unostentatious in its instinct for a common story within a city of millions that rarely gets heard.' - Claire Allfree, The Metro

'A quirky love story that I found both funny and touching … Hudson's debut was highly praised and this is a terrific follow up.' - Women and Home

‘She's a master at creating strong, authentic voices, and this book fizzes with the thronging sounds of east London in the summer and the bustling streets of an unknown Siberian town.’ – list.co.uk

BENJAMIN JOHNCOCK’S THE LAST PILOT PUBLISHED IN UK AND US

Benjamin Johncock’s THE LAST PILOT is published today in paperback by Myriad Editions in the UK, and was published in hardback by Picador in the US on Tuesday.

THE LAST PILOT has already assembled an enthusiastic following with a rave review in The Washington Post, who say "the effect is supercharged Hemingway at 70,000 feet", People magazine call it, ‘ingeniously plotted, deftly written and engrossing,’ and Jane Ciabattari from BBC Culture says, ‘Johncock is superb at crafting suspenseful scenes.’ Mail on Sunday also praised THE LAST PILOT, "a remarkably accomplished debut'. It has been selected as Amazon’s Best Book of July 2015, Barnes & Noble’s 2015 Discover Great New Writers Pick and one of SJ Watson’s Best Summer Reads for The Independent. There's a full list of his many and incredible reviews on Ben's blog.

Early October, 1947, Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, flying flimsy aircraft high above the Mojave desert. When a terrible tragedy befalls his young family, Harrison's life grinds to a halt - so when he's offered a ticket to the moon, he takes it, and joins NASA's new training programme. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally-charged periods in modern history, THE LAST PILOT is a mesmerising story of loss and finding courage in the face of it.

New York Times best seller, Kim Edwards, said ‘THE LAST PILOT reminds us in powerful ways that the real unknown frontier still lies within the mysteries of the human heart.’

Benjamin Johncock was born in England in 1978. His short stories have been published by The Fiction Desk and The Junket. He is the recipient of an Arts Council England grant and the American Literary Merit Award, and is a winner of Comma Press's National Short Story Day competition. He also writes for the Guardian. He lives in Norwich, England, with his wife, his daughter, and his son.

Visit Benjamin’s website and follow him on Twitter.

View the animated video of the cover for THE LAST PILOT, click here. 

Praise for THE LAST PILOT

“Benjamin Johncock is a writer of great craft and integrity. His dialogue is desert-dry, and his sentences crackle with the energy of things unsaid. With The Last Pilot he has done something remarkable: in a novel about the achievements of the space-race, he has shown us that true heroism lies in doing the right thing behind the closed doors of home. Wonderful stuff." - Jon McGregor

‘Jim’s story is fascinating, and the author writes with a strong ear for dialogue, which rattles the pages with intensity. A marvellous, emotionally powerful novel.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Benjamin Johncock, the British author of an especially evocative and poignant new paean to the aura of astronauts and Atlas boosters … That’s all the more reason to regard THE LAST PILOT a first novel that takes the approach of adding a fictional person to real historical events, as a remarkable achievement … Johncock weaves a beguiling story, set to the soundtrack of Camelot … This account inevitably will be compared to THE RIGHT STUFF, and THE LAST PILOT is indeed indelibly marked by Tom Wolfe’s 1979 novel … Johncock acknowledges the debt but generally goes his own way … This is a book that hooks the reader from the very first sentence … The blazing beauty of a new literary star.’ – David Shribman, The Boston Globe  

EDWARD CAREY’S TRANSATLANTIC IREMONGERS

Edward Carey’s FOULSHAM, the second book in his popular Iremonger Trilogy, was published in paperback yesterday in the UK by Hot Key Books and will be published for the first time in the US next Tuesday, 7 July, by Overlook Press.

Overlook published Clod’s previous adventure, HEAP HOUSE, in July 2014, and the book was a roaring success stateside, with The New York Times pronouncing it Notable Book of 2014 and Book Review Editor’s choice, calling it ‘spectacularly weird’. HEAP HOUSE was selected in Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2014 and chosen by Kirkus as one of the Best Teen Books of 2014. Kirkus Reviews called it ‘a gothic tale in turns witty, sweet, thoughtful and thrilling — but always off-kilter — and penned with gorgeous, loopy prose.’

In the UK, HEAP HOUSE was recommended on the Book Trust Christmas Gifts for Children List 2013 and described as ‘astonishing and inventive’ by The Sunday Times who also listed it as one of the Best Children’s Books of 2013. Edward’s FOULSHAM continues to uphold the Iremonger’s darkly thrilling reputation, with Kirkus calling it ‘a story wondrous fine, full of terrors and marvels.’

Foulsham, London's great filth repository, is bursting at the seams. In the Iremonger family offices, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger broods: in his misery and fury at the people of London, he has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects. Abandoned in the depths of the Heaps, Lucy Pennant has been rescued by a terrifying creature more animal than human, Binadit Iremonger. Lucy is desperate and determined to find Clod. But unbeknownst to her, Clod has become a golden sovereign and is 'lost’. He is being passed as currency from hand to hand all around Foulsham, and yet everywhere people are searching for him, desperate to get hold of this dangerous Iremonger, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down.

The dramatic final instalment of the trilogy, LUNGDON, will be simultaneously published by Overlook in the US, Hot Key in the UK and HarperCollins Canada in November 2015. The Iremongers have already made their appearance in France, Italy, China, Russia and Brazilian, Bulgarian, Czech and Japanese rights are also sold.

Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist and playwright. His debut novel OBSERVATORY MANSIONS is sold in 14 countries and was described by John Fowles as 'proving the potential brilliance of the novel form'. Artwork by this prodigiously talented author features in all his books. See more on his website here. 

Praise for Edward Carey

‘Edward Carey is a writer whose books confound and amaze me. …He’s brilliant and precocious and spectacularly imaginative.’ – Katharine Weber, The Readerville Journal

‘The inventions of Edward Carey are constantly astonishing…’ – Livres Hebdo

‘There’s no denying Carey’s ingenuity. His is a voice both fresh and familiar: a writer who will continue to impress himself on our landscape.’ – Review of Contemporary Fiction

MY MOTHER’S SECRET BY SHEILA O’FLANAGAN PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY HEADLINE TODAY

Sheila O’Flanagan’s MY MOTHER’S SECRET is published in hardback by Headline today – her 21st novel with them, and 24th book – the others being volumes of short stories.

MY MOTHER’S SECRET unveils long-buried secrets that threaten to unravel relationships between family members. On the day of their parent’s surprise wedding anniversary party, Steffie and her brother and sister realize they may not know everything about their family. MY MOTHER’S SECRET is an engaging, warm and thought-provoking new novel about a secret that can’t be kept under wraps any longer.

Sheila, an ex-bond dealer and financial journalist whose novels have all been immediate No. 1 Irish bestsellers. Her books have been described as ‘necessary to women as chocolate, and just as addictive!’ Her last three novels have sold in excess of 1,000,000 copies in their British editions. She was the recipient of the prestigious Irish Tatler Literary Woman of the Year award in 2003. When each publication, she breaks her record of weeks at No. 1.

Praise for Sheila O’Flanagan

‘Sheila O’Flanagan never, ever disappoints.’ – Nancy Barnes, Gobshites and Eeijts

‘One of the most popular women’s fiction writers, very much in the same vein as Maeve Binch, writing about families relationships and finding love.’ – Driffield Leader

‘O’Flanagan users her considerable skill as a writer to keep the reader absorbed throughout. Expect another huge success.’ – Irish News (Belfast)

ANN GRANGER’S DEAD IN THE WATER PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY 2 JULY BY HEADLINE

Ann Granger’s DEAD IN THE WATER will be published on Thursday 2 July by Headline.

DEAD IN THE WATER is the fourth book in the Campbell and Carter mystery series, set in the Cotswolds. As Christmas approaches during the wettest winter on record, the rivers burst their banks and the farmers' fields lie under several feet of water. A young girl's body is seen floating downstream and when it becomes stuck under the jetty at a reclusive writer's home, the author is alarmed to discover that he recognises the victim of a brutal murder

Ann Granger is the author of the internationally acclaimed Meredith and Markby and Fran Varady detective series. The first novel in her Victorian crime series, A RARE INTEREST IN CORPSES was published by Headline in 2006. 

Entering the top 5 of the German bestseller list with each novel, she has also contributed to several short story volumes, licensed internationally. Headline has published 29 of her crime novels.

She has worked in British embassies in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Praise for Ann Granger

‘Ann Granger has shown she can sustain a series… it's worth investing.’ -- Rich Westwood, EuroCrime

‘You can always count on Ann Granger! …Those craving for some nice, English crime-entertainment will be served well.’ -- Kölner Express

‘One of the most reliable practitioners of the crime fiction genre.’ -- Good Book Guide