ORDINARY PEOPLE FACE EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES: MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS OUT THIS THURSDAY

MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS by Manu Joseph is out on May 17 with Myriad in paperback and ebook as their lead novel for 2018. As Zoë Heller has said: ‘Manu Joseph's new novel is a daring, page-turning thriller, filled with anger and wit and some of the loveliest sentences you will read this year.’ For a tantalising taster, you can hear Manu read from the novel and talk about it (from Bangalore) with Mariella Frostrup on BBC Open Book here.

Myriad won a closely-fought auction for Manu’s insightful and provocative new novel, buying UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding India and Canada, from Isobel Dixon and fast-tracking its publication to May. Publishing Director Candida Lacey said, ‘MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS is a cracking novel. It is a joy to read, and every bit as beguiling and surprising as its title. Cunning, sympathetic and fiercely original, it is a perfect fit for the ambitious and diverse list of literary fiction we’re developing with our partners at New Internationalist. We’re thrilled and very proud to be publishing such a magnificent and deservedly lauded novelist.’ 

Manu said: ‘Fiction cannot compete with real India. But an Indian novelist tries to make an honourable match of it. In the reactions of Candida Lacey and Myriad, I feel I may have come close. I feel blessed to find a British publisher who is able to see both the Indianness of the novel and the universality of its themes.’

Isobel said: ‘I was thrilled to hear about Myriad's collaboration with New Internationalist, as I've long admired Candida Lacey's publishing and think this is a perfect partnership – and now Manu Joseph's profound, wry and fierce novel has found a perfect UK home.’

On the day that Hindu nationalists and their controversial leader have won a spectacular election victory, a large apartment building collapses in Mumbai. The rescue operation finds a single survivor trapped under a beam. The only person able to reach him is Akhila Iyer, a medical student who is also a notorious social media prankster. Small enough to crawl along to administer medicine as rescuers try to dig him out, she finds him mumbling in delirium that two people are on their way to carry out a terror attack. Elsewhere, a young intelligence agent, Mukundan, is assigned to shadow the two terror suspects, one of whom is the teenage Laila, the sweetheart of her street. Time is running out.

MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS is a gripping chase novel that poses searching questions about the workings of power and its effects on the ordinary people — the watchers and the followers, and those who are trapped when buildings fall. Mariella Frostrup speaks of the novel’s ‘searing prose’ and Ben East in the Observer called it ‘caustic, comic and determinedly controversial’, talking of ‘the thriller lurking beneath it’. HarperCollins India published in India in 2017 and Podium publish the Dutch edition. Manu Joseph will be in the UK for publicity later this year, and will also take up a writer’s residency in Amsterdam.

Manu Joseph lives in Delhi and is a columnist for The Mint Lounge. He used to write the ‘Letter from India’ column for The International New York Times. His debut novel SERIOUS MEN (2010) won The Hindu Literary Prize and the PEN/Open Book Award, and was shortlisted for The Man Asian Literary Prize, the regional Commonwealth Prize and the PG Wodehouse Prize for the Best Comic Novel. His second novel THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE (2012) was shortlisted for the Hindu Prize and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and IMPAC Dublin Prize for Literature. Both the novels have been translated into several languages.

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Praise for MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS:

‘Manu Joseph's new novel is a daring, page-turning thriller, filled with anger and wit and some of the loveliest sentences you will read this year’— Zoë Heller

‘Stylish and deceptively witty… one of most engaging and insightful interpreters of our times… a page-turning thriller that poses searching questions about the workings of power and its effects on the ordinary people.’ — Deirdre Falvey, The Irish Times

‘The latest satirical novel from Manu Joseph, an Indian journalist, is an unflinching portrait of his country... MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS sits comfortably on the bestseller shelves of bookshops across the country.’ — The Economist

‘Manu Joseph’s thrilling third novel casts a keen eye on not just law enforcement officials and politicians in flared shorts, but also investigative journalists, environmental activists and the good folks.’ — Mint

‘Manu lampoons the entire system- not just politicians, the bureaucracy, law enforcement officials and lackeys, but investigative journalists, social activists, and indeed the common man.’ — The Hans India

A TASTE OF THE CAPITAL: MADE IN LONDON BY LEAH HYSLOP OUT THIS WEEK

Discover a new side to London in Leah Hyslop’s delectable new cookbook MADE IN LONDON, published on 17th May from Absolute Press. Filled with interesting histories, tasty recipes and guides to London’s vibrant food scene, MADE IN LONDON is the perfect gift for foodies and city-lovers alike.

From Tudor oyster pedlars and Victorian pie and mash shops, to the supper clubs and street food scene flourishing today, Britain's capital has always been a tantalising draw for those who live to eat.

In MADE IN LONDON, Londoner Leah Hyslop offers a joyful celebration of the city and its food, past and present. The book features recipes invented in the city; such as the 18th century treat Chelsea buns (a favourite of King George II) and Omelette Arnold Bennett, created for the famous writer while staying at the Savoy Hotel. Alongside these are new, exciting dishes, inspired by Leah's eating adventures around the capital: such as a mouthwatering Pimm's and lemon curd trifle, an unusual goat's cheese and cherry tart, and an easy twist on Indian restaurant Dishoom's iconic bacon naan, one of the best brunches in London. 

Interspersed with the recipes are short, entertaining histories and profiles about London's food scene, including the tale of the 18th century 'gin craze'; a profile of the East End's most beloved greasy spoon; and why Scotch eggs might have actually been invented in a London department store! Short shopping guides, lifting the lid on such pressing gastronomic questions as where to buy cheese, the city's most delicious chocolate shops, or the best cocktail bars for a nightcap (or two) are also featured. 

Beautifully illustrated with contemporary photographs of London, alongside vintage images sourced from historic archives, this is a book for anyone who has ever lived in, visited or simply dreamt of sipping a cocktail while watching red buses trundle by in the world's greatest city.

Leah Hyslop is a lifestyle writer and editor, specialising in food and drink. She spent seven years working at The Telegraph, where she looked after the newspaper's food and drink content and wrote a weekly column, Reader Recipes.

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Visit her website

Praise for MADE IN LONDON:

‘A passionate love letter to London and how it's become the most diverse, delicious and interesting city in the world.’ — Gizzi Erskine

‘This is just the book for London lovers from all over the world.’ — Melissa Hemsley

‘This book and its recipes are a true celebration of all the diversity and culture that make London the beautiful and vibrant city that it is.’ — Sabrina Ghayour

‘Food writer Leah Hyslop explores London's dynamic food scene in this beautifully designed book.’ — Great British Food Magazine

AMONG THE SUMMER SNOWS BY CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON OUT IN PAPERBACK

Christopher Nicholson’s contemplative AMONG THE SUMMER SNOWS is out in paperback from September Publishing. His journey to discover the last snows to survive the summer in the Scottish Highlands was first published in hardback in 2017 and was longlisted for the 2017 Highland Book Prize. AMONG THE SUMMER SNOWS was also one of six books shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature last year. The judging panel described the book as ‘lyrical and elegiac’.

As the summer draws to a close, a few snowbeds – some as big as icebergs – survive in the Scottish Highlands. Christopher’s AMONG THE SUMMER SNOWS is both a celebration of these great, icy relics and an intensely personal meditation on their significance. A book to delight all those interested in mountains and snow, full of vivid descriptions and anecdotes, it explores the meanings of nature, beauty and mortality in the twenty-first century.

Christopher Nicholson is the author of three novels, including THE ELEPHANT KEEPER (Fourth Estate, 2009), shortlisted for the Costa Prize in 2009. In 2011 the novel was adapted for BBC Radio 4 and shortlisted for the Encore Award. His novel WINTER, about Thomas Hardy’s later life and the young actress who became his last muse, was published in 2014 by Fourth Estate and dramatized for BBC Radio as TESS IN WINTER. The stage adaptation of the novel, titled A PURE WOMAN, will premiere in September 2018 and will tour in Dorchester, Poole, Bristol, Chipping Norton, Malvern, Torrington and further afield.

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Visit his website

Praise for AMONG THE SUMMER SNOWS:

‘Lyrical and elegiac, this debut is a tender account of an unusual fascination with the remaining snows of the Scottish Highlands. Nicholson offers us a wry, self-aware take on the relationship between humans and the changed (and changing) natural world.’ – Boardman Tasker

‘Destined to become a classic of mountain literature. Superb.’ – Chris Townsend, Outdoors

‘Strange, beautiful, eerie and unique, this is the best mountain book I've read in years.... it deserves all the praise likely to avalanche upon it.’ – Simon Ingram, Trail magazine

‘It’s a long while since I read a book that made me laugh and cry within just a few pages … A wrong-footing marvel of a book … touching both death’s void, and love, and the beauty of the natural world at one and the same time and in a way that is all the more powerful for its restraint.’ – Books from Scotland

‘A beautiful book about love and loss, fragility and chance, the wide world and the near world . . . full of intense light and colour, extraordinary glimpses, moving insights and subtle humour.' – Richard Kerridge, author of Cold Blood

 

AMERICAN GLAMOUR MEETS THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY: ANNE DE COURCY’S THE HUSBAND HUNTERS OUT IN PAPERBACK

The paperback edition of Anne de Courcy’s insightful group biography THE HUSBAND HUNTERS is published today in paperback by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, following its release in hardback, ebook and audio in June 2017. Jane Ridley praised Anne’s exploration into the lives of the young American heiresses who married into the English aristocracy in The Spectator, as ‘cleverly researched, sparkling with diamonds and wickedly funny.’

US readers can expect hardback copies of the sparkling social history of the 'Dollar Princesses' in August.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age.

Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.

Rights to Anne’s next project, CHANEL’S RIVIERA, have already been snapped up by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and St Martin’s Press. Exploring World War II’s impact on the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera, from the last golden fling of 1939 and the first Cannes Film Festival, which had to be suspended, to the first post-war festival of cinema, Anne de Courcy will tell another riveting tale, with its glossy motley crew, set against dark times. A fascinating cast includes Winston Churchill, the Windsors, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley, P.G. Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham, and of course Coco Chanel.

Anne de Courcy is a best-selling biographer, acclaimed for her first-hand research and engaging books, which not only tell the stories of her subjects’ lives, but depict the social history of the period. Her biographies include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON. MARGOT AT WAR: LOVE AND BETRAYAL IN DOWNING STREET, 1912-1916 was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year Award. THE FISHING FLEET spent many weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list and has been optioned for film and TV, with rights to THE HUSBAND HUNTERS also under negotiation.

See more on Anne’s website here.

Praise for THE HUSBAND HUNTERS:

‘Anne de Courcy has a sharp instinct for absurdity and there is much of that in this entertaining book. De Courcy engagingly…takes a serious look at the differences between the largely matriarchal American upper-class society of the day, run by women, for women.’ —Anne Sebba, The Literary Review

Lively, shrewd and fresh as a gilded rose, de Courcy’s book is her best yet. I can’t wait to read it again.’ — Miranda Seymour, The Daily Telegraph

 ‘De Courcy charts these harbingers of the Gilded Age, their social mountaineering and the collateral damage that ensured with dexterous charm.’ — The Field

‘For all those who long for more Edith Wharton novels, Anne de Courcy’s THE HUSBAND HUNTERS is a worthy successor, especially as it is the true story of THE BUCCANEERS. Anne de Courcy’s thrilling prose, and fascinating diaries and letters of the period, means the story of the capitulation of British lords to 400 energetic American heiresses is impossible to put down.’ — Rebecca Fraser, author of THE MAYFLOWER

‘A sparkling and richly entertaining account of an intriguing and unusual culture clash.’ — The Mail on Sunday