In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet. Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw… ​Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family’s motto—Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)—is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.

Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan? It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan? It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with the short story of the same name. A triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men. Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work. In “So Late in the Day,” Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently. In “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions. And in “Antarctica,” a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.  Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.

Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with the short story of the same name. A triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men. Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work. In “So Late in the Day,” Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently. In “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions. And in “Antarctica,” a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.  Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.

The fiercest, most powerful novel of 2025. For what do you hunger . . .?Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage the relationship has soured, and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them from London to Sheffield, and with his success hinged on a hunt, an old tradition looms over the home; the hunt is a time to settle old scores. If a bullet finds a human home, then it is only that they were foolish to become prey. In the weeks leading up to the hunt, a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night, Carmilla who will not eat meals with the family, Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a terrible hunger . . .Set against the violent wilderness of the Peaks and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution HUNGERSTONE is a compulsive feminist reworking of CARMILLA, the book that inspired a captivating story of appetite and desire.

The fiercest, most powerful novel of 2025. For what do you hunger . . .?Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage the relationship has soured, and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them from London to Sheffield, and with his success hinged on a hunt, an old tradition looms over the home; the hunt is a time to settle old scores. If a bullet finds a human home, then it is only that they were foolish to become prey. In the weeks leading up to the hunt, a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night, Carmilla who will not eat meals with the family, Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a terrible hunger . . .Set against the violent wilderness of the Peaks and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution HUNGERSTONE is a compulsive feminist reworking of CARMILLA, the book that inspired a captivating story of appetite and desire.

Jordan Peele’s Us meets The School For Good Mothers in this horror-tinged intergenerational saga, as a single mother’s doppelganger forces her to confront the legacy of violence that has shaped every woman in their family. Single mother Alice Chow is drowning. With a booming online cloth diaper shop, her resentful teenage daughter Luna, and her screen-obsessed son Luca, Alice can never get everything done in a day. It’s all she can do to just collapse on the couch with a bottle of wine every night. It’s a relief when Alice wakes up one morning and everything has been done. The counters are clear, the kids’ rooms are tidy, orders are neatly packed and labeled. But no one confesses they’ve helped, and Alice doesn’t remember staying up late. Someone–or something–has been doing her chores for her. Alice should be uneasy, but the extra time lets her connect with her children and with her hard-edged mother, who begins to share their haunted family history from Alice’s great-grandmother, a comfort woman during WWII, through to Alice herself. But the family demons, both real and subconscious, are about to become impossible to ignore. Sharp and incisive, The Hunger We Pass Down traces the ways intergenerational trauma transforms from mother to daughter, and asks what it might take to break that cycle.

Jordan Peele’s Us meets The School For Good Mothers in this horror-tinged intergenerational saga, as a single mother’s doppelganger forces her to confront the legacy of violence that has shaped every woman in their family. Single mother Alice Chow is drowning. With a booming online cloth diaper shop, her resentful teenage daughter Luna, and her screen-obsessed son Luca, Alice can never get everything done in a day. It’s all she can do to just collapse on the couch with a bottle of wine every night. It’s a relief when Alice wakes up one morning and everything has been done. The counters are clear, the kids’ rooms are tidy, orders are neatly packed and labeled. But no one confesses they’ve helped, and Alice doesn’t remember staying up late. Someone–or something–has been doing her chores for her. Alice should be uneasy, but the extra time lets her connect with her children and with her hard-edged mother, who begins to share their haunted family history from Alice’s great-grandmother, a comfort woman during WWII, through to Alice herself. But the family demons, both real and subconscious, are about to become impossible to ignore. Sharp and incisive, The Hunger We Pass Down traces the ways intergenerational trauma transforms from mother to daughter, and asks what it might take to break that cycle.

Lispector at her most philosophically radical. A meditation on the nature of life and time, Água Viva (1973) shows Lispector discovering a new means of writing about herself, more deeply transforming her individual experience into a universal poetry. In a body of work as emotionally powerful, formally innovative, and philosophically profound as Clarice Lispector’s, Água Viva stands out as a particular triumph.