The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby's son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place. Convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, Juliette seeks the help of the Beacons, a seemingly benevolent group of occultists. Richard, to try and keep the boy out of his mind, has turned his attention to the field opposite the house, where he patiently digs the barren dirt in search of a legendary oak tree. But as they delve further into their grief, both uncover more than they set out to. Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.

A haunting and seductive tale of a young career woman who slides quickly into the role of stepmother, in a life that may still belong to someone else. “Vivid, addictive, and crackling with life (yes, even the ghost), House of Beth asks us to consider how and why we make the lives we make” (Lynn Steger Strong).After a heart-wrenching breakup and a shocking incident at her job as an overworked assistant at a literary agency, Cassie retreats to her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware River. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is trading her bustling New York City life for homeschooling, nature walks, and cooking lessons with her reserved neighbor, Joan. But Cassie’s fresh start is anything but peaceful. She still misses her ex-girlfriend and she grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by graphic and gory images. In their secluded house nestled in the woods, she tries to find solace. But the shadow of Beth, Eli’s late spouse, a committed homemaker and traditional wife, looms large, permeating every corner of their home—from the décor to the rhythms of daily life. Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house’s secrets. This mysterious presence grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth’s untimely death. House of Beth is a beautifully crafted novel that blends modern literary charm with gothic mystery and speculative elements. Perfect for fans of Bunny by Mona Awad or Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, this thought-provoking novel probes the boundaries of our minds and bodies, the stories we tell ourselves about who we’re meant to be, and the thoughts, beliefs, and desires we aren’t always brave enough to name.

In this heartrending spin on the zombie mythos, a brilliant scientist desperately searches for a cure after a devastating epidemic while also hiding a monumental secret—her undead husband. Having always preferred the company of microbes, British scientist Kesta Shelley has spent her life peering through a microscope rather than cultivating personal relationships. That changed when Kesta met Tim—her cheerleader, her best friend, her absolute everything. So when he was one of the last people in London to be infected with a perplexing virus that left the city ravaged, Kesta went into triage mode. Although the government rounded up and disposed of all the infected, Kesta is able to keep her husband (un)alive—and hidden—with resources from the hospital where she works. She spends her days reviewing biopsy slides and her evenings caring for him, but he’s clearly declining. The sedatives aren’t working like they used to, and his violent outbursts are becoming more frequent. As Kesta races against the clock, her colleagues start noticing changes in her behavior and appearance. Her care for Tim has spiraled into absolute obsession. Whispers circulate that a top-secret lab is working on a cure, and Kesta clings to the possibility of being recruited, but can she save her husband before he is discovered?

A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story. A devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past and finding another's.

A creeping story of sapphic obsession with Gothic undertones and a delicious mid-century feel, from the author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted Sunburn. January 1965. The orphaned O'Leary siblings - Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy - arrive in the village of Ballycrea, tight-lipped about their troubled past and desperate for a fresh start. After being met with suspicion from most of the locals, the family are thrilled when they're taken under the wing of their well-respected neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan, who offer them work, companionship and an opportunity to fit in. But for one of the O'Learys, this new friendship sparks an intense attachment that makes the dynamic dangerous for all. It's difficult to bury secrets, but almost impossible to bury feelings... Crackling with suspense, Heap Earth Upon It revisits the rural Ireland of Howarth's critically acclaimed debut and delves into claustrophobic relationships and tangled identities, leaving you wondering who to trust until the very last page. It combines the emotional intensity and slow-burn sapphic obsession of Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea and K. Patrick's Mrs S. with the unsettling gothic undertones of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Shirley Jackson's fiction. 'A tense and claustrophobic novel with gothic atmosphere which seeps into your bones like fog... A brutal exploration of the corrosive impact of shame and secrecy. Howarth knows her sapphic yearning!' RACHEL DAWSON, author of Neon Roses 'Dark, passionate and poised. A remarkable story of the way rural Ireland haunts and is haunted. Intense and thrilling' SOULA EMMANUEL, author of Wild Geese ** READERS LOVE SUNBURN ** ‘Achingly beautiful, almost lyrical… This was both sweet and heartbreaking – I couldn’t put it down’ 5-star Reader Review ‘An addictive, honey-dipped queer love story’ 5-star Reader Review ‘Ever since I read this, I simply CANNOT stop thinking about it’ 5-star Reader Review ‘Completely heart-wrenching, devastating, all-consuming… Spectacular’ 5-star Reader Review

Welcome to Scion. No safer place. The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe. In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing. When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal – and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.

An alternate cover for this isbn can be found here. 'Merry Christmas!...every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding' Dickens' story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors, has proved one of his most well-loved works. Ever since it was published in 1843 it has had an enduring influence on the way we think about the traditions of Christmas. Dickens' other Christmas writings collected here include 'The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton', the short story from The Pickwick Papers on which A Christmas Carol was based; The Haunted Man, a tale of a man tormented by painful memories; along with shorter pieces, some drawn from the 'Christmas Stories' that Dickens wrote annually for his weekly journals. In all of them Dickens celebrates the season as one of geniality, charity and remembrance. This new selection contains an introduction by distinguished Dickens scholar Michael Slater discussing how the author has shaped ideas about the Christmas spirit, an appendix on Dickens' use of The Arabian Nights, a further reading list and explanatory notes.

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532. London, 1837. Boston, 2019. Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots. One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild. And all of them grow teeth.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN-13: ‎978-0141439471 / ISBN-10: 0141439475 'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...' Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.

A stunningly original love story between a museum employee and the man in a masterpiece hanging on the walls—a breathtaking debut about time, art, and the enduring power of love.Jean’s life is the same day in and day out. Frozen in time by his painter father, the legendary Henri Matisse, Jean observes the ebb and flow of museum guests as they take in the works of his father and other masters like Renoir, Picasso, and Van Gogh. But his world takes a mesmerizing turn when Claire, a new museum employee, enters his life.Night after night, Claire moves through the gallery where Jean's painting hangs, mopping the floors, talking softly to herself to stem her loneliness and gazing admiringly at the masterpieces above. The alluring man in the corner of the Matisse—is he watching her? Why does she feel a deepening pull to him, like he can see her truest self, her secrets? Did he just move? In an extraordinary twist of fate, Claire discovers she can step through the frame of Jean's painting and into a bygone era, a lush, verdant snapshot of family life in France in the throes of World War I. She and Jean begin a seemingly impossible affair, falling in love against the backdrop of the gallery’s other paintings come to life—glittering parties, exhilarating horse races, and windswept beach bluffs, that they can move through together and where Claire is seemingly the only modern visitor, alone in possession of this gift.But as their happiness is threatened by challenges both inside and outside the museum, Claire and Jean find themselves in a fight to preserve the love they’ve only dared to dream of. Will their extraordinary connection defy the confines of reality, or will the forces conspiring against them shatter their carefully curated happiness?

Deepen your connection to the natural world with this inspiring meditation, "a path to the place where science and spirit meet" (Robin Wall Kimmerer). In Rooted , cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth? Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life. In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world.