"Bloomsbury presents The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly, read by Rosina Aichner
**WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2026**
From the multi-award-winning author – a beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel telling the story of a young girl’s battle for survival and search for the truth in occupied Vienna
‘A shimmering masterwork’ Alice Austen
‘An extraordinary novel about resilience’ Amanda Craig
‘A mesmerising tapestry woven across history’ Gina Rippon
‘Gripping and profound. A masterful work of rare complexity that lingers and haunts’ Christine Leunens
Adelheid Brunner does not speak. She writes and draws instead and her ambition is to own one thousand matchboxes. Her grandmother cannot make sense of this, but Adelheid will stop at nothing to achieve her dream. She makes herself invisible, hiding in cupboards with her pet rat, Franz Joseph, listening in on conversations she can’t fully comprehend.
Then she meets Dr Asperger, a man who lets children play all day and who recognises the importance of matchboxes. He invites Adelheid to come and live at the Vienna paediatric clinic, where she and other children like herself will live under observation.
But the date is 1938 and the place is Vienna – a city of political instability, a place of increasing fear and violence. When the Nazis march into the city, a new world is created and difficult choices must be made.
Why are the clinic's children disappearing, and where do they go? Adelheid starts to suspect that some of Dr Asperger’s games are played for the highest stakes. In order to survive, she must play a game whose rules she cannot yet understand.
Triumphant and tragic, soulful and spirited, The Matchbox Girl is a burningly brilliant book – that brings the stories of a generation of lost children into the light.
‘A vividly imagined story told with real drive and heart’ Rachel Seiffert
‘Unique and profoundly human’ Emma Darwin
‘One of the most charismatic and companionable narrators I’ve ever come across’ Toby Litt
‘The sheer brilliance of Alice Jolly’s writing stopped me in my tracks, stole my breath’ Angela Findlay
‘An important, powerful book, so real I couldn’t put it down’ Kathleen Jones P 2025 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC C 2025 Alice Jolly"
"From Far Around They Saw Us Burn is the eagerly awaited first short story collection from Alice Jolly, one of the most exciting and accomplished voices in British fiction today.
The extraordinary range of work gathered here is united by a fascination with how everyday interactions can transform our lives in unpredictable ways. These are stories of lonely people, outcasts and misfits, and the ghosts that inhabit our intimate spaces. The result is a compelling, arresting and, at times, devastating collection - not least in the title story, which was inspired by the tragic true events of the 1943 Cavan orphanage fire.
With an exemplary eye for detail and an intimate understanding of the complexities of human nature, Jolly's collection builds up towards the ultimate question: what is revealed of us when we peel away the surfaces, and is it enough?"
"If you tell a story oft enough
So it become true
As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth.
She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart.
Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history.
In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the astonishing voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past."
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