'A chilling, gut-wrenching thriller' Helen Fields
'Extremely scary scandi-noir...first class' Daily Mail
The perfect wife.
The perfect mother.
The perfect lie.
A gripping page-turner for fans of The Couple Next Door, Michelle Sacks's You Were Made For This provocatively explores the darker side of marriage, motherhood and friendship.
Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores baking, gardening, and caring for her infant son, while Sam pursues a new career in film. In their idyllic house in the Swedish woods, they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they've built for themselves, away from New York and the events that overshadowed their happiness there.
And then Merry's closest friend Frank comes to stay. All their lives, the two women have been more like sisters than best friends. And that's why Frank sees things that others might miss. Treacherous things that unfold behind closed doors.
But soon it's clear that everyone inside the house has something to hide. And as the truth begins to show through the cracks, Merry, Frank, and Sam grow all the more desperate to keep their picture-perfect lives intact.
Brought to you by Penguin.
Russia is an exceptional country, the biggest in the world. It is both European and exotic, powerful and weak, brilliant and flawed. Why are we so afraid of it?
Time and again, we judge Russia by unique standards. We have usually assumed that it possesses higher levels of cunning, malevolence and brutality. Yet the country has more often than not been a crucial ally, not least against Napoleon and in the two world wars. We admire its music and its writers. We lavish praise on the Russian soul. And still we think of Russia as a unique menace. What is it about this extraordinary country that consistently provokes such excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous?
Ranging from the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new book is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy, superpower or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our fears unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself offers a clearer view and a better future.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris, read by Sam Woolf.
In The Butchering Art, historian Lindsey Fitzharris recreates a critical turning point in the history of medicine, when Joseph Lister transformed surgery from a brutal, harrowing practice to the safe, vaunted profession we know today.
Victorian operating theatres were known as 'gateways of death', Fitzharris reminds us, since half of those who underwent surgery didn't survive the experience. This was an era when a broken leg could lead to amputation, and surgeons were still known to ransack cemeteries to find cadavers. And in squalid, overcrowded hospitals, doctors remained baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high.
At a time when surgery couldn't have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a young Quaker surgeon. By making the audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection - and could be treated with antiseptics - he changed the history of medicine forever. With a novelist's eye for detail, Fitzharris brilliantly conjures up the grisly world of Victorian surgery, revealing how one of Britain's greatest medical minds finally brought centuries of savagery, sawing and gangrene to an end.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Body Lies by Jo Baker, read by Imogen Church, Deborah McBride, Sam Woolf, Simon Ludders and Julie Maisey.
A layered and thrilling suspense novel that grapples with how to live as a woman in the modern world - or in the pages of a book - when the stakes are dangerously high.
When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the big city and the scene of a violent assault she's desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of a new life and single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative writing group.
When a troubled student starts sending in chapters from his novel that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognises herself as the main character in his book - and he has written her a horrific fate.
Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late?
At once a breathless cat-and-mouse game and a disarming exploration of sexual politics, The Body Lies is an essential book for our times.
From the Number 1 bestselling author of THE BINDING
‘Another triumph’ Erin Kelly
‘Totally addictive’ Joanna Glen
‘A rich delight’ Sandra Newman
‘Just beautiful’ Joanna Cannon
‘Dizzyingly wonderful’
The Times
If everything in your life was based on a lie
Would you risk it all to tell the truth?
At Montverre, an exclusive academy tucked away in the mountains, the best and brightest are trained for excellence in the grand jeu: an arcane and mysterious contest. Léo Martin was once a student there, but lost his passion for the grand jeu following a violent tragedy. Now he returns in disgrace, exiled to his old place of learning with his political career in tatters.
Montverre has changed since he studied there, even allowing a woman, Claire Dryden, to serve in the grand jeu’s highest office of Magister Ludi. When Léo first sees Claire he senses an odd connection with her, though he’s sure they have never met before.
Both Léo and Claire have built their lives on lies. And as the legendary Midsummer Game, the climax of the year, draws closer, secrets are whispering in the walls…
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Tell Me the Planets by Ben Platts-Mills, read by Sam Woolf.
Matthew has a meticulously logical mind. He is intelligent, compassionate and fiercely loyal. He also has a brain injury.
When Matthew underwent surgery to remove a life-threatening cyst in the middle of his brain, he was left with extreme fatigue, a difficulty forming new memories and with a tendency to confabulate - to 'remember', with absolute conviction, events that have not occurred.
In Tell Me the Planets, Ben Platts-Mills tells stories about his work with survivors of brain injury, offering a rare glimpse into the world as seen through their eyes: charismatic Danny, whose criminal past has left him paralysed down one side, but who now helps others worse off than himself; Sid, whose memory for the present lasts only moments; and Liah, who is caught in a battle with the care system threatening to make her homeless.
But above all this is the story of the extraordinary friendship between Ben and Matthew, following their attempts to discover what has happened to Matthew's brain and how he might begin to rebuild his life. It is a journey that takes them to the frontiers of science and to the limits of human resilience: when they discover that the cyst is growing again, Matthew is left with an impossible decision to make.
'Platts-Mills writes with truth and eloquence about his relationships with brain injury survivors' Julia Samuel
'At turns heartbreaking and uplifting, this is not just a brilliant book about the survivors of brain injury, but also a vivid and unforgettable portrait of modern Britain by an extraordinarily-gifted story-teller. Ben Platts-Mills tells the stories of child-refugee Liah, ex-gangster Danny and computer geek Matthew - in hourly peril of having their sense of self annulled - with great vividness and imagination' Robert Newman, author of Neuropolis
Brought to you by Penguin.
'Shelf Life is whip-smart, slyly heartbreaking, and I felt the truth of it in my bones. Franchini dissects ideas of love, dating and identity in a way that feels both ruthless and humane. I loved it.'
Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure
Launching an intelligent, perceptive new voice in fiction, Shelf Life is the exquisite, heart-wrenching story of a woman rebuilding herself on her own terms.
Ruth is thirty years old. She works as a nurse in a care home and her fiancé has just broken up with her. The only thing she has left of him is their shopping list for the upcoming week.
And so she uses that list to tell her story. Starting with six eggs, and working through spaghetti and strawberries, and apples and tea bags, Ruth discovers that her identity has been crafted from the people she serves; her patients, her friends, and, most of all, her partner of ten years. Without him, she needs to find out - with conditioner and single cream and a lot of sugar - who she is when she stands alone.
