Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Millie Partridge desperately needs a party. So, when her (handsome and charming) ex-colleague Nick invites her to a Hebridean Island for New Year’s Eve, she books her ticket North.

But things go wrong the moment the ferry drops her off. The stately home is more down at heel than Downton Abbey. Nick hasn’t arrived yet. And the other revellers? Politely, they aren’t exactly who she would have pictured Nick would be friends with.

Worse still, an old acquaintance from Millie’s past has been invited, too. Penny Maybury. Millie and Nick’s old colleague. Somebody Millie would rather have forgotten about. Somebody, in fact, that Millie has been trying very hard to forget.

Waking up on New Year’s Eve, Penny is missing. A tragic accident? Or something more sinister? With a storm washing in from the Atlantic, nobody will be able reach the group before they find out.

One thing is for sure – they’re going to see in the new year with a bang.

Tense, moody and claustrophobic, Auld Acquaintance is the unputdownable debut by Sofia Slater.

‘A heartfelt and packed-with-stats plea to the Left to abandon victimhood indulgence and instead celebrate the varied and extraordinary triumphs of different ethnic minority groups and individuals’ Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacher of the Michaela School

Beyond Grievance highlights the growing tensions between the liberal cosmopolitanism which defines much of the British political Left, and the patriotic faith-based conservatism that runs deep in many of Britain’s ethnic-minority communities. Instead, Rakib Ehsan presents the much-needed case for an inclusive ‘social-justice traditionalism’ rooted in family, security, and equality of opportunity.

‘Rakib Ehsan’s insightful book busts the many myths that the liberal Left likes to tell about Britain’s diversity and shows that there is strength in the traditional values of our ethnic-minority communities’ Lord Maurice Glasman, author of Blue Labour

A No. 1 international bestseller, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a dazzling novel of mothers and daughters, stories told and untold, and the ties that bind four generations of women.

Gabriela’s mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there’s more to her mother than painted nails and lips.

Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family’s previous generations – from Great-Grandmother Mercada the renowned healer, to Grandma Rosa who cleaned houses for the English, to Luna who had the nicest legs in Jerusalem. But Gabriela must face a past and present far more complex than she ever imagined.

Spanning decades, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem follows generations of unforgettable women as they forge their own paths through times of dramatic change, and paints a dazzling portrait of a family and a young nation as they struggle to find their way even as others try to carve it out for them.

‘Charmingly provocative’ Observer
‘A smorgasbord of delights’ Irish Times
‘Addictive … a writer living and thinking his way to the frontiers of human society’ The Spectator

InAutobibliography, Rob Doyle recounts a year spent rereading fifty-two books – from the Dhammapada and Marcus Aurelius to Robert Bolaño and Svetlana Alexievich – as well as the memories they trigger and the reverberations they create. It is a record of a year in reading and of a lifetime of books, by one of the most original and exciting writers around.

Reader Reviews

‘Enlightening, engaging and fun’

‘A *superb* gift for any bookish friend or relative with an eye for the human comedy’

‘A page-turner … bright and fresh’