On the outer deck of a North Sea ferry stands Futh, a middle-aged and newly separated man, on his way to Germany for a restorative walking holiday. After an inexplicably hostile encounter with a hotel landlord, Futh sets out along the Rhine. As he contemplates an earlier trip to Germany and the things he has done in his life, he does not foresee the potentially devastating consequences of things not done. The Lighthouse, Alison Moore's first novel, tells the tense, gripping story of a man ...

Winner of the 2013 McKitterick PrizeShortlisted for the 2013 East Midlands Book AwardShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012Shortlisted for New Writer of the Year in the 2012 Specsavers National Book AwardsObserver Book of the Year 2012The Lighthouse begins on a North Sea ferry, on whose blustery outer deck stands Futh, a middle-aged, recently separated ma...

With an abandoned degree behind her and a thirtieth birthday approaching, amateur writer Bonnie Falls moves out of her parents' home into a nearby flat. Her landlady, Sylvia Slythe, takes an interest in Bonnie, encouraging her to finish one of her stories, in which a young woman moves to the seaside, where she comes under strange influences. As summer approaches, Sylvia suggests to Bonnie that, as neither of them has anyone else to go on holiday with, they should go away together – to the ...

On the hottest day of the year, Ana Sharma and her mum check in to the Hotel Splendid, a place where bells seem to ring all by themselves, jam pots and milk jugs appear on the breakfast table as if by magic, and things go bump in the night. The Hotel Splendid has a problem. When Ana and Sunny meet, they come up with a solution, but one problem leads to another. Meanwhile, the hotel is harbouring an unexpected guest …

Observer Book of the Year 2014Lewis Sullivan, an RE teacher at a secondary school, was approaching retirement when he wondered for the first time whether he ought to have chosen a more dramatic career. He lives in a village in the Midlands, less than a mile from the house in which he grew up. He always imagined living by the sea. His grown-up daughter visits every day, bringing soup. He does not want soup. He frequents his second-favourite pub, where he can get hal...

A brooding uncle takes an au pair’s passport. Years of tension between a father and a son erupt with violent consequences. A man disappears along a lonely mail route . . . and it has happened before. From the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Lighthouse comes this uncanny collection of short fiction about the unhomeliness of home: Fractured families, domestic claustrophobia, and the unseen menace of the everyday. With the same emotional tension and tightly controlled prose that...

Alison Moore's debut collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, gathered together stories written prior to the publication of her first novel. 'The tales collected in The Pre-War House… pick at psychological scabs in a register both wistful and brutal.' —Anthony Cummins, The Times Literary Supplement 'Moore's writing is surprising and exact and culminates in the title story, the novella which brings the collection to a powerful crescendo' —The Arkansas International 'just as uncompro...

Sometimes, when you open a door or lift a lid, you find exactly what you expected to find: coats in the coat cupboard, bread in the bread bin, toys in the toy box. And sometimes you don't.When Sunny's parents buy an antique shop, they get more than they bargained for: in some of the old furniture, Sunny finds ghosts. Each of the ghosts has an unfulfilled desire, something they never did in their lifetime: Walter wants to learn to read, Violet wants to write a novel, Mary and Elsie ...

Having moved from the Fens to the Midlands to the Scottish Borders, Jessie Noon finds herself struggling to leave the past behind.Following a family tragedy, Jessie Noon moved from the Fens to the Midlands and now lives in the Scottish Borders with a cat, a dog and – she is convinced – a ghost in the spare room. Her husband walked out almost a year ago, leaving a note written in steam on the bathroom mirror, and Jessie hasn't seen her son for years. When Jessie meets Robert, a loca...

Since childhood, Sandra Peters has been fascinated by the small, private island of Lieloh, home to the reclusive silent-film star Valerie Swanson. Having dreamed of going to art college, Sandra is now in her forties and working as a receptionist, but she still harbours artistic ambitions. When she sees an advert for a two-week artists' retreat on Lieloh, Sandra sets out on what might be a life-changing journey.

A notoriously scary ghost is supposed to haunt the ruined medieval castle where Sunny and his friends are spending the day. But when a troubling visitor arrives at the antique shop, it turns out the danger is closer to home than they thought . . .

Nearing thirty, with an abandoned literature degree and half-hearted dreams of becoming a writer, Bonnie Falls gives in to her parents’ insistence that she finally move out of their home and takes up residence in a shabby first-floor flat with a concrete garden. When her landlady takes an uncommon interest in her—and one of her unfinished stories—Bonnie’s aspirations are rekindled, and when Sylvia suggests the two of them take a summer holiday to a seaside town oddly similar to the one in ...