The Cut is a Brexit novel. The story offers a fictional response to a complex issue. It is also a plot-driven page-turner by one of the most exciting novelists in the country.Cairo Jukes, a boxer from Dudley, supports himself on zero-hour contracts. He has grown up among the canals – or the cuts – that web the Black Country like the open veins of an old industrial order. Then he meets Grace, a successful documentary film maker from London.The Cut will not put...

'Judas Iscariot's here, look. Here comes Judas Iscariot . . .'Nine-year old Sean has never seen anything like what happens on the day Margaret Thatcher takes power and his grandad discovers his uncle voted for her. So begins the start of a family secret and the end of Sean's idyllic childhood in the industrial Midlands - until, one day, deciding that someone's got to stop the train of destruction, he sets out for revenge.A heartbreaking and timely story of a moment of national crisis as fe...

Twenty years ago, Liam Corwen and Dee Dee Ahmed were on the cusp of a better future, Liam as a promising footballer and Dee Dee as a singer in a girl band. Now they're both eking out an existence back in their home town.As the old steelworks rust and the local football club limps towards relegation and liquidation, Dee Dee recalls the tragic events that changed their lives. Liam thinks back to the great players of the past, and wonders: could redemption, greatness even, still wait ...

It is Spring 2002, with local elections looming. A mosque is being built on the site where Cinderheath's iconic steelworks once dominated the town. 'The Tipton Three', from just down the road, are imprisoned in Guantanamo; the BNP expect to win new seats on the council. St. George's flags fly from cars and windows: the World Cup is beginning, England to play Argentina. But first, a controversial Sunday-league football game must take place, billed by the press as 'a match to spark a race wa...

A household name, an Australian rock icon, the elder statesman of Ozrock - there isn't an accolade or cliche that doesn't apply to Jimmy Barnes. But long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.Working Class Boy is a powerful reflection on a traumatic and violent childhood, which fue...

This book is a window into the world of Danny Dyer - and he's seen more of the world than most so he's got one or two things to say about it.Tackling such vital questions as 'Where have all the old school boozers gone?' 'Are there such things as ghosts?' and 'Am I middle class?' Danny shares his unique take on life with characteristic honesty and humour and reveals why it is that:· What goes around comes around - he learnt the hard way· You can take the boy out of th...

THE GOOD AUDITION GUIDES:Helping you select and perform the audition piece that is best suited to your performing skillsIn this volume of the Good Audition Guides, you'll find fifty fantastic speeches for men, all written since the year 2000, by some of our most exciting dramatic voices.Playwrights featured in Contemporary Monologues for Men include Howard Brenton, Jez Butterworth, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Caryl Churchill, Ariel Dorfman...

WINNER OF THE JOHN LLEWELLYN RHYS MEMORIAL PRIZE'Her art is ignited by voice, as you hear it, is unquestionable' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN'Distinctive, pared-down style' DAVID EVANS, INDEPENDENT**'Unflinching look at the lives of working-class women' DAILY MAILNell Dunn's scenes of London life, as it was lived in the early Sixties in the industrial slums of Battersea, h...

For the first book inspired by their wildly popular podcast, Bob Mortimer and Andy Dawson considered producing an authoritative guide to the past, present and future world of football. But, as in the podcast, they got a bit side-tracked - as well as bringing you some (more or less) completely genuine football facts, Bob and Andy speculate about the lifestyle of baked bean-loving, yellow snake-owning ex-England boss Steve McClaren, and investigate the 'Gangs of the EPL', where football meet...

Sour can either be read as a full-length eBook or in 3 serialised eBook-only parts.This is PART 1 of 3.They call me Sour. The opposite of sweet. Shanking, stabbing, steaming, robbing, I did it all, rolling with the Man Dem. I did it because I was bad. I did it because I had heart. And the reason I reckon I got away with it for so long? Because I was a girl.SOUR is the true story of a former Brixton gang girl, drug dealer and full-time criminal. A member of the Young...

A virtuosic study of one man's descent into religious mania in small-town Ireland.Inishfree might seem like a quaint Irish town, but fierce evangelist Thomas Magill knows better. He knows that jovial Dwain Flynn is a miserable drunk, that Timmy O'Leary enslaves his lovely mother, and that sweet Mrs Cleary is a blasphemous flirt.It is down to Thomas, with God on his shoulder, to save this sinful place. But the townsfolk are not listening, an angel is misbehaving and a barkin...

Waverley is a small cat with a big miaow and he lives with Mr and MrsTurner and their son Jonathan at number 10, Marten's Drive.Waverley likes the house at number 10, Marten's Drive because it haslots of good places to sleep and a back garden that seems to go onforever. Beyond the wooden fence at the bottom of the garden there isa children's playground, green fields, and then the woods. All daylong Waverley snoozes in the sunny spots around the ho...