Weight has always been a big issue in Carmen's life. Not surprising when her mum is obsessed with the idea that thin equals beauty, thin equals success, thin equals the way to get what you want. And somehow her daughter is going to be thin.When her mother sweeps her off to live in the city, Carmen finds her old world disappearing. With everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. Carmen starts to ask: if she was thin, very thin, could it all be different?A new cover e...

A fully updated comprehensive guide for improving and practicing your creative writing, including contributions from Ali Smith and Kit de WaalThe Creative Writing Coursebook, edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, takes aspiring writers through three stages of essential practice: Gathering – getting started, learning how to keep notes, making observations and using memory; Shaping – looking at structure, point of view, chara...

An essay on the battle for our attention in the age of distraction. Attention pays. In today's online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Bombarding us with free smartphone apps and news websites, developers and advertisers have turned what and how focus our attention into the world's fastest growing industry. In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditati...

I used to think the worst part of life was just keeping my head down, but apparently, nothing invites trouble quite like hiding from it. My name is Maeve, and I had a routine—survive the city, stay out of trouble, and pretend I could ignore the ghosts of my past. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Enter Lucian Shaw, all intensity and secrets, dragging me into a family war darker than any crime novel I've ever read. Lucian is the last person I want to be around and the only person who knows how dee...

You know that rush of adrenaline? The kind that starts as a little flutter in your stomach and then explodes, making your pulse race and your feet move a little faster than they should? Welcome to my life. I never thought I'd be running for my life through a crumbling city or trying to outrun a group of sinister operatives with eyes that gleam like predators in the dark. But here I am, caught in a tangled web of danger and secrets, with Vincent, the last person I'd expect to trust, at my s...

The international phenomenon and winner of the German Book Prize. "A devastating novel about war, love, and the art of survival" ( Marie Claire).Julia Franck's unforgettable English-language debut, The Blindness of the Heart is a dark marvel of a novel by one of Europe's freshest young voices—a family story spanning two world wars and several generations in a German family. In the devastating opening scene, a woman named Helene stands with her sev...

"[A] novel of fractured childhood in East Germany . . . a powerful elegy" from the author of the international bestseller, The Blindness of the Heart ( Booklist, starred review).Echoing themes of Julia Franck's German Book Prize–winning novel, The Blindness of the Heart, Back to Back begins in 1954 and centers around a single family living in Berlin in the socialist East. A cruel and unaffectionate mother, Käthe, is a sculptor of...

Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second anthology, championing new and emerging writers alongside established authors. The anthology features voices across all narrative forms including fiction, poetry, memoir, essay and flash-fiction. The anthology will comprise 30 pieces of writing, the winning entries from an international competition to capture the best of queer writing today. Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second ...

'Ten minutes to midnight!' Jonathan shouts over the sound of the blazing fire. Sparks rise into the sky and mingle with the stars. 'Only ten minutes!' Bevins says, falling down on his knees. 'So it begins.'Rebekah has lived on the island her whole life, and it's only now that she's starting to wonder what she might experience outside her strict religious community. Alex has been sent to the island to escape her dark past, and through her eyes it's a dark and sinister place...

Hope has everything that money can buy . . . except happiness. She may be spoilt but Hope’s sure that as far as her preoccupied parents are concerned, she’s hopeless.Oksana doesn’t even have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought Europe would offer a better life – instead, bought and sold into prostitution, she feels dirty and used.Then Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable. Th...

‘I loved it’ KIT DE WAAL, author of The Best of Everything‘Generous, intelligent, full of wisdom and insight’ LILY DUNN, author of Sins of My Father*A transformative guide to creative writing and the power of paying attention.The way we use language to tell stories reveals a lot about who we are and what matters to us. In Between the Lines, Julia Bell draws on almost thirty years o...

‘I loved it’ KIT DE WAAL, author of The Best of Everything‘Generous, intelligent, full of wisdom and insight’ LILY DUNN, author of Sins of My Father*A transformative guide to creative writing and the power of paying attention.The way we use language to tell stories reveals a lot about who we are and what matters to us. In Between the Lines, Julia Bell draws on almost thirty years o...