SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORTICO PRIZE 2022'Unnerving, absorbing . . . Laurie is a miraculous creation . . . Piercingly human and darkly funny' Sunday TimesOne ordinary morning, Laurie's husband disappears, leaving behind his phone and wallet. For weeks she tells no one, carrying on her cleaning job at the university, visiting her tricky, dementia-suffering father and holing up in her high-rise flat with a bottle to hand. When she final...

It's Friday in the Leeke household, but this is no ordinary Friday and the Leekes are a little unusual: they are Lancastrian Mormons, and this evening their son Gary will return from 2 years as a missionary in Salt Lake City.His mother is planning a celebratory dinner - with difficulty, since she's virtually housebound with an undiagnosed, embarrassing condition. What she doesn't realise is that the rest of the family - her meek husband, disturbed oldest son, and teenage daughter -...

An unsettling, darkly humorous tale of teenage girls in a predatory adult world, and a cocktail of lies, jealousy and unworldliness that leads to tragedy.

A deeply affecting and unconventional love story, shot through with anger, black humour and grief.One ordinary morning, Laurie's husband Mark vanishes, leaving behind his phone and wallet. For weeks, she tells no one, carrying on her job as a cleaner at the local university, visiting her tricky, dementia-suffering father and holing up in her tower-block flat with a bottle to hand. When she finally reports Mark as missing, the police are suspicious. Why did she take...

'Forget The Salt Path - this writer's introspective journey provides genuine food for thought... Chastened but buoyant, she's stimulating to be with, her book the best kind of walking companion' Guardian'Touching, thoughtful and frank - Jenn Ashworth is a wonderful writer'David Nicholls, author of You Are Here'I've long loved Ashworth's uncanny fiction, and this memoir is filled with her characteristic ...

'Dark, compelling, beautifully written' Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The LoneyIn this eerie, atmospheric and mysterious tale, a woman returns to the house in Morecambe Bay where she grew up in the 1960s to find it falling apart, undermined by the roots of two huge sycamores. She is unaware that she has awoken the spirits of her parents, Jack and Nettie Clifford, who watch anxiously as their daughter Annette is overwhelmed by the state of the house and ...

"Extremely intense and powerfully intriguing."— Waterstone's"[Ashworth] Evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell."— The Times (London)Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth is a hauntingly beautiful and shocking psychological thriller in the vein of the bestselling novels of Tana French—a darkly compelling story of secrets between two teenage friends in a small English town. Ashworth already has created great buzz i...

Whatever Jenn Ashworth turns her hand to, I'm there to read it'BENJAMIN MYERS, author of The Offing'With honesty, humour and determination, Ashworth's journey takes the reader from coast to coast in search of freedom'JESSICA ANDREWS, author of Milk Teeth'A miracle of a book . . . One of our finest human nature writers'RICHARD BEARD, author of Sad Little Men'Stunning - ...

Annie is obese, lonely and hopeful. Armed with self-help books, her cat and a collection of cow-shaped milk jugs, she moves into her new home and sets about getting to know the neighbours, especially the man next door. She ignores her neighbour's inconvenient girlfriend, but it's not quite as easy for Annie to dismiss her own past. As Annie's murky history of violence, secrets and sexual mishaps catches up with her, she cannot see that she has done anything wrong. She's just doing what any...

I'm sitting on my couch, watching the local news. There's Chloe's parents, the mayor, the hangers on, all grouped round the pond for the ceremony. It's ten years since Chloe and Carl drowned, and they've finally chosen a memorial - a stupid summerhouse. The mayor has a spade decked out in pink and white ribbon, and he's started to dig.You can tell from their faces that something has gone wrong. But I'm the one who knows straightaway that the mayor has found a body. And ...

A haunting, mysterious tale imbued with the force of myth, by the award-winning author of A Kind of Intimacy.When Annette Clifford returns to her childhood home on the edge of Morecambe Bay, she despairs: the long-empty house is crumbling, undermined by two voracious sycamores. What she doesn't realise is that she's not alone: her arrival has woken the spirits of her parents, who anxiously watch over her, longing to make amends. Because as the past comes back to Jack and N...

Annie is morbidly obese, lonely and hopeful. Moving into her new home alone, she describes her increasingly bizarre attempts to ingratiate herself with her new neighbours, learn from past mistakes and achieve a "certain kind of intimacy" with the boy next door. As Annie struggles to repress a murky history of violence and sexual mishaps, she realizes her past is never too far behind her…