Long Fiction

Please Fear Me

Smidge is on the run, carrying a dark secret from her tumultuous childhood. With fellow runaway Violet, Smidge travels across the underbelly of America, finding home in a travelling circus. While Violet is drawn under the influence of the sinister ringleader, Smidge is forced to change her compass, and must confront her past before it is too late.

The Mask of Merryvale Manor

On the cusp of the 1960s, Ben moves into the ancestral home of his aunt and uncle and quickly learns to appreciate his new life of languid opulence. Until five years later, when a woman’s body is found on the estate. As a murder investigation begins, Ben is placed on a collision course with his family and sees their power in a harsh new light.

The Maiden of Florence

Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the Medici family. Orphan Giulia, innocent to the part she must play, is chosen to put an end to the gossip. Years later, Giulia has found happiness and freedom. But when a threat arrives from a sinister figure from her youth, she must take control of her own life.

Winter Lights

A series of heart-warming and uplifting stories set in a small town during the festive period, exploring the complexities and joys of everyday life.

Red Dust, White Snow by Pan Huiting

Red Dust, White Snow

After receiving a mysterious device promising to transport her to a parallel universe, an office worker begins to experience a series of fantastical dreams. The more time she spends in the dream world, the less she wants to wake up; yet as her dreams begins to encroach on her waking life, dream and reality collide with drastic consequences.

Other Names, Other Places by Ola Mustapha

Other Names, Other Places

Growing up in London with Tunisian parents, wayward Nessie finds herself caught between cultures. Her life is further complicated by the charismatic Mrs Brown, who befriends her parents and then betrays them. Years later, still struggling with her old patterns of self-sabotage, Nessie begins to wonder: what really happened between her parents and Mrs Brown?

Dirty Geese

Chief Whip Esme Kanha decides to investigate the death of the Minister for Personal Information, suspecting foul play. But in a world where ‘what can see watches and what can hear listens’, she must tread carefully in a deadly game against political corruption. The first in the Kanha and Colbey legal thriller series.

Becoming Delilah

On a windswept island off Cape Cod, Delilah moves into a cottage by the shore. The islanders watch the newcomer closely, and their gossip intensifies with every visit from Alan, the married man paying for Delilah’s keep. But when Delilah meets her next-door neighbour, the reclusive Anton, sparks fly and old secrets begin to surface.

The Redemption of Isobel Farrar

England, 1926. Lady Isobel Farrar, an ageing widow, finds herself dwelling on a long-buried secret: as a young woman, she gave up a child for adoption. Now she can’t help but wonder what became of him. When she finally tracks down her long-lost son, will the two be able to lay the past to rest?

Mother Sea

On a remote Indian Ocean island, with the seas rising and the birth rate plummeting, climate scientist Sisi is working hard to protect her home. But her resolve founders when she finds herself widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. With her community under threat, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.

Temper

Temper

Following a move to the Netherlands, a young woman dissects the developments of her new life. In her newfound isolation, she develops an unusual friendship with Colette, a woman she neither likes nor can keep away from. As her feelings of dislocation grow, larger anxieties about her purpose – or lack of it – begin to encroach.  And underneath it all, a burgeoning frustration bubbles.

With or Without Angels - Douglas Bruton

With or Without Angels

An ageing artist, faced with his own mortality, embarks on one final artwork. As he battles to complete the project, working with an enigmatic young photographer, he finds his past and present blurring. Through the act of creation and the memories it excavates, the artist comes to a realisation about what matters most, and what he will leave behind when he is gone.

The Moon and Stars by Jenna Warren

The Moon and Stars

Matthew Capes is a classical tenor with a magnificent voice, but struggles with chronic stage fright. When his old singing partner Angela offers him the chance to perform in a nationwide tour, Matthew hatches a plan: he will sing in the shadows while his handsome and charismatic friend Ralph takes to the stage with Angela. What could go wrong?

The Fish by Joanne Stubbs

The Fish

A few decades into the 21st century, Cathy and her wife Ephie plant a paddy field in their permanently flooded garden in Cornwall. Across the globe, people like them are getting used to a changing climate – but they are not the only ones adapting. As sea creatures abandon the oceans to live on land, can people accept yet another new normal?

Starling by Sarah Jane Butler

Starling

All Starling has ever known is a nomadic existence, travelling in a converted van with Mar, her strong-willed mother. But one morning, without explanation, Mar leaves and doesn’t come back. Starling must learn to survive without her mother and build a life on her own terms – but can she ever find a place where she truly belongs?

Instructions for the Working Day

Neil Fischer has inherited a village – his father’s former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany, left to deteriorate for decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Neil is determined to restore the village to its former glory, but is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace. As tensions rise and truths emerge, all signs point to danger.

New Fiction - Braver by Deborah Jenkins

Braver

Told with warmth, compassion and gentle humour, Braver is an uplifting story about the strength that can be drawn from friendship and community.

New Fiction - The House of Marvellous Books by Fiona Vigo Marshall

The House of Marvellous Books

Tucked away in a near-derelict library in the centre of London, The House of Marvellous Books is a publishing house on the brink of financial disaster. A young junior editor charts the descent of the House in his logbook as it lurches from one failure to the next.

Almost by Ami Rao

Almost

When a teenage girl dies in a car accident while returning home from school, her father is left to deal with his grief. Sent home from work for the crime of showing his emotions in front of strangers, he cannot bring himself to utter his unspoken thoughts of guilt and blame – not even to his wife.

New Fiction - The Second Person from Porlock by Dennis Hamley

The Second Person from Porlock

Highgate, London, 1824. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a washed-up opium addict, estranged from his friends and from his neglected wife.

The Piano Room by Clio Velentza

The Piano Room

Sandor Esterhazy is descended from a long line of talented pianists, but has no desire to play. So, one snowy afternoon, he promises his soul to the devil in exchange for a life of his own choosing.

New Fiction - The Woodcock by Richard Smyth

The Woodcock

It’s 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after the Great War. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier, unexpected tensions and temptations arise.

New Fiction - Erringby by Gill Darling

Erringby

One debauched summer, the eighteen-year-old Kit wakes to find himself in bed with Marianne. But what happened? And who is his sudden mysterious benefactor? As Kit grapples with the ramifications of that night, he, Marianne and Col find their lives spiralling out of control.

David and Ameena by Ami Rao

David and Ameena

Modern-day New York, a subway train. David, an American-Jewish jazz musician, torn between his dreams and his parents’ expectations, sees a woman across the carriage. Ameena, a British-Pakistani artist who left Manchester to escape the pressure from her conservative family, sees David.

New Fiction - Relative Secrets by Helen Stancey

Relative Secrets

Mary has a secret that she mustn’t tell. But in a care home, with her mind wandering, she’s starting to slip up. Clearing out her grandmother’s old room, Lucy finds something hidden that wasn’t supposed to be found – a locket sheltering a shameful family secret.

New Fiction - Dreaming in Quantum (and Other Stories) by Lynda Clark

Dreaming in Quantum and Other Stories

Lynda Clark’s debut collection: sixteen stories, engrossing, provocative, all written in Lynda’s darkly humorous style.

New Fiction - Valhalla by Alan Robert Clark

Valhalla

May of Teck, only daughter of a noble family fallen from grace, has been selected to marry the troublesome Prince Eddy, heir to the British throne. Submitting to the wishes of Queen Victoria and under pressure from her family, young May agrees.

Broadwater by Jac Shreeves-Lee

Broadwater

In this collection, Tottenham-born Jac Shreeves-Lee gives voice to the people of Broadwater Farm. With evocative language and raw storytelling, she compassionately portrays their shared sense of community. A community with a rich cultural heritage, comprising over forty nationalities, generations old.

Beyond Kidding by Lynda Clark

Beyond Kidding

When Robert decides to impress at a job interview by making up a son, he discovers that maintaining the lie is far harder than he thought – so he invents a story that ‘Brodie’ has been kidnapped.  After all, it’s not like they’re going to find the fake boy.

A Saint in Swindon by Alice Jolly

A Saint in Swindon

A funny and, ultimately, dystopian tale, based on an idea by the book lovers of Swindon town.

Find Me Falling by Fiona Vigo Marshall

Find Me Falling

Bonnie, a traumatised concert pianist, finds refuge at the edge of England, in a cliff-top house haunted by memories and broken dreams. When Dominic, a road sweeper who is visited by neurological hauntings of his own, gives Bonnie a ring he finds on the street, elemental forces are unleashed that neither is able to control.

A Matter of Interpretation by Elizabeth Mac Donald

A Matter of Interpretation

It’s thirteenth-century Europe and a young monk, Michael Scot, has been asked by the Holy Roman Emperor to translate the works of Aristotle and recover his ‘lost’ knowledge.

Conception by Özgür Uyanık

Conception

Enter Anonymous, a middle-ranking artist rolling between minor shows in New York, London and Istanbul. With his career sliding into obscurity, shamefully forced to consider advertising work to make ends meet, he knows he must break new ground if he is to survive.

The Prince of Mirrors by Alan Robert Clark

The Prince of Mirrors

Prince Albert Victor, heir presumptive to the British throne, is seen as disastrously inadequate to be king. The grandson of Queen Victoria, he is good-hearted but intensely shy and, some whisper, even slow-witted.

The Fairlight Book of Short Stories by Various

The Fairlight Book of Short Stories

Volume 1

From flash fiction to mini-novelette, Fairlight presents The Fairlight Book of Short Stories (Volume 1), twenty-four short stories from some of the world’s most talented new and emerging English language writers. Chosen from work sent to Fairlight over several years by writers around the globe, this anthology celebrates the art of the short story form

The Tale of Senyor Rodriguez by Lou Gilmond

The Tale of Senyor Rodriguez

It’s 1960s Mallorca. Thomas Sebastian, an English conman, is hiding out in the house of the late Senyor Rodriguez – carousing, partying, and falling in love with his beautiful but impossibly young neighbour, Isabella Ferretti. As the boundary between lies and reality blurs, Thomas’ fiction spirals out of control in ways that are quite unexpected.

The Madonna of the Pool by Helen Stancey

The Madonna of the Pool

A moving collection of literary short stories which explore the triumphs, compromises and challenges of everyday life. Drawing on a wide array of characters, Helen Stancey shows how small events, insignificant to some, can resonate deeply in the lives of others.

Fairlight Moderns

Dancing in the Shallows

Isla moves to the Isle of Skye to escape her purposeless life. But as she learns more about her family, she must question whether family patterns can really be broken.

Small Wars in Madrid

Alone in his Madrid apartment and faced with the prospect of losing his family, David Aguilera confronts his conflicting Catholic and Jewish identities to reconnect with his wife and children.

The Old Haunts

The Old Haunts

In his grief, Jamie finds himself sifting through bittersweet memories of his formative years, and must confront his unresolved feelings towards his parents.

The Two-Tailed Snake

North-east India, 1945. Tensions are rising, but fourteen-year-old Joya doesn’t pay much attention to ‘political business’ – until the day her father disappears without a trace.

A Good Year by Polis Loizou - Fairlight Moderns

A Good Year

Rural Cyprus, 1925. Despo is recently married, heavily pregnant and deeply afraid.

Voting Day by Clare O'Dea - Fairlight Moderns

Voting Day

In February 1959, Switzerland held a referendum on women’s suffrage. The men voted ‘no’.

Blue Postcards

 Three connected narratives and timelines, set in Paris, interspersed with observations of the colour blue.

Taking Flight

Travel from Miami to Alaska in this beautifully told drama of the bond between grandson and grandmother.

Missing Words

A heart-warming journey about self-discovery and the power of family ties.

Only About Love

There’s no such thing as a perfect family. A perfect life. A perfect man.

Atlantic Winds by William Prendiville

Atlantic Winds

In a small town, pointed fingers and hushed gossip can only mean trouble…

Minutes from the Miracle City by Omar Sabbagh Fairlight Moderns

Minutes from the Miracle City

Multiple lives collide in the last few days of Ramadan.

Milton in Purgatory by Edward Vass Fairlight Moderns

Milton in Purgatory

What if death isn’t the end?

The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli Fairlight Moderns

The Therapist

A strange epidemic sweeps the globe…

The Nail House by Gregory Baines Fairlight Moderns

The Nail House

Lindon finds sense where there is none and love where there is war.

Bottled Goods

Alina’s life was on the right track, until the secret service knocked on her door.

Travelling in the Dark by Emma Timpany Fairlight Moderns

Travelling in the Dark

She left for a reason but now she must return home and face her past.

The Driveway Has Two Sides by Sara Marchant Fairlight Moderns

The Driveway Has Two Sides

Sometimes it takes a little searching to find ‘the one’.

There Are Things I Know

He never came home from the school trip…

Inside the Bone Box by Anthony Ferner Fairlight Moderns

Inside the Bone Box

A toxic marriage has consequences for everyone.