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Yvonne Baker has the ability to conjure a world that is at once recognisable and fresh. In this two-part collection we travel with those whose migration brings new worlds and loss in equal amounts. Who do we become in a different place separated from a land that still calls us? Who do we become if we remain behind? Baker interrogates these questions in sequences alive with vivid details, illuminated with affection and empathy. Here lives flutter down in fragments, a shelter is built of story, and unwritten rules for the poor are exposed. Here Irish aunts and other saints leap from the page, ready with an umbrella, making a holy show of themselves, or finding peace in the deep waters of the heart. Themes of belonging, memory and what haunts us run through all of Yvonne Baker's work, and her gift is to bring new perspectives to the questions we ask about what forms us, how we navigate a shifting world and how we remember those we love yet never fully know. At the heart of this collection that tends a sacred fire:'Time judders slowly slides forward accelerates'.

Alex Ingram is well-acquainted with sorrow. He's overcome childhood polio to become a successful singer whose lyric voice 'lays bare the joy and pain of being alive.' When tragedy strikes again, Alex finds hope through the healing power of music. And an epiphany awaits... an unforeseen encounter that changes everything. Standing alone but reconnecting with characters from Carole Strachan's acclaimed debut, The Truth in Masquerade, The Tenor Man's Story returns to the world of classical music. With a vivid and compelling story of love and loss, reminding us that life can be wonderful, often in the most unexpected of ways.

Lying on a lounger outside a flyblown café near Naples, Mike reflects on the last few months. He'd set off for the wedding of the charismatic Al, whose closed community is in the Calder Valley. Three months later, Mike's wearing a white robe, standing over an open grave. Alan Newcombe vividly immerses us in the life of Gritstone House. There's no electricity or running water - or contact with the outside world. And Al pulls the strings in a house where there's fraud, secret burials, and clandestine murder. Gothic, serious, yet brimming with wit and humour, Gritstone is an impressive debut.

Rooted in the land he dwells on, attuned to the ancestral lines of place and body and the resonances between the two, in Aubrac David Batten records our at-oneness with the nature that humanity too often attempts to fragment. Lucid, deeply effective and intelligent, these poems take us into a landscape where the past speaks loudly to the present and to the future, letting us know that we are not alone, not apart. In a year in which the poet himself moves through cycles of chemotherapy, along with the randomness of death, life and renewal re-assert themselves with the movement of the seasons. As he observes nature with a keenness of vision and attention that is present in every line, nature returns the gaze. A collection that bears witness to the human and more than human.

'Gwnewch y pethau bychain - Do the little things' (Dewi Sant/St David) - is how Fiona Owen signs off her communications. And she is a poet who understands that the little things are actually the things to which we should be paying our deepest attention - the small interactions between people, the word that matters, the objects that hold more than memory and, vitally, the land we live on, the air we breathe, the anima/ls and plants we live amongst and with, who teach us not to 'other' them for the sake of our humanity as much as for their sake and their survival. This is a collection that pulses with anima, the unconscious that moves through all life, bubbling up in these exquisitely realised, attentive poems.

Journalist Simon, reporting on the Knights of Camelot theme park run by an eccentric Marquess, is drawn into a tangle of intrigue, witchcraft, alternative lifestyles, mythology and secret technology as he investigates mysterious disappearances in Glastonbury, including his new girlfriend, Jenny. On Jenny's trail, Simon joins Abballon, a female dominated community inspired by worship of the goddess Gaia, where the role of men is to serve obediently, modern technology is banned and all must obey the tyrannical ruler, Philomena. Cast out from Abballon, Simon uncovers a fiendish plot by a deranged scientist to transform abducted people into mythical creatures, from centaurs to satyrs, intended to populate the Marquess's new Mythological Magick theme park. Will Simon be able to rescue Jenny in time to prevent her metamorphosis into a mermaid?

From objects imbued with meaning and memory to the places that nurture and anchor us, Denise Bennett's poetry is grounded in a sense of the sacredness of the everyday. There is a deep sense of justice and relationships of integrity here that burn a bright light in dark places and an attention to the everyday that asserts the sacredness of all life. The poetry here is not only accomplished but deeply felt. It comes from a place of listening and seeing with the heart and is delivered in imagery that is lucid, precise and moving.

Jenny Morris has a gift for observation translated into fresh and lyrical imagery. In Eye Level she looks beneath the surface of memory with a wistful but never sentimental gaze. Here 'memory stains your bones' and we enter a landscape of yearning and mortality is never far away, yet there is also hope and resilience here, the ways in which we pass on hope to the generations below us because 'The story must go on and on.' Along the way, ancestors are honoured, the places and people who form us are witnessed to and new generations are celebrated. Eye Level is a compassionate and intelligent collection leavened with verbal dexterity and wry humour from a mature and accomplished voice. A delight to read and re-read.

Summer Solstice 2065.16 years after a devastating pandemic and societal collapse.Viola sets off into the forest to prepare for the gathering of her community, who bring their ghosts and fears, hopes and secrets, knowing that a single day can change everything.And theirs are not the only voices. The forest also has stories of grief and resurrection, trauma and forgiveness.Linguistically-inventive and deeply moving, this richly layered narrative asks what we mean by consciousness or a life well-lived, human or non-human.Beyond the end of the world, where is life to be found?"In her visually-inventive novel, Jan Fortune not only inhabits the minds of a community of engaging characters who are navigating a fragile future but also proves herself fluent in the language of birch and oak, to be acutely attuned to the song of moss and clover. ...a vital work that grapples with such momentous themes as individual and collective trauma, yet celebrates love, resilience and the intimate, reciprocal relationship between the human and more than human."- Susan Richardson, author of Words the Turtle Taught Me and Where the Seals Sing"Deeply rooted and grounded in a loving respect for our living earth and her healing medicines, this heartfelt story weaves magical rhythmic wordspells in a web of vibrant prose. A superb and nurturing work of love, hope and reconnection."- Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, author of Yoni Shakti and Yoga Nidra Made Easy"Jan's newest work invites you into an embodied journey through the colors of grief while reconnecting to the natural world. Reading this book is a healing act in its own right.''- Yoli Maya Yeh, Therapist, Educator & Activist"An intriguing exploration of our human connection to the earth and to each other... bleakly prophetic, the novel holds out the possibility of redemption... A book to savour for its wise heart."- Catherine Coldstream, author of Cloistered: My Years as a Nun

What does it take for us to put our lives on hold and begin to heal? In the midst of a sequence of traumatic events-recovering from crystal-meth addiction, facing infertility, battling chronic fatigue, surviving breast cancer, rebuilding a relationship with her narcissistic mother only for it to fall apart again before her mother's suicide-Clea realises she has to take a break from men.There had been too many disasters beginning with the Adonis-like Old Etonian, Luke, who can't stop cheating. What unites her with darkly handsome Tarquin, who follows Clea to the USA, only to rob her? Gordon, a dumpster-diving tweaker who deserts her for a porn star; Saint Peter who persuades her into rehab; sexually confused Brent; violent Conrad and self-obsessed Alfie? Why does she turn down decent Nate who is just too nice?As Clea digs through the evidence, she exposes learned behaviours that keep her dependent. Denial is a powerful drug and the endorphin rush of apologies, promises and make-up sex fix things over and over... until they don't.Rich, powerful and authentic, Some Boys I Knew takes us on a raw, insightful journey to becoming the person Clea most needs: Herself. A vivid memoir from the writer of Tweaking the Dream.

With her Yorkshire dad and Lancashire mum, life in their small terraced house on Minto Street with her five siblings was always going to be quirky for Miss Jean Kevitt. Chaotic and fun-loving, noisy, defined by games and music, they were proud of their dad, a clarinettist in a band. When he wasn't practising, the Third Programme was on and always loud. They had an assortment of instruments but it was their exotic zither that Jean and her sister Chris fought to play. Where it came from they never asked and Jean assumed every house had one. But their zither-a beautiful object sitting among the mundane mess in the pantry-mirrored the loveliness of their life amidst the clutter at 66 Minto Street.Not a typical memoir, A Zither in the Pantry is more a collection of short stories, written with humour by this 11-year-old child. It is also a social commentary on working class life in the 40s and early 50s.

In an embattled world can integrity trump corruption?Hungover and tired after a month doing business in Tirana, and needing to lie low following a threat to his life, Nicholas Wyndham assumes the identity on a placard held up in the arrivals hall at Heathrow.This chance-act, with its ensuing web of deceit, ensnares not only Nicholas, but also Natasha, the young activist who meets him at the airport, and all those around them-with life-changing consequences.Moving across England, Wales, Albania and Denmark, and set against the backdrop of the British General Election of 1997, and the public desire to replace a government beset by allegations of sleaze and incompetence with a fresh and optimistic administration, Deception is a timely exploration of what we mean by power, class, corruption, identity and truth. A compelling story of the potential of the human spirit.

At 44, New York divorcee, Mel, is not ready to give up on God or the possibility of motherhood. Between running an actors' agency in Hammersmith and rehearsing her role in a rock musical, she agrees to take care of her stepdaughter, Jess's challenging four-year-old son, Billy, two afternoons a week. Writing: Playing Billy's Mom on a strip of paper to place in her Gratitude jar, she prays that her good deed will have a pay off: her own fertility.Meanwhile, prepped with hormone tablets and injection at the ready, she awaits the return of charismatic Royce, who has been filming in Hollywood. But all is not well with Royce. A strange incident on Venice Beach after dark has shifted his world. Can he really be cursed? Desperate, Mel reaches out to her friend, Anto. He's gay but wants to be a parent. Thwarted again, will surrogacy be the answer? Will Mel be locked into taking on more responsibility for Billy as Jess spirals into depression following the loss of her father? Or can Mel make a life with the new man in her life, refugee Hassan, suffering from PTSD and raising his disabled eight-year-old son alone?Or will life take an unexpected turn? As Mel's faith moves towards Buddhism under Anto's influence and a friend steps in to help with a problem deeper than infertility that is gripping her life, will she be able to answer the call when an unlooked for opportunity presents itself?A deeply empathic, humane debut, Gratitude asks how we live now and how we make meaning in lives that rarely work to plan.

Lyrical prose, a vivid sense of place and compelling characters who remain with us combine in this outstanding debut novel from Slovenian writer, Brigita Orel.

Poems inspired by the life of Vitalie Rimbaud, mother of the radical poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Vital Signs draws on the inspiration of the medical vital signs in three parts-'Body', 'Pulse' and 'Breath'-each with nine poems that explore romantic love, death and the experiences of grief and loss in a poetry that is as embodied, pulsing with life and rhythmically breathing."Edward Ragg's Vital Signs is a book of mourning, devotion, and creaturely alertness ('Word turned flesh like a foot in dirt'). In delicate, precise rhythms, these poems vivify our sense of the body's pulses, the beating of the heart, the vibrations of the breath. Ragg offers poetry as 'the body's other dance'. Conjuring Celan's 'worldbeat', the poet evokes Beijing snows and Durham skies, a visitation from a bat, the stamping of a bull's foot. These are tender, capacious poems of vigil and remembrance and rededication: elegizing the poet's father; addressing the beloved; limning a northern English landscape of disused mines and small villages; dreaming of 'Venice in a Beijing light'; moving among languages and inheritances. Ragg is a poet of economy, freshness, and subtle musicality. His work is open to traveler's tales and contemporary sculpture and manifests a complex historical consciousness; it bespeaks both a homing instinct and a cosmopolitan scope. We encounter a poet sounding out his vocation, 'listening to whole / bodies of poems echoing across / land and sea'. In Vital Signs, Ragg takes up the oldest tasks of the poet: to listen, to commemorate, to sing. 'Conscious the world's breath / will one day scatter us,' this poet registers 'the end of being echoing'."-Maureen N. McLane"With a deft yet emphatic touch, and by probing the things of life at a molecular level, the poems in Vital Signs continue to seek answers to the unanswerable, to the mysteries which surround and inhabit us. Here, in the conscious company of poet and poem, Edward Ragg explores the palette of the human condition, both at home in the familiar landscapes of family and away at the more foreign destinations and starting points of adulthood, until a kind of alchemy occurs that enables us - in body, pulse and breath - to savour what really matters, and to understand the intricacies of language, love and legacy. Ragg speaks of 'The gamble we take every time / we try to say what we think'. In Vital Signs this gamble pays off as 'certainly as the incoming tide'."-Claire Dyer

In this prize-winning, lyrical debut full collection, we encounter poetry that is both delicate and powerful. Yvonne Baker writes in the liminal space between the interior and exterior world, illuminating both with grace and precision.What it means to belong, how memory constitutes us, how identity shifts and weaves, how we live in an uncertain world with authenticity and without giving up hope-these themes thread together lucid moments and small but vital epiphanies. And even at their most interior, these moments are embodied, we sense the person of another creature, we feel the weight of 'plastic babies', cup in our hands the porcelain of a pot that holds more than air, hear 'the clink of stone and shell' on a shingle beach, sit by a washing machine and weep and feel the 'roots / yellow as old bones, / shift in darkness, undeterred.'Haunted and haunting, Love Haunts in Shades of Blue, conjures the fragility of past and future, but like the 'Bristlecone Pine' offers the faith that '... the heartwood, linking root to trunk, / will be enough to sustain you.'

Formally distinctive and beautifully honed, Mother, (v) is a reflective, precise and poignant sequence exploring fertility and its absence. This is honest, exquisitely realised poetry written with a freshness and intelligence that draws the reader in deeply, confirming Anne Marie Wells as a unique and subtle voice.Following several US publications and awards, including being a Wyoming Woman of Influence nominee in the arts category for amplifying the voices of the LGBTQ and disabled communities, Mother, (v) is Anne Marie Wells' first UK publication, an award-winning chapbook that introduces her work to new audiences.

Emerging from the mid-October drizzle, Miles joins keen members of the Far and Fast Walkers Society in the Surrey Hills. An unnerving presence, he soon usurps the authority of the walk leader, enticing the party to Miteby, a mysterious village not on any map, where the walkers encounter long lost loved ones.Entranced, the group are compelled to return to this idyllic, nostalgic place, there re-living their past in better ways.But Miles has a nemesis, Lucifix, who intervenes, luring people to the Underside, where life's fears, regrets, guilty secrets, obsessions, hatred and betrayal haunt those there. A place of hellish eternal torment.Walking out of this World is an epic duel between two spirits, Miles and Lucifix, that will determine the fate of the walkers. Another original and engaging novel from Stephen Ford, following Destiny of a Free Spirit, about how we can heal our pasts or live trapped in our own shadows.

"A thought-provoking collection that delves into the depths of human emotions, relationships, and the power of language and art, often depicting a sense of longing, loss, and the search for meaning. The poems highlight the consequences of missed opportunities, the weight of regret, and the realisation of one's own limitations. And they explore the transformative power of love-the relationship between the poet and his daughter, Alia, being a recurring theme. Through rich imagery and introspective reflections, Omar Sabbagh invites readers to contemplate the complexities of existence."- Adam Wyeth, Associate Artist, Civic Theatre Dublin"It's always gripping when a writer turns the textual mirror on himself and starts to reflect on his own identity. For Echo is both a highly original poetry collection and a fascinating self-portrait. In it, Omar Sabbagh uses poetry and prose to challenge and dissect his own psyche: an examination more immediate and intimate than any scenes from a life. If Sabbagh's Echo is perhaps the ideal reader, in this book he allows us to see through an exceptional mind's eye. There we glimpse the poet as he turns towards, and away from, the mirror."- Fiona Sampson

Harry Whittaker is a world-famous, superstar actor, as revered as Laurence Olivier, as roguish as Jack Nicholson. When he dies suddenly of a heart attack he finds, to his astonishment, that he's still here among us, able to watch the effect of his mean-spirited will on those left behind. Meanwhile his unacknowledged son Richard is struggling to escape from his failing café in Worthing, his dotty, demanding mother and the wrong girlfriend..."I romped through this! A mad handful of compelling characters, a generous helping of humanity, and a perfect ending. A warm-hearted read that fizzes with life."- Ali Bacon, author of In the Blink of an Eye and A Kettle of Fish"Hugely enjoyable. I loved the idea behind this novel, so funny and original. Bobbie Darbyshire writes with wit, wisdom and warmth."- Sarah Rayner, author of One Moment, One Morning and Searching for Mr Yesterday

Three troubled people, driven by loneliness, vanity and revenge, dash to the Scottish Highlands, where their lives become mysteriously entwined around a reading group in the Inverness public library. We've all done it-gone after one thing and found entirely another-but never as surprisingly as Henry, Peter & Elena. It's Friday, 18th February 2000, and they're in for an unsettling weekend among the book stacks of the library, on the blizzard-bound streets of Inverness, in the recesses of the Loch Craggan Hotel, and on the treacherous mountain above."A laugh-out-loud treat. A magic mix of comedy and wry observation by a writer who is really on her game."- Ron McMillan, author of Yin Yang Tattoo and Don't Think Twice"Bobbie Darbyshire captures the art of good storytelling. A book you can't easily put down. Very entertaining."- Reader, I Read It blog

In Crown of Thorns G W Colkitto presents a playful yet erudite take on sonnets and not sonnets. Layered with references that are used to hold a mirror to the self, and with an astute focus on the business of writing poetry itself, this is a deft, intelligent, witty collection. This award-winning pamphlet is delivered with the lightness of touch we've come to recognise from a poet who constantly extends his reach.

In this award-winning pamphlet, Anne Bateman takes us on journeys, both geographical and emotional. The images in Tattvas are vivid and resonant. There's a strong sense of connections, whether to land or people, communicated with phrases that make us hold our breath as we read. And there is a formal openness to the work that lets in space for us to accompany the author and make our own journeys. An effective and accomplished sequence from the author of My Body Remembers.

Set in a future that may not be too distant, the ice caps have melted and the Atlantic Conveyor of warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic has collapsed, plunging North America and Europe into a new ice age.Famine, death and conflict stalk the frozen continents, but in the city-state of Banda, one Assault Corps lieutenant questions the totalitarian regime, making himself vulnerable just as he meets and falls in love with Galathea, the embodiment of warmth and beauty absent from their society. As they begin to explore the forbidden past together, Banda braces for the next attack... Ambitious and prophetic, this new edition of John Barnie's verse novel, Ice, is increasingly urgent as scientist's debate the possible catastrophe that global warming and human intransigence threaten to unleash. And in the midst of disaster, it asks what it means to be human and how or whether we can retain humanity in the most extreme of circumstances. Powerful and lyrical, Ice chills to the heart, yet there is beauty here, and love, if only humanity will choose it."Ice is a global warning, a chilling prediction of the fate of humanity should we continue abusing the earth at the current rate."-Claire Powell, Poetry Wales"If the poem is trying to tell us anything, it is that we invite in Death (which achieves an almost medieval personification in the poem), not Life when we violate our contract with nature and bury our natural human impulses under a layer of self-generated permafrost. It's an argument with which we may be familiar but this beautifully realised poetic fable clinches it with the resources of a poet who has achieved his most impressive piece of work so far."-Nicholas Murray, New Welsh Review

Elizabeth I has died. Science promises light where superstition offered shadows. Mared believes the old ways still have power but her father - minister, soldier, physician and Master of Cynvael - thinks his eldest daughter should be more like her sister Lizzie, a biddable advocate of this coming age of reason.When Mared uncovers dark arts as well as dark secrets in her father's life, she must join with Lizzie to find truth... and to act.Reworking the legend of Huw Llwyd, The Sisters of Cynvael blends myth and social commentary in a gripping feast of language and invention.

Acutely observed, incisive and precise, The Remaining Men sees Martin Figura combining precision, wit and compassion to produce a collection that is linguistically dexterous and deeply effective.

Welcome-welcome-welcome-welcome to Being Young! And to the inner life and internet ragepage of Natasha [Redacted]. Her first name is all you're getting: there are too many haters, trolls and stupid adults out there.Iffen you understand me then you've picked up the rhythm of my heartbeat and maybe you're a friend. But that means you're a potential danger too, if you get too close and you know too much-be careful.Original, compelling and moving, Natasha [Redacted] is a coming of age story that charts the costs of trying to survive in the poisonous jungle that is 'growing up'.Family breakdown, friends who turn out to be anything but friends, parents and their love interests who want bland conformity above all else, internet wars and real-world violence populate Natasha's 'ragepage'.We see Natasha through her self-appraising 'sleevenotes', penned some time after the events that she describes.At the end of it all, has she grown up?If you've ever loved music with a matchless passion, wanted to form a band and play a gig on the Moon, you could be the friend that Natasha is waiting for.Read on...Andrew Dutton has been writing since the early 2000s and has previously published an e-book of short stories, A Mirror. His work frequently explores life at 'the bottom of the pile', reflecting a long career helping people in financial hardship and debt. Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, he now lives in Derbyshire and draws inspiration and comfort from books, music, cats-and long country walks with his partner and their beloved Labrador. Andrew's previous novels, Nocturne: Wayman's Sky, The Crossword Solver, The Beauty of Chell Street and My Life in Receipts are also published by Cinnamon Press.

A riveting memoir that is as much a history of a time and a place as it is a personal exploration.