Buzzin’ by Bez

Buzzin’
The Nine Lives of a Happy Monday
By Bez
(With Andrew Perry)
White Rabbit / HB / 3 November 2022 / £20
(also available as ebook and audio book)

At the height of his initial, turn-of-the-1990's infamy as the maraca-wielding dancer with 'Madchester' giants Happy Mondays, Mark Berry - forever known to the world as Bez - was visibly a danger to society. He became the so-called Chemical Generation's bug-eyed pied piper, every weekend leading millions out to oblivion and beyond, as they adopted his E-gobbling party lifestyle.

Neither an accomplished musician nor even a very good dancer, Bez was a prime candidate for fleeting celebrity, soon to sink into 'Where Are They Now?' obscurity. That, however, never happened, nor does it show any sign of happening. Through Black Grape, the second band he co-fronted with the Mondays' Shaun Ryder, and his ever-presence in the mass media, Bez's popularity has grown exponentially, his star rocketing ever upwards.

When he bowled into Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, he ended up winning the series, as viewers came to understand his fundamental decency and sunny outlook. His adult life has been extraordinary: unbelievable scrapes with mortality, periods of financial ruin, mindfuck moments like when David Bowie genuflected before him, and enough narcotic-strewn hi-jinx to fill several more volumes of memoir.

Written with the assistance of estimable rock and roll ghostwriter, Andrew Perry (John Lydon, Tricky), this is the story of a bad lad who has turned his life good, tracing his passage from early-thirty-something casualty to middle-aged politician, eco-warrior and bee-aficionado.

‘There is no one like Bez: you could literally throw him out of a helicopter at 60,000 feet and he would land in somebody’s extra-deep swimming pool, get out they would cook him Sunday dinner – and let him stay the night! Shaun Ryder on Bez

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

“Haynes is a master of her trade... She succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories”
- DAILY TELEGRAPH

STONE BLIND
Medusa’s Story
By Natalie Haynes
15th September 2022/ Mantle/ Hardback/ £18.99

Natalie Haynes, the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of A THOUSAND SHIPS, brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before . .

So to mortal men, we are monsters.
Because of our teeth, our flight, our strength.
They fear us, so they call us monsters.

Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her sisters, she quickly realizes that she is the only one who gets older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.

When desire pushes a God to commit the unforgivable, Medusa’s mortal life is changed forever. Her punishment is to be turned into a Gorgon: sharp teeth, snakes for hair, and a gaze that will turn any living creature to stone. Appalled by her own reflection, Medusa can no longer look upon anything she loves without destroying it. She condemns herself to a life of solitude in the shadows to limit her murderous range.

That is, until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .

This is the story of how a young woman became a monster. And how she was never really a monster at all.

ABOUT Natalie Haynes

NATALIE HAYNES is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of novels THE AMBER FURY, shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize; THE CHILDREN OF JOCASTA, a feminist retelling of the Oedipus and Antigone stories and A THOUSAND SHIPS, a retelling of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective; and non-fiction books THE ANCIENT GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE and, most recently, PANDORA’S JAR about the women in Greek myths. She has written and presented seven series of the BBC Radio 4 show, NATALIES HAYNES STANDS UP FOR THE CLASSICS. In 2015, she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. STONE BLIND is her fourth novel.

www.nataliehaynes.com

Natalie Haynes is available for events and interview.

Praise for Haynes’ last novel A THOUSAND SHIPS

“Absorbing and fiercely feminist” – GUARDIAN

“Elegant and intelligent… Haynes combines a wide ranging knowledge of the original myths with a gift for compelling narrative.” – SUNDAY TIMES

“Clever and entertaining” – THE TIMES

“If you are new to myths, then this is a learned, well-fashioned introduction, with many shining moment of subtle power.” – THE SPECTATOR

“Haynes expertly crafts an emotional and vivid historical tale with high stakes and female empowerment at its core.” – WOMAN’S OWN

“This quietly compulsive and revisionist novel extracts these women from the shadows. “Their story will be told”, declares Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, and Natalie Haynes is the right author to do it.” – DAILY MAIL

“Natalie Haynes is swiftly becoming this generation’s Mary Renault; her retelling of the Trojan war from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships, is her best yet” – THE OBSERVER

"With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism, Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War. Her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished." – MADELINE MILLER, AUTHOR OF CIRCE

“The forgotten women are vividly brought to life in this moving, intelligent and witty book. Natalie Haynes’ knowledge of Greek mythology shines through her skilful story telling. Epic is the word” – MARTHA KEARNEY

“Here they all are — the women of antiquity of whom we know much but have heard so little. Not any more… A Thousand Ships gives voice to women and what voices, what women! Haynes takes the baton from Renault and runs with it. Her modern take on antiquity is exquisitely informed without ever being research-heavy. She brings these women and their triumphs and tragedies to life. Glorious!” – DAMIAN BARR

‘Turns the Trojan War into a gripping, feminist masterpiece” - DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE, THE GUILTY FEMINIST PODCAST

The Last Party By Clare Mackintosh

Introducing Dc Ffion Morgan, in the Unmissable New Series From #1 Bestseller Clare Mackintosh

‘I absolutely inhaled this insanely gripping and atmospheric thriller. DC Ffion Morgan and her English counterpart Leo Brady are up there with the greats: Morse and Lewis, Kerrigan and Derwent, Wexford and Burden, Marnie Rome and Noah.’ - Erin Kelly

 ‘Terrific. The Last Party has twists that blindside you all the way, the last of which you’ll never see coming’ - Mari Hannah

‘Superb. A compelling murder mystery told with warmth, humour and enough red herrings to keep even the most seasoned crime reader guessing. Clare Mackintosh’s new series is set to be a sure-fire hit and I can’t wait to find out what kind of crime Ffion is faced with investigating next’ - C.L. Taylor

At midnight, one of them is dead. By morning, all of them are suspects . . .

THE LAST PARTY
By Clare Mackintosh
Sphere / 4th August / HB / £14.99

On New Year's Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests.

His lakeside holiday homes are a success, and he's generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbours. This will be the party to end all parties.

But not everyone is there to celebrate. By midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.

On New Year's Day, DC Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects.

The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbours, friends and family - and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.

With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn't who wanted Rhys dead . . . but who finally killed him. 

In a village with this many secrets, a murder is just the beginning.

The Last Party is a mystery with echoes of Agatha Christie and Scandi-noir but with a modern edge all of Mackintosh’s own, and features her signature strong characters, heartfelt emotion and unpredictable twists and turns. It also draws upon her own experiences as a former police officer.

About Clare Mackintosh

Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of five Sunday Times bestselling novels, including I Let You Go, which was the fastest-selling debut thriller in the year it was released. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, have been New York Times and international bestsellers and have spent a combined total of 64 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart.

Clare spent twelve years in the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. She left the police in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant and is the founder of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival. She now writes full time and lives in Wales with her husband and their three children.

'No one writes a twist like Clare Mackintosh' – Paula Hawkins

'She's a major talent' – Lee Child

'Compulsive, thrilling and just so beautifully done' - Lisa Jewell

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

'A nail-biter of a thriller' Shari Lapena

‘Hypnotically good' Lee Child

'Feels like a blockbuster movie' Lisa Jewell 

‘Utterly riveting’ Lucy Foley

‘A propulsive read – Hostage will have you questioning “what would you do” at every turn’ Karin Slaughter

The jaw-dropping, edge-of-your-seat Sunday Times bestselling thriller

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
Sphere / 23 June / PB / £8.99

Save hundreds of lives. Or save your child?

You're on board the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney. It's a landmark journey, and the world is watching.

Shortly after take-off, you receive a chilling anonymous note.

There are people on this plane intent on bringing it down - and you're the key to their plan.

You'd never help them, even if your life depended on it.

But they have your daughter . . . So now you have to choose.

DO YOU SAVE HUNDREDS OF LIVES? OR THE ONE THAT MATTERS MOST?

'Taking the locked room mystery to a new, white-knuckle extreme, this is electrifying' HEAT

'A thrilling, chilling gut-punch of a book' RED

'The year's most intriguing high-concept plot' DAILY EXPRESS

'Mackintosh is a pro' NEW YORK TIMES

'An incredibly tense read that has a satisfyingly clever ending' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘The book of the summer’ SUN

About Clare Mackintosh

Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of five Sunday Times bestselling novels, including I Let You Go, which was the fastest-selling debut thriller in the year it was released. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, have been New York Times and international bestsellers and have spent a combined total of 64 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart.

Clare spent twelve years in the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. She left the police in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant and is the founder of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival. She now writes full time and lives in Wales with her husband and their three children.

Access All Areas by Barbara Charone

Memoir from the writer and music PR legend Barbara Charone, telling the story of a music-obsessed girl from Chicago who falls in love with British counter-culture, destined to re-shape it for multiple generations

Access All Areas
A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture
By Barbara Charone
Foreword by Elvis Costello
White Rabbit / HB / 23 June 2022 / £20

Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture tells the story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation. With an exclusive foreword from Elvis Costello, Barbara Charone’s debut memoir is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music, from the incredible woman who set the cultural agenda in her work with a myriad of stars including Keith Richards, Foo Fighters, REM, Rod Stewart and Madonna.

First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by Tip Ex, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donnington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate. To taking on Madonna, an unknown girl from Detroit, and telling Smash Hits 'you don't have to run the piece if the single doesn't chart', and becoming a true pioneer in music, Charone continues to work with the biggest names in music, including Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Foo Fighters and Mark Ronson at her agency MBCPR.

ABOUT Barbara Charone

Born in Chicago, Barbara Charone moved to London after graduating from Northwestern University. The first half of her career was spent as a music journalist working for NME, Sounds, Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Cream before writing the authorised biography Keith Richards: Life As A Rolling Stone in 1979.

In November 2000, after almost 20 years at Warner Brothers, Barbara co-founded leading independent music agency MBCPR with Moira Bellas where she still works now. Within six months it became one of the country’s top music PR firms. The current client roster includes: Madonna, Mark Ronson, Foo Fighters, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, Kasabian, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Texas, Rag’n’Bone Man, St Vincent, Pearl Jam, Olly Murs, Ray Davies  and Rufus Wainwright.

Barbara Charone is one of the most respected women working in the music business. In November 2001, Charone and her business partner, Moira Bellas, were honoured as Women of the Year by Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and The Brit Trust and in 2006 and 2009 won the coveted Music Week PR Award.


Brouhaha by Ardal O’Hanlon

The razor-sharp, violent and darkly comic satire on the politics and close-kept secrets of small-town Ireland from actor, comedian and writer Ardal O’Hanlon

‘Ardal O’Hanlon is blessed with a genuine literary talent’ - Mail on Sunday

‘Perceptive, local and wild, a brilliantly imagined deadly serious thriller with a wonderful undertow of soul…’ Tommy Tiernan – comedian, actor and write

Brouhaha by Ardal O’Hanlon
Harper Collins / 26 May 2022 / £16.99
Hardback fiction

Dove Connolly is dead. That’s not good for anyone in Tullyanna, never mind Dove.

Now his best friend Sharkey is home asking awkward questions about Dove’s death, about the strange graphic novel he left behind, and, most of all, about Sandra. Sandra Mohan. Missing now for over a decade, whereabouts unknown.

This, however, is a town dead-set on keeping its secrets. And Sharkey is already drawing attention from all the wrong quarters…

A mystery, a black comedy, and a satire on Ireland’s tangled politics of memory, Brouhaha is an edgy, funny and fierce novel set in a small town on the Irish border during the transition to peace. And peace doesn’t come easy in these parts.

ABOUT Ardal O’Hanlon

Ardal O’Hanlon is an actor, comedian, writer, and documentary filmmaker. A star of several high-profile television series, including Death in Paradise, My Hero, and the BAFTA-winning Father Ted, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Talk of the Town (1998). He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

‘Growing up in the border region, I’ve always been captivated by the language and deadpan character and dark humour of the people and the place. In trying to capture that I’ve tried to write the sort of book I love to read - pacy, thrilling, edgy, insightful, funny, and humane and I really hope people enjoy it.’

Ardal is available for interview and events.

The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson

‘What an astonishing work OCTOPUS MAN is. Schizophrenia is not an easy condition to write about. It scares us. It scares those who live with it even more. But there is a kind of beauty, comedy and transcendence in the way that Jasper Gibson takes us inside the mind of Tom, which lifts the spirits and shows that disorders like his can give as well as take away.’ Stephen Fry

 

‘Funny. Disturbing. Brilliant.’ Lily Allen

 

‘What a brilliant and necessary book. A funny, heart-expanding story of a man trapped between the God-like voice in his head and society's desire for him to be “normal”. It's a deeply compassionate portrait and I felt the frustration of battling a broken mental healthcare system, and the guilt and hope of everyone who loves poor, cheeky, troubled Tom and wants so badly for him to get better.’
Douglas Stuart, author of SHUGGIE BAIN and winner of the Booker Prize

 

'The Octopus Man reminds us that behind the words "mental health" lies a universe of wild creativity, humanity, and spanking big life. A beautiful thing, this is The Dharma Bums meet Clozapine. Now is the time for this book.'
DBC Pierre, author of VERNON GOD LITTLE, winner of the MAN Booker Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award

*The Octopus Man has been optioned by Working Title*

The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson
Paperback / Weidenfeld & Nicolson / 19 May £8.99

I put my hand against the hot patch and return to prayer, closing my eyes to concentrate on my breathing and think only of His love. I love you with all my heart. Please keep me from triggering. Please keep me from madness.

Once an outstanding law student Tom is now lost in the machinery of the British mental health system, talking to a voice no one else can hear: the voice of Malamock, the Octopus God – sometimes cruel, sometimes loving, but always there to guide him.

After a florid psychotic break, the pressure builds for Tom to take part in an experimental drugs trial that promises to silence the voice forever. But no one, least of all Tom, is prepared for what happens when the Octopus God is seriously threatened.

Deeply moving and tragi-comic, The Octopus Man takes us into the complex world of voice-hearing in a bravura literary performance that asks the fundamental questions about belief, meaning, and love.

About Jasper Gibson

Jasper Gibson was born in the Peak District, Derbyshire in 1975. He is the author of one previous novel, A BRIGHT MOON FOR FOOLS (2013). He lives in East Sussex, where the book is set.

Talking Points

  • The inspiration for the novel – a cousin who died at the age of 40 for apparently no reason after two decades of a schizophrenia diagnosis, and the author’s own experiences of psychosis

  • The importance of humanising mental health conditions and the frustration at the usual depiction of people with severe mental health challenges as being violent etc

  • The weight of responsibility when writing fiction based on issues of mental health – and the challenges of writing about voice hearing as a non-voice-hearer

  • The research process - inside the Hearing Voices Network, meeting voice-hearers, visiting frightening psychiatric units, drug trials

  • The mental health system as a microcosm of society at large: materialism, individualism, surveillance, infantilization

  • NB Mental Health Awareness Week is 9-15 May 2022

‘The Octopus Man was a joy to read. I cried with laughter and I just plain cried. It is one of the wittiest and most humane pictures of a person and their mind - a timely conversation about mental health from within the perspective of the subject. It's a beautiful book and so incredibly funny.’ JOHNNY FLYNN

 

'A brave, bold and brilliant exploration of the forces that drive us mad and the wild, crazy journey's back to ourselves and each other. Scary, hilarious and touching. I loved it.'  DR JACQUI DILLON

A letter from the author - Jasper Gibson, 2020

This book started with a knock at the window. I was sitting in a train about to leave London for Glasgow when my girlfriend tapped on the glass, her face fallen, her eyes brimming with tears. She had gone back onto the platform to answer the phone as the reception was so poor, and perhaps that was why they hadn’t been able to get through to my phone at all. The whistle blew. She motioned to me to take our luggage and get off the train. We weren’t going to Glasgow anymore. My cousin Ed had been found dead in his bed. There was no disease, no suicide, no murder. At the age of 40, he had simply stopped living.

Ed, once a handsome and brilliant law student (both my sisters were utterly in love with him), had suffered under a schizophrenia diagnosis and the effects of long-term medication for twenty years. His experiences became the inspiration for Tom Tuplow, the protagonist of The Octopus Man.

What does it feel like to hear voices? To see things no one else can see? To have beliefs which condemn you as mad? What is it like to be caught up in the British mental health system, at the mercy of a scientific consensus that fundamentally rejects your reality? What is it like to be on such heavy drugs that every day you wake up on the bottom of the sea?

I always knew this book had to be first person, present tense. Yet though we see the world through Tom’s eyes, I hope too that the thoughts and feelings of the other characters, particularly his long-suffering sister Tess, are just as real, just as valid.

This is not an anti-psychiatric or indeed political novel, in the sense that its primary concern is not ‘another world is possible’, but rather another possible world. However, if we book-lovers can argue that the novel is the most human of all the arts, and that the lodestone of this artform is the individual, then questions of human dignity are bound to rise when discussing mental health provision. Though for some, receiving the label 'schizophrenic' is a relief, a label the world can understand, for many it means a catastrophic loss of power over oneself and one's decisions. 

Unlike so many portrayals of people with mental health difficulties as either psychopathic killers or 'Rainman'-type idiot savants, this novel hopes to bring a little more reality, and humanity, to those in touch with dimensions the rest of us cannot access. If just one reader doesn't move seats next time they see a person apparently talking to themselves on the bus, but instead wonders what happened to them, what have they suffered, what have they seen, then this book will have been worth it.

The other thing is that it's meant to be funny. I do hope you like it.

A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

From the bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich comes a stunningly evocative portrait of Hitler’s Germany through the people of a single village.

A Village in the Third Reich
How Ordinary Lives were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism
Julia Boyd (with Angelika Patel)
Elliott & Thompson / HB / £25 / 5 May 2022

Oberstdorf is a beautiful village high up in the Bavarian Alps, a place where for hundreds of years ordinary people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even here, in the farthest corner of Germany, National Socialism sought to control not only people’s lives but also their minds.

By putting one village under the microscope, this book evocatively portrays the momentous period of Nazism in Germany. Why did Germans respond to Hitler in the manner that they did? How did their attitudes change as the war progressed? And when all hope was gone and their country lay in ruins, how did they pick themselves up and start again?

Drawing on archive material, letters, interviews and memoirs, A Village in the Third Reich is an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, of the descent into totalitarianism and of the tragedies that befell all of those touched by Nazism. In its pages we meet the Jews who survived – and those who didn’t; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was thought ‘not worth living’.

About Julie Boyd

Julia Boyd is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People. Her previous books include A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony, The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician and Hannah Riddell: An Englishwoman in Japan. As the widow of a former diplomat, she lived in Germany from 1977 to 1981. She lives in London.


About Angelika Patel

Angelika Patel was born into an old Oberstdorf family. She studied History and German Literature before taking an MBA at INSEAD at Fontainebleu. She is the author of Ein Dorf im Spiegel seiner Zeit (A Village in the Mirror of its Time): Oberstdorf 1918–1952. She lives in London and Oberstdorf.

Praise for Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich

‘A compelling historical narrative . . . both flatters and challenges our hindsight. [Boyd] lets her voices, skilfully orchestrated, speak for themselves, which they do with great eloquence.’ – Daily Telegraph

‘Fascinating . . . surreal scenes pepper Boyd’s deep trawl of travellers’ tales from the scores of visitors who were drawn to the ‘new Germany’ in the 1930s.’ – Spectator

‘Contains many amazing anecdotes . . . It warns us that we, with our all-seeing hindsight, might ourselves have been fooled or beguiled or inclined to make excuses, had we been there at the time. I can thoroughly recommend it as a contribution to knowledge and an absorbing and stimulating book in itself.’ – Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday
 

‘Meticulously researched…. thought-provoking reading.’ – Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review

‘A fascinating book.’ – Robert Elms, BBC Radio London

‘To a younger generation it seems incomprehensible that after the tragic Great War people and political leaders allowed themselves to march into the abyss again. Julia Boyd’s book, drawing on wide experience and forensic research, seeks to answer some of these questions.’ – Randolph Churchill

‘With an almost novelistic touch, [Boyd] presents a range of stories of human interest . . . The uncomfortable moral of Travellers in the Third Reich is that people see and hear only what they already want to see and hear.’ – David Pryce-Jones, Standpoint

‘Fascinating . . . This absorbing and beautifully organised book is full of small encounters that jolt the reader into a historical past that seems still very near.’ – Lucy Lethbridge, The Tablet

 
‘In the 1930s the most cultured and technologically advanced country in Europe tumbled into the abyss. In this deeply researched book Julia Boyd lets us view Germany's astonishing fall through foreign eyes. Her vivid tapestry of human stories is a delightful, often moving read. It also offers sobering lessons for our own day when strong leaders are again all the rage.’ – Professor David Reynolds, author of The Long Shadow: The Great War and the 20th Century

‘Drawing on the unpublished experiences of outsiders inside the Third Reich, Julia Boyd provides dazzling new perspectives on the Germany that Hitler built. Her book is a tour de force of historical research.’ – Dr Piers Brendon, author of The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s

‘A truly fascinating read.’ – Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent 

‘A revealing and original account’ – Sir John Tusa
 

‘A glorious read for anyone with an interest in the history of the twentieth century.’ – Sir Christopher Mallaby, former ambassador to Germany and France

‘Unique, original and engagingly written.’ – Dr Zare Steiner, author of The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919–1933

My Rock ’n’ Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn

An exploration of female friendship and women in music, from the iconic singer-songwriter and bestselling author of Another Planet and Bedsit Disco Queen

'Entertaining, affectionate and righteous' Guardian

'Says so much about being a woman' Cosey Fanni Tutti 

‘A gorgeous, vivid account of female friendship, what it is to be a woman in a band, activism, art, motherhood, love and having men take credit for your work’ Sinéad Gleeson 

‘It's such a radical act – as well as a loving one – for a woman to tell the story of her friend like this, and to free her (and all of us, it feels!) from the distorting prism of the male gaze. I honestly wanted to stand up and cheer!’ Melissa Harrison 

‘My Rock ’n’ Roll Friend is a book to treasure, brimming with empathy and good jokes.’ Andrew O’Hagan

My Rock ’n’ Roll Friend
By Tracey Thorn
Paperback / 5 May 2022 / £9.99

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey’s music career was just beginning, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by gossip and feminism, books and gigs and rock ’n’ roll love affairs.

Morrison – a headstrong heroine blazing her way through a male-dominated industry – came to be a kind of mentor to Thorn. They shared the joy and the struggle of being women in a band, trying to outwit and face down a chauvinist music media.

In My Rock 'n' Roll Friend Thorn takes stock of thirty-seven years of friendship, teasing out the details of connection and affection between two women who seem to be either complete opposites or mirror images of each other. This important book asks what people see, who does the looking, and ultimately who writes women out of – and back into – history.

ABOUT Tracey Thorn

Tracey Thorn is a singer-songwriter and writer, best known for her 17 years in bestselling duo Everything But The Girl. She has released four solo albums, one movie soundtrack, a large handful of singles, and three books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers Another Planet and Bedsit Disco Queen. She has been a judge of the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Goldsmiths Prize and writes regularly for the New Statesman. She lives in London, with her husband Ben Watt and their three children.


@tracey_thorn | traceythorn.com

No Way to Die by Tony Kent

Like Baldacci at his best.’ Steve Cavanagh

‘A pulsating action thriller’ Sunday Times

The fourth adrenaline-fueled thriller from author of Zoe Ball Book Club and Richard & Judy Book Club picks

A deadly threat. A ghost from the past. And time is running out…

NO WAY TO DIE
Tony Kent
Boxer. Barrister. Thriller Writer.
PB / 7 April 2022 / Elliott & Thompson / £7.99

When traces of a radioactive material are found with a body in Key West, multiple federal agencies suddenly descend on the scene. This is not just an isolated murder - a domestic terrorist group is ready to bring the US government to its knees.

The threat hits close to home for Agent Joe Dempsey when he discovers a personal connection to the group. With his new team member, former Secret Service agent Eden Grace, Dempsey joins the race to track down the bomb before it’s too late. But when their mission falls apart, he is forced to turn to the most unlikely of allies: an old enemy he thought he had buried in his past.

Now, with time running out, they must find a way to work together to stop a madman from unleashing horrifying destruction across the country.

About Tony Kent

Tony Kent is a practising criminal barrister who draws on his legal experience to bring a striking authenticity to his thrillers: Killer Intent, Marked for Death, Power Play and now No Way To Die.

Ranked as a ‘leader in his field’ Tony has prosecuted and defended in the most serious trials during his twenty years at the Criminal Bar - specialising in murder, terrorism, corruption, kidnap and organised crime. His case history is filled with nationally reported trials and his practice has brought him into close professional contact with GCHQ, the Security Service and the Ministry of Defence. He has also defended in matters with an international element, involving agencies such as the FBI.

Tony also appears as a criminal justice expert on a number of TV shows, including Meet, Marry, Murder (coming soon to Netflix), My Lover, My Killer and Kill Thy Neighbour (both Channel 5).

Prior to his legal career Tony represented England as a heavyweight boxer and won a host of national amateur titles.

 He lives just outside of London with his wife, young son and dog.

Earthed by Rebecca Schiller

‘Wow! A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind; a story of our interconnection and an ambitious search for the truth.’ - Amy Liptrot

‘A powerfully confessional memoir that excavates important truths about our lives, our selves and our dreams - and what happens when we have to let go.’ – Clover Stroud

‘The 'how I moved to a field and had a breakdown book' that desperately needed to be written. Incredibly bold, brave, poetic and absolutely beautiful: a fascinating insight into the mind.’ – Sophie Heawood

‘Earthed is Rebecca Schiller’s powerful, poetic meditation on the process of falling apart, and her love letter to the land that rooted and rebuilt her. A deeply affecting read.’ - Leah Hazard 

‘A moving, intriguing and beautifully conceived exploration of place, person and planet through time, Earthed speaks to the struggles of holding on during dark days and the power of hope in hard times.’ - Rob Cowen 

‘This is a hard and beautiful read. The tough truth about the simple life.’ – Eva Wiseman

Earthed
by Rebecca Schiller
Elliott & Thompson / 10 March 2022 / paperback / memoir / £9.99

Can the good life ever be the simple life?

 After moving to a countryside smallholding, Rebecca Schiller finds that her family's new life – despite its beautiful surroundings – is far from simple. Overwhelmed by what she has taken on and reeling from the turmoil in the wider world, she turns to her land, searching for answers and hope.

Here, she begins to uncover the hidden layers of her plot's history – and of herself. As the seasons shift, the ground under Rebecca's boots offers hard lessons, revealing brutal truths about the past, our planet and the seeds she holds in her hands.

Yet as a New Year arrives, offering a life-changing diagnosis and a global emergency, Rebecca begins to move forwards with understanding: the smallholding has become her anchor and her family's shelter; an ancient oak tree her compass and guide. Because when we find ourselves lost, we all need something to hold on to – a way to keep ourselves earthed.

About Rebecca Schiller

Rebecca Schiller is an author and journalist. She is co-founder and trustee of the human rights charity Birthrights and a regular contributor to the Guardian. Rebecca and her family raise a motley crew of goats, geese, ducks and chickens and work their Kent smallholding to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers and restore wildlife to the land.

Talking Points

Mental health and the cost of hidden neurodiversity:

  • in a time of pandemic as well as personal, political and environmental crisis

  • exposing the destructive burden of undiagnosed ADHD

  • the feminist issues raised by widespread underdiagnosis in women and girls and the extraordinary pressures of lockdown motherhood

  • the highs and lows of smallholding as therapy: working the land, tending livestock and growing food to rebuild after breakdown and overwhelm  

The real story of the not-so-simple life:

  • exploring our impulse to go back to nature, self-sufficiency, sowing and growing in uncertain times

  • the practical lessons and joys of smallholding life: from breeding goats and 'counting chickens', to growing food as a family

  • an unflinching look at the back-breaking, marriage-straining reality of following our post-pandemic escape-to-the-countryside dreams

Uncovering our land's hidden histories and politics:

  • stories of the neglected women of our land's past and how their voices can help us today

  • tracing an English country garden back to our brutal, colonial roots

  • looking towards an uncertain future where climate change, political division, race inequality and pandemics collide

  • asking how to live, love and thrive in complicated times of hope, fear and change

The linocut on the jacket of Earthed was designed and painted by Anne Fewster using natural inks and pigments made from the author's smallholding, land and garden.

Happy Mind, Happy Life by Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Happy Mind, Happy Life
10 Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day
By Dr Rangan Chatterjee
31 March 2022 | Trade Paperback | Penguin Life | £16.99

‘Simple, genius and reassuring.ʼ Chris Evans

‘No matter how happy you feel, this book will lift you up and make you stronger.' Fearne Cotton

‘A well-researched, personal and entirely user friendly guide for anyone who worries they may have their priorities wrong and who sees a more contented life.ʼ Matt Haig

‘This book will change your life for the better.ʼ The Happy Pear

‘Ranganʼs latest book gets to the crux of what truly matters. Contentment, peace and happiness. This is a joy to read and a simple framework that you can put into practice immediately.ʼ Dr Rupy Aujla

Happiness is good for your health. Learn how to nurture yours.

During his 20 years as a GP, Dr Rangan Chatterjee has seen first-hand how motivation isn't always enough for us to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It's only when we learn how to support our own mental wellbeing and cultivate core happiness that these choices become easy.

In his latest book, Dr Chatterjee shares cutting-edge insights into the science of happiness and reveals 10 simple ways to put you back in control of your health. It features real-life case studies and over 20 practical exercises, including lessons on how to:

1. Define what success means to you.
2. Treat yourself with compassion.
3. Have more genuine, ‘masklessʼ conversations.
4. Deal with criticism

Whether you are at a crisis point or simply want to experience more joy, this book will help you feel calmer, more confident, and able to live your life to the full.

  • How to re-define what success means to you – Ranganʼs upbringing prized ‘successʼ and ‘achievementʼ over happiness and he says, ‘the single biggest problem people have in their search for happiness is them confusing it with success.ʼ

  • How to eliminate too much choice in your life, and why all this choice can be a hidden stressor.

  • Why it is so important to treat yourself with respect – and the link between self-compassion and physical health

  • How and why to treasure your time

  • How to deal with criticism

  • How to talk to strangers – and the importance of micro-connections

  • How to create distance from your phone, and why this will improve your relationships.

  • How to have Maskless Conversations, and make time for interactions where you can truly be yourself

  • How to take your daily holiday – the importance of doing something that brings you into the present moment and helps you to find a time of stillness

  • How to practice gratitude, and the health benefits of prioritising the happiness of others.

ABOUT Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK. A practising GP for the last two decades, Dr Chatterjee wants to inspire people to transform their health and happiness through making small sustainable changes to their lifestyles. Leading the charge on how healthcare and medicine is understood in the UK, Dr Chatterjee has co-created and teaches the widely acclaimed 'Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine' course with the Royal College of GPs, that has now been delivered to thousands of doctors and healthcare professionals. Dr. Chatterjee hosts the most listened to health podcast in the UK and Europe, ‘Feel Better, Live Moreʼ which is one of Apple's most downloaded podcasts. His mission is to empower 100 million people to become the architect of their own health and to help them feel fantastic with simple, practical and digestible information. He is the author of four bestselling books and regularly appears on BBC television, national radio and has been featured in numerous international publications including The New York Times, Forbes, The Guardian, The Times, Grazia, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail and his TED talk, How To Make Disease Disappear, has been viewed almost 4.4 million times. He lives in Wilmslow with his wife and their two children.

Are you ready to get good at happy?

Clare Mackintosh

Sphere takes two more from number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh, and launches her first-ever crime series

Number one Sunday Times bestseller Clare Mackintosh is launching her first-ever crime series this summer, beginning with The Last Party. The series will be set against the wild, beautiful backdrop of Snowdonia, Mackintosh’s home, and star the fiery DC Ffion Morgan.

The Last Party is a mystery with echoes of Agatha Christie and Scandi-noir but with a modern edge all of Mackintosh’s own, and features her signature strong characters, heartfelt emotion and unpredictable twists and turns. It also draws upon her own experiences as a former police officer. Rhys Lloyd, a home-grown hero who has returned to build controversial holiday homes on the shore of Llyn Drych (Mirror Lake), is found floating dead in the water on New Year’s Day, the morning after a party that brought together the feuding villagers and locals. DC Ffion Morgan has to investigate her neighbours, friends and family – and in a village with this many secrets, a murder is just the beginning.

Mackintosh will be undertaking a major tour to mark the start of the series, travelling throughout Wales sharing proofs of The Last Party with bookshops as well as visiting stores across the UK.

Cath Burke, executive publisher for Sphere, and Lucy Malagoni, fiction publisher at Sphere, also acquired world rights in two further thrillers in a deal with Sheila Crowley at Curtis Brown. The first book will be the next DC Morgan mystery, publishing in 2023.

Lucy Malagoni, Publisher for Sphere Fiction, said: “I can't wait to invite readers to The Last Party this summer and introduce them to the brilliant DC Ffion Morgan. Myself and the team at Sphere have had the privilege of working with Clare and Sheila since the launch of I Let You Go, and it never ceases to be a thrill. Clare raises the bar with every book she writes, and we are as ambitious as ever for this exceptional new series.”

Clare Mackintosh said: “I have an incredible team at Sphere, not only in editorial, but across marketing, PR, sales and more. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be staying with this stellar crew for another two books, and I can’t wait to introduce DC Ffion Morgan to my readers.” 

Sheila Crowley said: “It is wonderful working with Clare Mackintosh who is always finding new ways to reach her readers, and works tirelessly with the Sphere team in developing innovative campaigns. This exciting new series will bring Clare to an even wider audience.”

Clare Mackintosh’s books have won multiple awards, sold over 2 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. The Last Party publishes on 4th August.

How We Met by Huma Qureshi

‘A tale of patience, tenderness and love that’ll add sunshine to your year.’
-Stylist (best non-fiction, 2021) 

‘A beautiful, refreshing and honest memoir about family, love, inheritance and loss that is warm and authentic’ - Nikesh Shukla

How We Met
A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures
By Huma Qureshi
Paperback / non-fiction / Elliott & Thompson / 3 February 2022 / £9.99

You can’t choose who you fall in love with, they say.

If only it were that simple.

Growing up in Walsall in the 1990s, Huma straddles two worlds – school and teenage crushes in one; the expectations and unwritten rules of her family’s south Asian social circle in the other. Reconciling the two is sometimes a tightrope act, but she manages it. Until it comes to marriage.

Caught between familial duty and her own appetite for adventure, Huma seeks refuge in Paris and imagines a future full of possibility. And then her father has a stroke and everything changes.  

As she learns to focus on herself she realises that searching for a suitor has been masking everything that was wrong in her life. Marriage – arranged or otherwise – can’t be the all-consuming purpose of her life. And then she meets someone. Neither Pakistani nor Muslim nor brown, and therefore technically not suitable at all. When your worlds collide, how do you measure one love against another?

As much as it is about love, How We Met is also about how we fall out with and misunderstand each other, and how sometimes even our closest relationships can feel so far away. Warm, wise, tender and hopeful, this is a coming-of-age story about what it really means to find 'happy ever after'.

ABOUT Huma Qureshi

Huma Qureshi is an award-winning writer and journalist, and contributor to The Best Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood (2020). Her collection of stories, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love (Sceptre, Nov ’21), has been described as ‘deft, satisfying and poignant’ (Pandora Sykes).

A former Guardian reporter, she has also written for The Times, Independent, Observer, Grazia, Red, Harpers, New Statesman and The Huffington Post. She is a regular contributor to BBC2’s Pause for Thought and has appeared as a contributor on BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC London, BBC Breakfast and the BBC Asian Network. She is the winner of the 2020 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize.

Selected Praise for How We Met

‘A sweet, touching memoir about family, faith and love. There's a purity and simplicity to Huma's writing, as she attempts to reconcile the sprawling weight of expectation with her own desire for a contained but free life. But what does a life on her own terms look like? What even are her own terms?  A consolation to others who have trod this very path, enlightening for those of us who haven't, you'll be rooting for not just Huma, but for everyone she loves too.’ Pandora Sykes

‘I just loved loved loved loved How We Met. A love story about panic, faith, family, duty, living on your own, work, grief and trust. It delves into love and politics in the British South Asian community and left me beaming.’ Nell Frizzell, author of The Panic Years

‘This beautiful, romantic memoir grabs you from the first page and won’t let you go. Told with heart, wit and quiet restraint, How We Met is the story of how we can transcend the expectations of others and arrange our own happiness in life and in love.’ Viv Groskop

‘A wonderful read - a memoir of grief, becoming and true love. Huma Qureshi is a writer with a sharp eye and a romantic heart.’ Katherine May, author of Wintering

'I devoured this brilliant memoir! Huma's voice is effortless, beautiful, incredibly refreshing and so relatable. I highly recommend it' Haleh Agar, author of Out of Touch

‘There are the books that touch you. Then there are the books that open out their arms and straight out hug you - How We Met is this second kind of book. Honest, joyful, at times heart-breaking, at times laugh out loud funny, but always generous in its telling... this is Huma Qureshi, heart and soul.’ Ami Rao, author of David and Ameena

‘A fearlessly honest memoir of courage, love and loss, and trying to find your place in the world. Quietly heart-breaking but life-affirming too.’ Kia Abdullah, author of Take It Back

‘Every page radiates Huma’s love for her family, for her emerging self, and for the possibilities of a life more fully lived’ Leah Hazard, author of Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story

‘Huma Qureshi tells the story of her great loves with generosity and tenderness that will grab readers by the heart.'  Jean Hannah Edelstein, author of This Really Isn't About You

'How We Met is the book I, and countless women of similar heritage, have been waiting our whole lives for. I cried and laughed out loud as I recognised myself in so much of Huma Qureshi's story.’ Saima Mir, author of The Khan

‘I loved every minute.’ Laura Pearson

Write It All Down by Cathy Rentzenbrink

9781529056228.jpg

Write It All Down
How to Put Your Life on the Page
By Cathy Rentzenbrink
6th January 2022 / hardback / £14.99

'Astonishingly good, not just on how to write about your life, but why to as well.’
Steve Biddulph, bestselling author of 'Raising Boys'

Why do we want to write and what stops us?

How does the urge to express ourselves fight with the worry that no-one will care or that we will get in trouble?

How do we identify and overcome everything that gets in our way so we can start making work? 

Sunday Times bestselling author Cathy Rentzenbrink shows you how to tackle all this and more in Write It All Down, a guide to putting your life on the page. This is a kind, encouraging and stimulating book that explores the nature of memoir writing and offers helpful guidance on how to write your life on paper. Rentzenbrink will help you to discover the pleasure and solace to be found in writing; the profound satisfaction of wrestling a story onto a page and seeing the events of your life transformed through the experience of writing the self. 

Perfect for both seasoned writers as well as writing amateurs and everyone in between, this helpful handbook will steer you through the philosophical and practical challenges of writing the self. Intertwined with reflections, anecdotes and exercises from successful writers such as Dolly Alderton, Matt Haig, Kit de Waal, Sathnam Sanghera and Maggie O’Farrell, Write It All Down is at once an intimate and enjoyable narrative and an invitation to share your story.

TALKING POINTS

  • ‘How writing changed my life’ - Cathy’s personal story

  • Top 5 tips on how to write your own story 

  • How to use this book for your own wellbeing

  • Writing in a digital world: the importance of storytelling

  • New Year’s Resolutions – why you shouldn’t diet, but learn something new instead

  • Therapy – both Cathy’s personal experiences, and how to use writing as therapy.

Cathy Rentzenbrink Author photo.jpg

ABOUT Cathy Rentzenbrink

Cathy Rentzenbrink is the author of the Sunday Times best-seller The Last Act of Love and of A Manual for Heartache, Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books and Everyone is Still Alive. It took her twenty years to wrestle her own life story on the page and she loves to use what she has learnt about the profound nature of writing the self in the service of others.

Cathy has taught for Arvon, Curtis Brown Creative, at Falmouth University and at festivals and in prisons, and welcomes anyone, no matter what their experience, education, background or story. She believes that everyone’s life would be improved by picking up a pen and is at her happiest when encouraging her students to have the courage to delve into themselves and see the magic that will start to happen on the page. 

Website - https://cathyreadsbooks.com/
Instagram – @writeitalldown_
Twitter - @catrentzenbrink

The Battle of the Brits returns

Jamie Murray to bring together Britain’s best tennis players in Scotland this December.

 
The Battle of the Brits logo
 

Jamie Murray is back in his Tournament Director’s chair and bringing live tennis to Scotland with a special Battle of the Brits - Scotland versus England event to be held on 21-22 December 2021 at Aberdeen’s P&J Live Arena.

Players competing for the trophy will include Jamie, seven-time Grand Slam champion in doubles and mixed doubles, former World No. 1 in men’s doubles, and Davis Cup winner, and Sir Andy Murray, the former World No. 1, two-time Wimbledon champion, US Open and Davis Cup winner and two-time Olympic champion. The tournament will give Scottish sports fans their first chance to watch the Murrays play live on home turf since Andy took on Roger Federer in the Andy Murray Live event in Glasgow in November 2017.

Andy Murray and Jamie Murray

Andy Murray and Jamie Murray

A Scotland team spearheaded by the Murrays will face tough competition from an England line-up that is set to feature their Davis Cup team-mate Dan Evans. At 28 in the world rankings, Evans is currently the UK’s No.1 male player and recently won his first ATP Tour title in Melbourne.  Evans, from Birmingham, is known for his entertaining tennis and feisty on-court demeanour.

A full list of players, and a broadcast partner for Battle of the Brits – Scotland versus England will be released in the coming weeks.

“I am super excited to bring live tennis to Scotland.  Andy and I have had some incredible experiences competing as part of Team GB in Davis Cup in Scotland but to be able to represent Scotland is such a unique opportunity for us especially against England!  I would love to think Andy’s and my achievements can inspire a passion for tennis in Scotland and help build a lasting legacy for the sport here. Bringing big tennis events to Scotland is a huge part of that - this will be an amazing two days of tennis and entertainment for all the family.”
— Jamie Murray

The event itself will feature six matches, four singles and two doubles, played over an intense two-day period. This domestic event follows the successful launch of ‘Battle of the Brits’ in July 2020 at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, which was followed by a high-profile mixed team event the following month and a third men’s and women’s singles tournament last December at the same venue.

Let the Battle Begin!

Notes to editors:

Jamie Murray

Jamie Murray, 35, is a professional tennis player from Dunblane, Scotland.

As a young player he was coached by his mother, Judy, and by the age of 12 was one of the top three players in Europe alongside Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet.  He was a GB Junior Internationalist from the age of 10-17 and National 18 + under Boys Doubles Champion in 2002.  He made the decision to concentrate on doubles as a career in 2006. The following year at the age of 21, he won his first Grand Slam title in the mixed doubles at Wimbledon with Jelena Jankovic. Since then, Jamie has gone on to claim 23 ATP doubles titles and captured two men’s Grand Slam doubles titles, at the Australian Open and the US Open in 2016 with current partner Bruno Soares. He picked up another two mixed doubles Grand Slam titles in 2017 with Martina Hingis at Wimbledon and the US Open and most recently he partnered Bethanie Mattek-Sands at the 2018 and 2019 US Opens, his sixth and seventh Grand Slam victories. He was also a key member of the GB team which won the Davis Cup in 2015.

Jamie lives in Wimbledon, London, with his wife Alejandra, who he married in 2010 at Cromlix House near Dunblane. Away from tennis, Jamie enjoys golf (right-handed), playing off a handicap of four. He is a member of Wentworth Club. Jamie is also a columnist with BBC Sport.

Murray was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to tennis and charity.

Battle of the Brits

  • Created by Jamie Murray in response to the lack of tournament tennis during the COVID 19 pandemic, the Battle of the Brits is now one of the UK’s leading tennis events series. Battle of the Brits - Scotland versus England will be the fourth tournament in the series after:

    July 2020 - Schroders Battle of the Brits (Men's singles and Men's doubles)

    August 2020 - St. James's Place Battle of the Brits Team Tennis Event (Men's and women's combined team event)

    December 2020 - Battle of the Brits Premier League of Tennis (Men's singles and women's singles events)

  • So far Battle of the Brits events have raised over £100,000 for NHS charities.

  • The P&J Live Arena is a brand new, purpose-built venue located just 1.5 miles from Aberdeen International Airport. Boasting a seating capacity of over 7,000 attendees, the arena is a fully sustainable venue being powered by Aberdeen’s food and garden waste. 2021’s ‘Battle of the Brits’ event will be a carbon neutral tournament and in partnership with the venue, there will be a focus on sustainability across the entire supply chain, from reducing plastic consumption through to supporting local food banks, and carbon off-setting.

  • Tickets for the event are released on Ticketmaster at 1pm on Friday 26th February.

The Players

  • Sir Andy Murray OBE is one of the most successful British sportsmen of all time. He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2012 US Open then became the first British man in 77 years to win the Wimbledon singles title the following year. He earned a second Wimbledon trophy in 2016 and is also the first man ever to win a Gold medal for singles in back-to-back Olympic Games (2012 and 2016). He has won 46 ATP Tour titles, including the prestigious ATP World Tour Finals in 2016. He is an eight-time Grand Slam runner-up, having reached five Australian Open finals, the 2008 US Open final, the 2021 Wimbledon final and the 2016 Roland Garros final. In 2015 he joined forces with Jamie in Great Britain’s famous Davis Cup team victory, and in 2016 he ended the year as No. 1 in the world in singles. He was knighted in 2017 having previously been made an OBE.

  • Thirty-year-old Dan Evans is currently Britain’s No.1 male tennis player, having hit a career-high ranking of 26 in the world in February of this year after winning his first ATP Tour title at the Murray River Open in Melbourne. Nicknamed “Evo”, Evans has played alongside the Murray brothers in Great Britain's Davis Cup team since 2009 and his eye-catching tennis and gritty, fighting spirit have earned him many important wins in team situations. His best performance at a Grand Slam came at the 2017 Australian Open, where he reached the fourth round. Evans has been part of all three Battle of the Brits events, winning the inaugural tournament in London in June 2020. Evans was born in Birmingham in 1990 and still lives and trains in the city. His Dad David is an electrician, and his mum Bernadette is a nurse. As a child he was a keen squash player before switching to tennis, where his immense flair and natural talent allowed him to score wins over taller, stronger rivals.

  • Details of more players to be released in the coming weeks.

More information at:

For more information, or to request an interview with Jamie, please email media@battleofthebrits.co.uk

No Way to Die by Tony Kent

‘Like Baldacci at his best.’ Steve Cavanagh

The fourth adrenaline-fueled thriller from author of Zoe Ball Book Club and Richard & Judy Book Club picks

A deadly threat. A ghost from the past. And time is running out…

No way to die.jpg

NO WAY TO DIE
By Tony Kent
Boxer. Barrister. Thriller Writer.
HB / 18 November 2021 / Elliott & Thompson / £16.99

When traces of a radioactive material are found with a body in Key West, multiple federal agencies suddenly descend on the scene. This is not just an isolated murder - a domestic terrorist group is ready to bring the US government to its knees.

The threat hits close to home for Agent Joe Dempsey when he discovers a personal connection to the group. With his new team member, former Secret Service agent Eden Grace, Dempsey joins the race to track down the bomb before it’s too late. But when their mission falls apart, he is forced to turn to the most unlikely of allies: an old enemy he thought he had buried in his past.

Now, with time running out, they must find a way to work together to stop a madman from unleashing horrifying destruction across the country.

ABOUT TONY KENT

Tony Kent

Tony Kent is a practising criminal barrister who draws on his legal experience to bring a striking authenticity to his thrillers: Killer Intent, Marked for Death, Power Play and now No Way To Die.

Ranked as a ‘leader in his field’ Tony has prosecuted and defended in the most serious trials during his twenty years at the Criminal Bar - specialising in murder, terrorism, corruption, kidnap and organised crime. His case history is filled with nationally reported trials and his practice has brought him into close professional contact with GCHQ, the Security Service and the Ministry of Defence. He has also defended in matters with an international element, involving agencies such as the FBI.

Tony also appears as a criminal justice expert on a number of TV shows, including Meet, Marry, Murder (coming soon to Netflix), My Lover, My Killer and Kill Thy Neighbour (both Channel 5).

Prior to his legal career Tony represented England as a heavyweight boxer and won a host of national amateur titles.

He lives just outside of London with his wife, young son and dog. 

NB Tony Kent is a pseudonym for Tony Wyatt.

NO WAY TO DIE will be published in paperback in April 2022, when Tony will be available for interview and to write features.

Selected Praise for No Way To Die

’An intricate twisty minefield . . . Kent has outdone himself’ - DAVID BALDACCI 

‘Twist after twist ... it builds to a brilliant finale’ - DAILY MIRROR

‘A high-octane conspiracy yarn’ - THE TIMES

‘A gripping conspiracy thriller’ - IAN RANKIN

The Dublin Railway Murder by Thomas Morris

The Dublin. Railway murder

The Dublin Railway Murder
The sensational true story of a Victorian murder mystery
By Thomas Morris
Published 11 November 2021 | £14.99 | Hardback | ebook
Harvill Secker is part of Vintage

A thrilling and perplexing investigation of a true Victorian crime at a Dublin railway station.

Dublin, November 1856: George Little, the chief cashier of the Broadstone railway terminus, is found dead, lying in a pool of blood beneath his desk.

He has been savagely beaten, his head almost severed; there is no sign of a murder weapon, and the office door is locked, apparently from the inside. Thousands of pounds in gold and silver are left untouched at the scene of the crime.

Augustus Guy, Ireland's most experienced detective, teams up with Dublin's leading lawyer to investigate the murder. But the mystery defies all explanation, and two celebrated sleuths sent by Scotland Yard soon return to London, baffled.

Five suspects are arrested then released, with every step of the salacious case followed by the press, clamouring for answers. But then a local woman comes forward, claiming to know the murderer....

The Dublin Railway Murder tells the story of the extraordinary 1856 murder mystery that gripped a nation - and the sensational trial that followed. Thomas Morris discovered a treasure trove of contemporary documents in the Irish national archives - including original police interviews, surveillance reports and secret government memos, undisturbed for years - that have allowed him to reconstruct the twists and turns of a complex nineteenth-century murder inquiry in unprecedented detail. The Dublin Railway Murder is a fascinating in-depth investigation that reads like a mystery novel.

Talking Points

  • Britain’s ‘spying scoundrels’ – the ambivalent role of the Dublin detective force, the eyes and ears of the British state.

  • Phrenology and Frederick Bridges – how one Victorian scientist used this case to test his theory that he could identify a murderer by the shape of their skull (supported by the prime minister Lord Palmerston)

  • Reconstructing a murder inquiry – how the discovery of a cache of secret government documents made it possible to piece together the processes of a 19th-century murder investigation, including extraordinary details never before revealed to the public.

  • The imperfect art of detection – how the flaws in this investigation reveal how detective methodology was changing (awareness of forensics, use of the press, criminal psychology)

  • The role of the press in Victorian murder inquiries – revealing hugely sensitive information, but also spreading unsubstantiated rumours.

  • The corporate fraud epidemic of the 1850s, and the larger-than-life characters who embezzled vast sums from their employers.

Selected praise for The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations

'Thrilling… The “dizzying” story of heart surgery is every bit as important as that of the nuclear, computer or rocket ages. And now it has been given the history it deserves.'  James McConnachie, Sunday Times

‘The research that has gone into this book is simply staggering… a wonderful book’.
Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph

‘Gripping... breath-taking.’ John Crace, Guardian

‘Morris has made something unique: a history less of people than of procedures, but lively, enthusiastic and brimming with detail.’ Gavin Francis, New Statesman

‘pulse-thumpingly gripping.’ Mark Lawson

‘Tremendous…It’s rich in extraordinary detail and stories that will amaze you. A wonderful book.’ 
Melvyn Bragg

ABOUT Thomas Morris

Thomas Morris is a writer and historian. His first book The Matter of the Heart (Bodley Head, 2017), a critically-acclaimed history of cardiac surgery, won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for non-fiction. He is also the author of The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth (Bantam, 2018). He was previously a BBC radio producer for 18 years, and his freelance journalism has appeared in publications including The Times, The Lancet and the TLS.

@thomasngmorris / http://www.thomas-morris.uk

The Power of Geography By Tim Marshall

The Sunday Times bestseller and much-anticipated sequel to the million-copy selling Prisoners of Geography is out now in paperback

 

‘I can’t imagine reading a better book this year.’ Mirror

 

'Another outstanding guide to the modern world. Tim Marshall is a master at explaining what you need to know and why.'

- Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

The Power of Geography

The Power of Geography
Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
By Tim Marshall
7 October 2021 / Paperback / £9.99. Also available in ebook and audio

If you want to understand what’s happening in the world, look at a map.

Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed, but the world has.

In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry. Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground.

 In ten chapters covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran,  Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present – and future.

‘This valuable book is an urgent and accessible study of the facts and forces that will shape our future on earth and beyond.’ - Ed Husain, author of The House of Islam

'A skilful navigation of the regions that could define geopolitics for future generations. One to read to stay ahead of the game.' - Dharshini David, author of The Almighty Dollar

‘A compelling account of the return of geopolitics by the master of maps.’ - Professor Brendan Simms, author of Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation

‘Marshall’s books are excellent for anyone who takes satisfaction in understanding the world and who harbours a fascination for the shifting alliances…. Each segment of The Power of Geography is accessible, although by no means simple. Marshall covers much ground, moving smoothly through each nation’s background, current struggles and options for the future….A sharp and concise evaluations of today’s geopolitics.’ Geographical

ABOUT Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs with more than 30 years of reporting experience. He was diplomatic editor at Sky News, and before that was working for the BBC and LBC/IRN radio. He has reported from 40 countries and covered conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Libya. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps that Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics and Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls as well as Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags; and Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire.
 
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A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues By Peter Hughes

A timely and compelling history of the destruction of 21 statues spanning every continent, religion, and era.

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A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues
By Peter Hughes
Aurum / 7 September 2021 / hardback / £20

Statues have become a battleground for identity and culture wars as our collective history fractures and we fight over how to understand our past and shape the future.

A British slave trader dumped in the river.

An Aboriginal warrior twice beheaded.

A Chinese philosopher consumed by fire.

Confederate soldiers hacked to pieces.

A Greek goddess left to rot in the desert...

Statues stand as markers of collective memory connecting us to a shared sense of belonging. When societies fracture into warring tribes, we convince ourselves that the past is irredeemably evil. So, we tear down our statues, forgetting that what begins with the destruction of statues, so often ends with the killing of people.

Peter Hughes’ original approach blends philosophy, psychology and history in a meditation on identity which is also a heartfelt plea for tolerance.  A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues is profound and necessary and it resonates powerfully as statues tumble around the world.

The 21 statues are: Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt), Nero (Suffolk, UK), Athena (Syria), Buddhas of Bamiyan (Afghanistan), Hecate (Constantinople), Our Lady of Caversham (near Reading, UK), Huitzilopochtli (Mexico), Confucius (China), Louis XV (France), Mendelssohn (Germany), The Confederate Monument (US), Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada), Christopher Columbus (Venezuela), Edward Colston (Bristol, UK), Cecil Rhodes (South Africa), George Washington (US), Stalin (Hungary), Yagan (Australia), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), B. R. Ambedkar (India) and Frederick Douglass (US).

The book includes a black and white illustration of each statue and an illustrated map showing their geographical location.

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ABOUT PETER HUGHES

Dr. Peter Hughes is a philosopher and psychologist with expertise in how individuals succumb to the madness of crowds. He has a PhD in philosophy from Warwick University and is a member of the British Psychological Society. He has worked with extremes of human behaviour and his combination of academic expertise and real-world experience give him a unique perspective on the statue wars.

 A regular broadcaster, he has contributed to programmes including the BBC’s Addicted to Pleasure with Brian Cox and documentaries about Amy Winehouse, Eminem and Harvey Weinstein. Peter is also a successful entrepreneur and his previous book, 65 Roses and a Trunki, a ghost-written autobiography of entrepreneur Rob Law, was shortlisted for the 2021 Business Book Awards.