Alex Preston – författare

'Suspenseful, vivid and impossible to put down' TOM HOLLAND'Laced with thrills' EVIE WYLD'Utterly gripping' ADAM RUTHERFORDOn the Greek island of Vidos the past lingers like salt in the air. The inhabitants - former members of MI6 - are sent here to be forgotten. Exiled. Either too damaged or too compromised to be allowed to live freely.For years, residents make the best of their fate - old enemies reconcile, long-lost friends swim together in the warm sea and estranged lovers share a bed once more. But secrets bind tightly. And when one of their own washes up dead, alliances fracture and a tide of suspicion begins to rise.A vivid reimagining of a real, hidden slice of the British Intelligence Service's history, A Stranger in Corfu is an exquisitely tense and masterfully spun novel about shadowy morality, unravelled secrets and the futility of trying to outrun the past.

Charlie Wales is a young man who wants everything. Fresh from University he's seduced by the excitement of a new life in London that promises sex, sophistication and lots of money. There's Vero, the beautiful French girlwho might finally fall for him. Unemployed, there's the lure of art but also the promise of fast money in the City. And his friends are all spiralling into a world of drink, drugs and selfish greed. But as the choices begin to tear him apart, there's also the danger that all the things he desires are on the brink of crashing around him...This debut novel, written by a 30-year-old bond trader, does not merely pick over the carcass of the financial markets in the wake of the recent crash. It is also a heartbreaking love story, a withering study of the years of excess, and a touching contemplation of how good people end up doing terrible things.

A group of young people are searching for meaning in a dark and directionless world. The Course, a religious movement led by a charismatic priest, seems at first to offer everything the friends have been looking for: a community of bright, thoughtful, beautiful people. But as they are drawn deeper into the Course, money, sex and God collide, threatening to rip them apart. This gripping novel of ideas lays bare a world where the advancement of a movement becomes more important than the lives of its followers.

Desperate to prove himself to his politician father, Esmond Lowndes is sent to Italy to forge ties between the British Union of Fascists and Mussolini's government. In Florence, he discovers art and passion amongst the eccentric expatriates and glamorous locals. But with the coming of war Esmond chooses to leave his past behind and joins the Florentine resistance. Finding himself closely bound to his comrades and unexpectedly in love, Esmond becomes involved in undercover operations and assassination plots, culminating in a final mission of extraordinary daring.

In Love and War weaves fact and fiction to create a sweeping portrait of a city at war. The novel is told through the eyes, letters and journals of Esmond Lowndes, who comes to Italy a lost and lonely young man in the shadow of his politician father. Through his friendships with a striking cast of contemporary characters, from the poet Ezra Pound to Alice Keppel, a former royal mistress, Esmond begins to leave his early disappointments behind him. On the cobbles of Florence's many-storied streets, he deepens his appreciation of art and literature, and falls in love.With the coming of war, Esmond finds himself stranded in a city of enemies, hunted by the malevolent Mario Carità, head of the Fascist secret police. He retreats into the hills above Florence, taking with him a painting that has come to assert a profound hold over him. When the Nazis arrive, Esmond is drawn into Giustizia e Libertà, the Resistance movement, and is soon helping to spirit refugees to safety, to hide the city's Jews. With his lover, Ada, at his side, he is at the centre of assassination plots, shoot-outs and car chases, culminating in a final mission of extraordinary daring.In Love and War is a novel that will take you deep into the secret heart of history, meticulously researched and full of period detail. It is a novel of art and letters, of bawdy raconteurs and dashing spies. With Esmond Lowndes you will see the beauty of Florence as never before, and feel the horror of war as it sweeps over the city's terracotta rooftops. Inspired by a host of real-life stories, In Love and War is both epic and intimate, harrowing and heartwarming.

'Delightful . . . an original look at the literature inspired by Britain's birdlife' the Guardian, Best Nature Books of 2017'[The] pages light up with feathered magic' Evening StandardWhen Alex Preston was 15, he stopped being a birdwatcher. Adolescence and the scorn of his peers made him put away his binoculars, leave behind the nature reserves and the quiet companionship of his fellow birders. His love of birds didn't disappear though. Rather, it went underground, and he began birdwatching in the books that he read, creating his own personal anthology of nature writing that brought the birds of his childhood back to brilliant life. Looking for moments 'when heart and bird are one', Preston weaves the very best writing about birds into a personal narrative that is as much about the joy of reading and writing as it is about the thrill of wildlife. Beautifully illustrated and illuminated by the celebrated graphic artist Neil Gower, As Kingfishers Catch Fire is a book to love and to hold, to return to again and again, to marvel at the way that authors across the centuries have captured the endless grace and variety of birds. It will make you look at birds, at the world, in a newer, richer light.'A joyful and a wondrous book . . . Each bird illustrated by Gower in a mixture of gouache and watercolour that brings to mind both William Morris and Eric Ravilious' the Observer'I can see it under the Christmas tree of every family with a bird feeder and a copy of the RSPB Handbook . . . Preston captures his birds beautifully' The Times

AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4A SPECTATOR BEST OF THE YEAR - AS CHOSEN BY REVIEWERSThe year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. But when she turns sixteen, her father is murdered by men he thought were friends. In a town where lawlessness prevails, Goody and her brother Francis must enter the cut-throat world of her father's killers in order to find justice. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she discovers what life can be like without constraints or expectations, developing a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead?