Amanda Craig – författare

Will must run, or die. He''s seen a murder, and the gang on his estate are after him.Hurt, hungry and afraid, he comes to an abandoned house in a different part of the city. Behind its high fences is a place of safety. Here, he can hide like a wounded beast. He can find food, and healing - and learn how to do more than survive.But when Will meets Padma, he must choose between his good side and his bad one. For the gang he left behind is still there. How can he live without becoming a killer? How can he love without being a thief?Exciting, fast-paced and different, this is a story that keeps you reading until the last line.

At eighteen, Emma Kenward runs away from her dull Sloane home to try her luck as a painter in Tuscany. Waspish, idealistic and far too clever for her own good, she is at the awkward age when women choose their futures - and their identities.Once in Italy, Emma blossoms and is taken up by a a mixture of characters including the local Contessa; Sylvia, her volatile American mentor; Dr Evenlode, an Oxford don she''d hoped never to see again; and Lucio, a seductive and anarchic young Italian, as interested in Emma''s body as in her mind. Santorno, however, is not merely a picturesque town set in the golden landscape of the Tuscan countryside. Hidden among the malicious tongues of the provincial gossips and the walls of the mysterious Palazzo Felici lie secrets, long buried, but not forgotten. Emma, ever curious, delves deep and discovers the truth about her new world, her old self - and a gruesome murder.

''This is a life-affirming read - take it on holiday, but leave the rest of the party at home'' The Times''An intelligent and satisfying romantic comedy'' Women and HomeAt the Casa Luna, friends and relations of the Noble family gather for fortnight''s holiday in the enchanted Italian hills.Daniel, an American academic, is under pressure to marry Ellen, a witty and successful shoe designer.Hermani, doctor and single mother, is intrigued by Ivo - trickster, charmer, critic - the man Ellen most loathes in the world. Polly, meanwhile, hopes her domineering mother-in-law will help transform her feral children and give her some much-needed time alone with her workaholic husband. But the Casa Luna is a place where strange things happen, and anyone who lives there risks unexpected joys and sorrows...

''A novel written with passion and moral outrage'' Sunday Times''Sympathetic, thought-provoking and often deeply moving'' Daily Telegraph''You can''t put this down'' Independent Rich or poor, five people, seemingly very different, find their lives in the capital connected in undreamed-of ways. Job, the illegal mini-cab driver whose wife in Zimbabwe no longer answers his letters; Ian, the idealistic supply teacher in exile from South Africa; Katie from New York, jilted and miserable as a dogsbody at a political magazine, and fifteen-year-old Anna, trafficked into sexual slavery. Polly Noble, an overworked human rights lawyer, knows better than most how easy it is to fall through the cracks into the abyss. Yet when her au pair, Iryna, disappears, Polly''s own needs and beliefs drag her family into a world of danger, deceit and terror.Riveting, humane, engaging, Hearts and Minds is a novel that is both entertaining and prepared to ask the most serious questions about the way we live.

''An excellent and entertaining read'' Daily Mail''A love story and political comment, a defence of the art of fiction, a masterpiece'' Evening Standard''Rich and splendid...viciously funny and a rip-roaring read'' ElleA Vicious Circle exposes the corruption of London''s journalistic circuit, the horrors of our hospitals and slums, and the transformations caused by motherhood. Gripping, tender and fiercely funny, it has been instantly recognised as a modern classic about the way we live now.

Thirty-nine, divorced, jobless: Benedick Hunter is going nowhere, heading in the exact opposite direction he expected. So when he comes across a children''s book that his mother, Laura, wrote, he decides that her life and work - haunting stories replete with sinister woods, wicked witches and brave girls who battle giants - hold the key to finding out why his own life is such a mess. Setting out to discover why Laura killed herself when he was six, Benedick travels to the US. As he grows more obsessed with what happened to his mother, Benedick enters into a dark wood - one that is both hilariously real and terrifyingly psychological. Dark humorous and inventive, In a Dark Wood casts light on the nature of depression, genius and of the healing power of storytelling.

''A very good read indeed'' MATT HAIG''Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny'' INDIA KNIGHT''As satisfying a novel as I have read in years'' SARAH PERRY''One of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists'' ALISON LURIEQuentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can''t afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can''t afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can''t understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded.Mud, mice and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them.Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor and a sheep farmer''s wife; and when Lottie''s innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed for ever. A suspenseful black comedy, this is a rich, compassionate and enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside, and the potentially lethal interplay between money and marriage.A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDARD, SUNDAY TIMES AND IRISH TIMES

''A highly enjoyable story about female resilience... with a twist that is all the more compelling for its unexpectedness'' Sunday Times''She''s such a skilful storyteller, who vividly dramatizes our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion'' Bernardine Evaristo''Amanda Craig anatomises the state of the nation with wit and empathy'' Jonathan Coe''An irresistible summer read'' Guardian''A typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner'' Daily MailWhen Hannah is invited into the first-class carriage of the London to Penzance train, she walks into a spider''s web. Now a poor young single mother, she once escaped Cornwall to go to university, but after marriage to Jake her dreams turned to bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for a rich woman, and Hannah has survived by working as a cleaner. Jinni is equally angry, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other''s husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them?But when Hannah goes to Jinni''s house she meets its shambolic caretaker, who claims Jinni is very different to the person Hannah had been led to believe. Who is telling the truth - and what will become of the women''s pact to commit a terrible crime?

''A brilliant piece of storytelling that revels in the world of expat old ladies in Tuscany, and should be the book that everybody''s reading this summer'' Andrew O''Hagan