Fairlight Books – serie

What if you had a chance to be someone else entirely?Mallorca, 1964. Thomas Sebastian is on the run from a life gone awry. Leaving his wife and dog in England, he has taken a Spanish finca for the summer, where he plans to hide out and come up with a plan for redemption. When he arrives at the finca, Thomas discovers it untouched since its last owner, the renowned Senyor Rodriguez, died. There is fine art on the walls, a library full of books, a cellar full of wine, and a closet full of white linen suits. Thomas enthusiastically takes on his new life – drinking the late gentleman's wine, wearing his clothes, and falling head-over-heels in love with his beautiful neighbour, Isabella Ferretti.But as Thomas' creditors close in, his grasp on the truth starts to falter. Isabella is on to him, but even she doesn't know the real story.A riotous tale of excess, desire and greed, set in the sultry Spanish sun. Lou Gilmond's prose at times crackles with wit and at others is stomach-heavy with sensuality. Through it all, Thomas is thrilling if feverish company.

TWO YOUNG MEN WITH EXPECTATIONS. ONE PREDICTED TO SUCCEED, THE OTHER TO FAIL. Prince Albert Victor, heir presumptive to the British throne, is seen as disastrously inadequate to be king. The grandson of Queen Victoria, he is good-hearted but intensely shy and, some whisper, even slow-witted.By contrast, Jem Stephen is a renowned intellectual, a poet and a golden boy worshipped by all. But a looming curse of mental instability is threatening to take it all away.Appointed as the prince's personal tutor, Jem works to prepare him for the duty to come. A friendship grows between them - one that will allow them to understand and finally accept who they really are, and change both of their lives forever.

May of Teck, only daughter of a noble family fallen from grace, has been selected to marry the troublesome Prince Eddy, heir to the British throne. Submitting to the wishes of Queen Victoria and under pressure from her family, young May agrees. But just as a spark of love and devotion arises between the young couple, Prince Eddy dies of influenza. To her horror, May discovers she is to be married to the brother, Georgie, instead, a cold and domineering man. But what can she do?From the author of The Prince of Mirrors comes this gripping account of the life of Queen Mary, one of the most formidable queens of Britain.READER REVIEWS'Beautifully written, moving and memorable''Clever, emphatic, beautiful, brilliant''A wonderful book'

Modern-day New York, a subway train. David, an American-Jewish jazz musician, torn between his dreams and his parents' expectations, sees a woman across the carriage. Ameena, a British-Pakistani artist who left Manchester to escape the pressure from her conservative family, sees David. When a moment of sublime beauty occurs unexpectedly, the two connect, moved by their shared experience. From this flows a love that it appears will triumph above all. But as David and Ameena navigate their relationship, their ambitions and the city they love, they discover the external world is not so easy to keep at bay. Ami Rao's masterful debut novel picks apart the lives of two people, stripping them of their collective identities and, in doing so, facing up to the challenge of today: can love give us the freedom to accept our differences?

'He is ready to talk about her, his daughter. He is ready in a way. In a way.' When a teenage girl dies in a car accident while returning home from school, her father is left to deal with his grief. Sent home from work for the crime of showing his emotions in front of strangers, he cannot bring himself to utter his unspoken thoughts of guilt and blame - not even to his wife. Alienated from the world and, to some degree, his own mind, and with his marriage slowly collapsing, the man starts to consider his grief. In lyrical prose, Ami Rao experiments with language to explore grief, one of the most complex of human emotions. Inspired by the essays of Roland Barthes, this fragmented and philosophical novella is deeply moving.

Kit is waiting expectantly for life to begin. Orphaned as a young child, he recoils from his adoptive parents' mundane existence, drawn instead to the bohemian world of his Uncle Col and Col's charismatic wife Marianne. Amid the permissive atmosphere of Erringby, Marianne's rambling family mansion, Kit becomes increasingly obsessed with his aunt.One debauched summer, the eighteen-year-old Kit wakes to find himself in bed with Marianne. But what happened? And who is his sudden mysterious benefactor? As Kit grapples with the ramifications of that night, he, Marianne and Col find their lives spiralling out of control.Unfolding against the changing cultural landscape of the seventies, eighties and nineties, Erringby is a captivating coming-of-age novel with echoes of Great Expectations.

From award-winning author Lynda Clark come sixteen engrossing stories weaving together elements of folklore, fantasy and speculative fiction, all of them in Clark's darkly humorous style. In Ghillie's Mum, shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award, a shape-shifting mother needs to decide whether to compromise and stay in her human form, or lose her son. In Total Transparency, a man is learning how to live with a gradually disappearing wife. In Blanks, people are paying to create clones of themselves so they will never die. And in Dreaming in Quantum, there's a murder to be solved which echoes through dimensions only accessible in dreams.

From flash fiction to mini-novelette, Fairlight presents twenty-four of its best short stories from some of the world's most talented new and emerging English language writers. Chosen from work sent to Fairlight over several years by writers around the globe, this anthology celebrates the art of the short story form: a vehicle with the power to delight, entertain or instantly transport the reader to another state, another world, another emotion. Twenty-four stories by twenty-four writers, including various award-winning short story authors, and Women's Prize-longlisted author Sophie van Llewyn.

The Kingdom of Sicily, early thirteenth century. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II has, through invasion and marriage, expanded his empire, but always subject to the will of the pope and the rulings of the Church. Into this world of political and military intrigue steps Michael Scot, a young monk and barbarian from Scotland who tutored Frederick as a boy. Headstrong and determined, Michael Scot persuades the Emperor that translating the lost works of Aristotle would bring him a secret knowledge of science, medicine and astronomy that would advance his cause. Despite the pope declaring such translations heretical, the Emperor agrees that the Scot should proceed, sending him first to the famous translation schools of Toledo and from there to the Moorish library of Cordoba.

JUST ONE LITTLE LIE CAN HAVE LIFE-CHANGING CONSEQUENCES.When Robert (or Kidder, as he's known to his best friend) decides to impress at a job interview by making up a son, he discovers that maintaining the lie is far harder than he thought - so he invents a story that his imaginary child has been kidnapped. After all, it's not like they're going to find the fake boy.But a few weeks later, Kidder receives a call to collect his non-existent son from the police station, a boy who looks exactly like the picture he photoshopped. Afraid to come clean, Kidder takes the boy home. And that's where the trouble starts...Beyond Kidding is a darkly humorous, genre-bending work of sci-fi. Lynda Clark is a new talent to discover for lovers of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Coupland, and Black Mirror.

Enter Anonymous, a middle-ranking artist rolling between minor shows in New York, London and Istanbul. With his career sliding into obscurity, shamefully forced to consider advertising work to make ends meet, he knows he must break new ground if he is to survive. With his mother's encouragement, he decides upon his next work of art: an act of self-violation so outrageous, so horrific, the art world will be forced to take notice. But will it be enough to raise him to the ranks of the elite? Conception is the journey of a sociopath who will do whatever it takes to get ahead; a dark comedy exploring who and what determines the value of art.

Sandor Esterhazy is descended from a long line of talented pianists, but has no desire to play. So, one snowy afternoon, he promises his soul to the devil in exchange for a life of his own choosing. Afterwards, he laughs it off as a joke, but that night the devil arrives dragging someone - or something - with him. Uncertain what to do with the bewildered creature, Sandor locks it in the basement, allowing it out only once a night to visit the piano room - the creature, who he names Ferdi, is desperate to play. Sandor slips easily into his new role of captor, but as Ferdi learns what it is to be human, tensions between the two escalate, and Ferdi escapes into the world...

Highgate, London, 1824. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a washed-up opium addict, estranged from his friends and from his neglected wife. His grip on reality is starting to slip; his past and present mingle in laudanum-induced dreams.In a Cambridge college library, Scrivener, a bullied undergraduate, finds a strange annotation in a book of Coleridge's poems. Intrigued by this mystery marginalia and captivated by Romantic poetry, he resolves to become a poet himself, with Coleridge as his guiding light. Across the sea, Samuel, a young Sicilian, discovers that his mother once had a liaison with Coleridge. He sets out for England to learn all he can about the man who may be his father.It isn't long before Samuele and Scrivener cross paths - but will their journeys take them to the real Samuel Taylor Coleridge?

'A thoroughly uplifting story, full of light, shade, and lots of great music.' -Matson Taylor, author of The Miseducation of Evie EpworthMatthew Capes has not sung in front of an audience for over a decade. So when his old singing partner Angela - who happens to be the woman of his dreams - gets in touch and offers him the chance to perform in a nationwide tour, his heart leaps. He's a classical trained tenor, but what no one knows is that he's been struggling with low self-esteem and crippling anxiety for years. These days he only sings late at night on the empty stage of the Moon and Stars, the theatre where he works as caretaker. But Matthew has a plan: he will sing in the shadows while his handsome and charismatic friend Ralph takes to the stage with Angela. What could go wrong?The Moon and Stars is a romantic comedy, perfect to curl up with.READER REVIEWS'Couldn't put it down''A hidden gem of a story''Very enjoyable'

Shortlisted for the Rubery Book Award 2024'You go too far, my friend. You are near dangerous ground.' Neil Fischer is travelling to a village in East Germany that he has unexpectedly inherited - his father's former hometown of Marschwald. Knowing it has been left to deteriorate for decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Neil is determined to restore the derelict village to its former glory, as his demanding late father would surely have wanted. But when he arrives, he is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace.His only friend in Marschwald is Silke, who is coming to terms with her traumatic experiences during the Cold War and has recently uncovered a shocking truth. As tensions rise, a series of surreal encounters force Neil to contend with his own troubled past - but in his present, all signs point to danger.

Starling can trap a rabbit, cook a meal from a hedge and hear a bailiff coming from a mile off. All she has ever known is a nomadic existence, travelling in a converted van with Mar, her strong-willed mother. But Mar has cut them off from their community, and this winter they're stuck in deep mud in a wood, with no fuel, no money and no friends. One morning, without explanation, Mar leaves and doesn't come back. Utterly alone, Starling must learn to survive without her mother and build a life on her own terms. An offer to stay with an old friend draws her into a more conventional way of living - but can rootless Starling ever find a place where she truly belongs?

On a windswept island off Cape Cod, Delilah moves into a cottage by the shore. After growing up in precarious circumstances with her Abuela, both of them hiding a terrible secret, all Delilah wants now is a beautiful place of her own - and she's paid a high price for it. The neighbours watch the newcomer and wonder about her. They don't like it when she plants a wild and colourful garden in the front yard, and they like the visits from her married lover even less. Meanwhile, her new cottage shares a driveway with the reclusive Anton, who has a secret of his own. When the two meet, sparks fly - but will the past catch up with them?

Shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards Scottish Fiction Book of the YearIn an island community facing extinction, can hope rise stronger than grief? Sisi de Mathilde lives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. With the seas rising, the birth rate plummeting and her community under threat, she works as a scientist, reporting on local climate conditions to help protect her island home. But her life is thrown into turmoil when she finds herself newly widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. When a group of outsiders arrive and try to persuade her community to abandon the island, Sisi is caught between the sacred 'old ways' of her ancestors and the possibilities offered by the outside world. As tensions rise and the islanders turn on one another, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.

Shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards and McKitterick Prize 2024'Each and every sentence has been so elegantly penned' —The Scots Magazine'So gentle, so warm, so human' —Rick O'Shea'There is much to admire... from the elegance and economy of the writing to the understanding of the emotional difficulties of its young protagonist' —The ScotsmanRecently bereaved Jamie is staying at a rural steading in the heart of Scotland with his actor boyfriend Alex. The sudden loss of both of Jamie's parents hangs like a shadow over the trip. In his grief, Jamie finds himself sifting through bittersweet memories, from his working-class upbringing in Edinburgh to his bohemian twenties in London, with a growing awareness of his sexuality threaded through these formative years. In the present, when Alex is called away to an audition, Jamie can no longer avoid the pull of the past: haunted by an inescapable failure to share his full self with his parents, he must confront his unresolved feelings towards them.In spare, evocative prose, Allan Radcliffe tells a wistful coming-of-age story and paints a tender portrait of grief in all its complexities.

'Who is to say dreams are insubstantial when whole lives can be lived in their pursuit?' When an office worker receives a mysterious device promising to transport her to a parallel universe, she assumes it is just another marketing stunt. That night, she visits a fantastical place in her dreams; on waking she returns to her normal life, only to return to the same dream the following night. At first she finds the ongoing dreams bizarre, but the more time she spends in the dream world, the less she wants to wake up. Yet as her fantasy begins to encroach on her waking life, dream and reality collide with drastic consequences. With sharp insight, wry humour and Black Mirror-esque themes, Red Dust, White Snow highlights the blurring of reality and fantasy in our increasingly virtual world.

England, 1926. When Lady Isobel Farrar returns home to her beloved Halcyon Hill, after years of living abroad, she finds herself dwelling on a long-buried secret.There had been a child, the result of a violent attack, whose birth was hushed up and who was given up for adoption. Now, after all these years, after travelling the world in the hope of forgetting, Isobel can't help but wonder what became of him.Frank Brodie has lived a harsh life. He was cruelly mistreated by his adoptive parents, before the Great War took him away to the trenches. Now he must live on his wits, but there is something burning inside him – a yearning to understand his past.A moving tale of love, loss and family from Walter Scott Award Recommended Alan Robert Clark.

'We're actually all rather terrible.' On the cusp of the 1960s, when fourteen-year-old Ben moves into the ancestral home of his aunt and uncle, he is shocked by their wealth and glamour. Under the watchful eye of the Merryvale Mask, his sophisticated cousins teach him how to appreciate their languid opulence and draw him into the world of the elites. But five years later, when a woman's body is found on the estate, his new life begins to crumble. As the family is placed at the centre of a murder investigation, Ben starts to see their manipulative power in a harsher light. Placed on a collision course with his family, Ben faces a dilemma: how far is he willing to go to fit into their world?

Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the powerful Medici family. Orphan Giulia is chosen to put an end to the gossip. In return she will keep her life - and start a new one with a dowry and her own husband. Cloistered since childhood and an innocent in a world ruled by men, Giulia reluctantly agrees, only to be drawn under the control of the Medicis' lecherous minister.Years later, married and with a growing family, Giulia hopes she has finally escaped the legacy of her past. But when a threat arrives from a sinister figure from her youth, she must finally take control of events - and become the author of her own story.Based on true events and reminiscent of The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell, The Maiden of Florence gives a charismatic voice to a woman cast aside by history.

'A fierce debut' —Melanie Finn, author of The HareSixteen-year-old Smidge is on the run, burdened with a shameful secret. Together with her fellow runaway, a performance artist called Violet, she travels through the underbelly of America, desperately searching for a way to rise above her past. When they meet a travelling circus filled with misfits and drifters, they think they might have found home. But as Violet is drawn under the influence of its sinister ringleader, Smidge learns that belonging comes with a price.Forced to choose between her past and present, Smidge must confront the shame that has shaped her, and return to face her mother, before it is too late.Brazen, tender and painfully raw, Please Fear Me is a biting exploration of complex family ties, addiction and survival.

'You will live beyond one lifetime and beyond even two in the painting he makes of you.'In the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, there is a painting called Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Each day a man visits to gaze at it. He is irresistibly drawn to it. Obsessed by it. He studies the painting, in search of resolutions to his past and present loves, and the Woman in Blue studies him back. For there is more to the Woman in Blue than any of the men who gaze upon her realise. She has a story of her own to tell.With a delicate balance of truth and fiction, past and present, Bruton masterfully explores the intersection between art, artist and viewer, arriving at a profound meditation on love and creation.

From Scotland's National Book Awards and McKitterick Prize shortlisted author Allan RadcliffeAn Irish Independent best book of 2025 'I mean, it's nothing really. An old face from the past.'Two men meet on a dating app. It's supposed to be a casual encounter between strangers. Jordan is only back in Edinburgh to visit his complicated family, and Davie is reeling from a painful breakup.Yet Davie recognises Jordan as someone he knew long ago, when they were both closeted teenagers at the same school. Back then, Jordan was relentlessly bullied - and Davie was one of the bullies. But Jordan doesn't remember him at all.Against the backdrop of a city steeped in memories, Davie and Jordan find themselves drawn together again and again. A fragile intimacy blossoms between them, but can anyone ever be free of their past?PRAISE FOR ALLAN RADCLIFFE'S WRITING'Each and every sentence has been so elegantly penned' -The Scots Magazine'So gentle, so warm, so human' -Rick O'Shea'There is much to admire... from the elegance and economy of the writing to the understanding of the emotional difficulties' -The Scotsman