SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN | THE BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD | THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE | THE PAUL TORDAY MEMORIAL PRIZE | THE WAVERTON GOOD READ AWARD | A ZOE BALL ITV BOOK CLUB PICK 'REMARKABLE' Sarah Perry 'EXTRAORDINARILY IMMERSIVE' Guardian 'A REALLY, REALLY GOOD READ' BBC R2 Book Club' 'LYRICAL' Stylist 'POETIC' Daily Mail 1627. In a notorious historical event, pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers. Among them a pastor, his wife, and their children. In her acclaimed debut novel Sally Magnusson imagines what history does not record: the experience of Asta, the pastor's wife, as she faces her losses with the one thing left to her - the stories from home - and forges an ambiguous bond with the man who bought her. Uplifting, moving, and sharply witty, The Sealwoman's Gift speaks across centuries and oceans about loss, love, resilience and redemption. 'Sally Magnusson has taken an amazing true event and created a brilliant first novel. It's an epic journey in every sense: although it's historical, it's incredibly relevant to our world today. We had to pick it' Zoe Ball Book Club 'Richly imagined and energetically told' Sunday Times 'The best sort of historical novel' Scotsman 'Compelling ' Good Housekeeping 'An accomplished and intelligent novel' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, author of Why Did You Lie? 'Vivid and compelling' Adam Nichols, co-translator of The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

A Jewish boy is sent to Norway in 1939. He survives; his parents and sister succumb in the gas chamber in Auschwitz. The boy's Norwegian foster father joined the Nazi party and became a staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler and Vidkun Quisling. Having been turned down when trying to enlist as a soldier to fight alongside the German army against Russian troops, Arne Norman continued to fill his wartime position of Mayor of Laksevag. Edgar stayed with Arne and Agnes till the end of 1942. No one in the household knew that 1942 was the year of the deaths of Edgar's parents and sister. Years later, when Arne was released after serving time in prison for treason, Edgar returned to stay with Arne, Agnes, and their adopted daughter.

The Ninth Child describes: 1. My family background dating back to the year 1870. 2. My life experiences as a Black child growing up in a family of 12 children, in Texas. 3. My experiences as a teacher and drug prevention counselor in the schools located in South Central Los Angeles and Gardena, CA. 4. The incidents that I witnessed, or was involved in, as a resident of South Central Los Angeles for 23 years. 5. My religious experiences

A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child. In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.

The narrator is the ninth child of a family distinguished by its size, poverty, faith and abundance of physical and psychological disabilities. His confusion is exacerbated by the strict, secretive Catholic household his parents keep in the face of a Communist system.

It's Hanukkah, and Max and Rachel are excited to light the menorah in their family's new apartment. But, unfortunately, their Hanukkah box is missing. Luckily, their neighbors happily help, offering thoughtful, often humorous, stand-ins each night. Then, just as Hanukkah is nearly done, Max and Rachel, inspired by the shamash ("helper") candle, have a brilliant idea: to celebrate the Ninth Night of Hanukkah as a thank you to everyone!