Critically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith pulls Nick Carraway out of the shadows and into the spotlight in this exhilarating imagination of his life before The Great Gatsby Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's world, he was at the centre of a very different story - one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance - doomed from the very beginning - to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence. An epic portrait of a truly singular era and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Charged with enough alcohol, heartbreak, and profound yearning to transfix even the heartiest of golden age scribes, Nick reveals the man behind the narrator who has captivated readers for decades.

'A fiendishly clever tale of ambition, deception, and power' DERREN BROWN Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending seances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones. William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him - seemingly from beyond the veil - placing doubt in his heart and a seed of obsession in his mind. Could the spirits truly be communicating with him or is this one of Kathleen's parlour tricks gone too far? Based on the true story of Professor William Jackson Crawford and famed medium Kathleen Goligher, and with a cast of characters including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, The Spirit Engineer conjures a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia and one ultimate, inescapable truth... PRAISE FOR THE SPIRIT ENGINEER 'I adored this book. Haunting, witty and deeply moving, The Spirit Engineer is surely set to become a gothic classic. I was instantly drawn into the mystery and swept along by the shocking twists and turns. A beautifully written novel' JODIE WHITTAKER, ACTOR 'A.J. West has history at his fingertips and writes brilliantly - so clever it makes your head spin! The Spirit Engineer is a work of true invention and drama that moves at a cracking pace from the very first page and keeps you guessing. A compelling and daring book' JEREMY VINE, BROADCASTER 'Set in a historical moment where science and spiritualism meet, The Spirit Engineer is an ingeniously plotted debut novel' SARAH BURTON, AUTHOR OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF H 'A marvellous and menacing gothic chiller, filled with secrets and soaked in atmosphere, in which the ghouls and fiends are not of the other world, but this one...' NEIL BLACKMORE, AUTHOR OF THE INTOXICATING MR LAVELLE 'A spooky tale of frustrated ambition, hidden loyalties, and desperation, told with wit, charm and devastating twists. A gothic novel that also manages to make you laugh, even if you shouldn't' JONATHAN HARVEY, PLAYWRIGHT 'With a skilful misdirection that any Edwardian spirit medium would be proud to demonstrate, A.J. West soon turns the screw in this fascinating novel... Obsession builds until the stunning climax of the final shocking seance and its awful repercussions. Was William rights to be convinced? Did he prove ghosts exist?' ESSIE FOX, AUTHOR OF THE SOMNAMBULIST 'A gripping, gothic story anchored in the political and spiritual chaos of Edwardian Belfast. Part horror, part history, The Spirit Engineer is a chilling and thought-provoking tale of exploitation, faith, deception, fraud, seances, hubris, and prejudice... accomplished and page-turning. Fans of Penny Dreadful and The Nevers will love it' GARETH RUSSELL, HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR OF THE SHIP OF DREAMS: THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC AND THE END OF EDWARDIAN BELFAST

Can you leave the past behind and embrace the future? - A brand new series from Tracy Baines. 'A new saga author has arrived. The Women of Fisher's Wharf is a joy to read' - AnneMarie Brear Great Grimsby, 1912 Newlywed fisherman Alec Hardy decides to make a fresh start with his young wife Letty and move to the thriving fishing port of Grimsby in search of a brighter future. Letty is from farming stock and knows nothing of the hard life as a fishermen's wife but is willing to embrace the challenge with Alec. But where Alec goes, so does his widowed mother, Dorcas and she has trouble coming to terms with taking second place in her son's life. With Alec at sea for weeks on end, the two women clash and Letty seeks escape from her bitter mother-in-law amongst the streets of Fish Dock Wharf. Can Letty help them break free from the shadows of the past or will she be bound by Dorcas' insistence that they cling to the old ways? Praise for Tracy Baines: 'A saga about ambition, hard work, courage ...and spite'. Rosie Clarke I highly recommend this book.' Fenella Miller 'An emotional, entertaining read that had me gripped!' Sheila Riley 'An absorbing saga. I loved it from the very beginning and would highly recommend it...' Elaine Roberts 'Terrific - beautifully written. A well-crafted and satisfying story' Maisie Thomas 'A pleasure from start to finish.' Glenda Young 'an evocative, busy, entertaining read vying with angst, and of course, more than a dollop of tension.' Margaret Graham, Frost Magazine 'Characterisation is one of the book's strong points - the individual characters stay in your mind long after you finish the story.' Barbara Dynes, The Voice'I just loved this book! Molly Walton

From The Times bestselling author of The Other Mrs Walker - Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year 2017 - comes Mary Paulson-Ellis's second stunning historical mystery, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing. Solomon knew that he had one advantage. A pawn ticket belonging to a dead man tucked into his top pocket - the only clue to the truth . . . An old soldier dies alone in his Edinburgh nursing home. No known relatives, and no Will to enact. Just a pawn ticket found amongst his belongings, and fifty thousand pounds in used notes sewn into the lining of his burial suit . . . Heir Hunter, Solomon Farthing - down on his luck, until, perhaps, now - is tipped off on this unexplained fortune. Armed with only the deceased's name and the crumpled pawn ticket, he must find the dead man's closest living relative if he is to get a cut of this much-needed cash. But in trawling through the deceased's family tree, Solomon uncovers a mystery that goes back to 1918 and a group of eleven soldiers abandoned in a farmhouse billet in France in the weeks leading up to the armistice. Set between contemporary Edinburgh and the final brutal days of the First World War as the soldiers await their orders, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing shows us how the debts of the present can never be settled unless those of the past have been paid first . . .

** LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER ** THE WESTERN FRONT, JULY 1918. Gregor Reinhardt is a young lieutenant in a stormtrooper battalion on the Western Front when one of his subordinates is accused of murdering a group of officers, and then subsequently trying to take his own life. Not wanting to believe his friend could have done what he is accused of, Reinhardt begins to investigate. He starts to uncover the outline of a conspiracy at the heart of the German army, a conspiracy aimed at ending the war on the terms of those who have a vested interest in a future for Germany that resembles her past. The investigation takes him from the devastated front lines of the war, to the rarefied heights of society in Berlin, and into the hospitals that treat those men who have been shattered by the stress and strain of the war. Along the way, Reinhardt comes to an awakening of the man he might be. A man freed of dogma, whose eyes have been painfully opened to the corruption and callousness all around him. A man to whom calls to duty, to devotion to the Fatherland and to the Kaiser, ring increasingly hollow...