An accomplished, powerful, mesmerising story that explores a seventeen-year-old's embroilment in an abusive relationship with an older man. Shifting between two timelines, it's also a potent coming-of-age novel, and a fascinating portrait of a mother-daughter bond. The steady, measured style coupled with the present tense immediacy creates tremendous tension. There's a sense that something is simmering. In Nell's past, which we enter in 1983, LOVEREADING

Lou's world is changing, breaking down, chaos is seeping in- a touching , unsettling and darkly hilarious novel told by a cool narrator who observes the world-school, family, love- in a way that makes you want to laugh and cry. 'Hilarious.' Mugglenet. Sunday Times Book of the Week, nominated for The Carnegie. An outstanding debut-funny, brave and unpredictable. A beautiful blend of humour, insight, compassion and a touch of darkness. The narrator's voice is strong, funny and original.

Family isn't a word, it's game with too many players. Lou's world is changing, breaking down, chaos is seeping in. Dad is having an affair, Mum has 'an episode', nan's communicating with angels, brother Mikey, struggling with his sexuality, covers every kitchen surface with cakes, her friend Faith discovers the importance of Nietzsche and Fleetwood Mac, then Mikey disappears... Emily Critchley's touching, unsettling and darkly hilarious novel is a hymn to the absurdity and surreal undercurrents that lie beneath ordinary suburban lives.

A captivating mystery perfect for fans of Joanna Cannon and Elizabeth is Missing On a suburban street filled with secrets, 84 year old Edie Green must look back into the past to discover what happened to her friend Lucy, who went missing years before . . . I kept your secret Lucy. I've kept it for more than sixty years . . . It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life. When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . . Then Lucy goes missing. 2018. Edie is eighty-two and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There's a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . . 'A captivating and poignant book, I was completely hooked. You can't help but fall for Edie' Marianne Cronin, author of 100 Years of Lenni and Margot 'This is such a delicate web of a book, a mystery deftly woven with tension and compassion. Edie is a heartbreaking figure, struggling to catch her last memories before they're blown away forever - her quest/plight is absorbing and extremely poignant' Beth Morrey, author of Saving Missy 'Completely captivating. A real page-turner' Louise Hare 'Marvellous . . . a special gem of a book, a perfectly executed double timeline mystery with a twist you don't see coming' Inga Vesper, author of The Long, Long Afternoon 'Beautifully written . . . the perfect book for lovers of Elizabeth Is Missing, but has its own distinct voice and charm' Jo Leevers, author of Tell Me How This Ends 'An uplifting, bittersweet story with a page-turning mystery at its heart . . . I was drawn in to Edie's world from the very first page. Beautifully atmospheric and endearing'' Freya Sampson

A mystery she can't remember. A friend she can't forget. I kept your secret Lucy. I've kept it for more than sixty years . . . It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life. When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . . Then Lucy goes missing. 2018. Edie is eighty-two and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There's a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . .

Love / All That /& OK, an anti-confessional by experimental British poet Emily Critchley, brings together a diverse range of work previously published in chapbooks since 2004, and includes new material from the sequences 'Poems for Luke', 'The Sonnets' and 'Poems for Other People'.

From a Carnegie nominated author, a brilliantly funny and touching story about a boy who finds a polar bear in his parents' freezer. How did Monty get there? And who is Monty? Official name, Wilbur Ambrose Cedric Reginald Montague, the Third; Monty to his friends. A huge polar bear who talks like he might have swallowed a dictionary as well as a library - he has read more books than Patrick knew existed -and whose stomach is always rumbling. ALWAYS. But how is Patrick going to feed him on his pocket money that does not stretch much further than a few tins of sardines? 'A warm-hearted, witty delight from start to finish' LOVEREADING4KIDS ' A terrific talking polar bear' SCHOOL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

`[Emily Critchley] has incorporated influences from popular culture and from a more street-wise feminist critique. Her poetry ... is combative, intellectual and probing but this seems tempered by an upbeat and more popular sense of engagement, which makes her unusual and interesting [...] a genuine form of public poetry, which can embrace both pleasure and critique without being either chic posturing or a sell-out to the market, such as it exists within poetry publishing! The thing I most enjoy about Critchley's poetry is the way in which she manages to suggest an ongoing sense of `self-dialogue' within her writing. Whether she's talking about love [...] or politics or art or academic work, there's always an inner-dialogue going on, a self-assertiveness questioned in the light of a relationship to the `public sphere'.' -Steve Spence