Three cities, two years, one chance: from the author of the critically acclaimed debut So It Is - shortlisted for best first book at the Scottish Book Awards 2013 - comes the hard-hitting story of a young man determined to find his voice. Plucked from obscurity in Glasgow, Rab Dillon is about to become the next great protest singer. Seduced by promises of stardom, carrying only the guitar given to him by the girl who broke his heart, he travels down to London. There he records the debut album that will speak to the dispossessed, the disenfranchised and disheartened. One year later, he is sleeping rough on the streets of Brighton. A modern-day ballad set across three cities and two years, The Busker is a richly comic expose of the music industry, the Occupy movement, homelessness, squatting - and failing to live up to the name you (almost) share with your hero. It is also the story of what survives when the flimsy dreams of fame fall apart.

Spanning the decades that saw Northern Ireland move from brutal conflict to uncertain peace in the 1990s, this powerful new take on the literature of the Troubles is both a political coming-of-age novel and a fast-paced literary thriller. Aoife, a young girl growing up in 1980s Belfast, finds herself the last line of defence between the violence and her family. While her mother sinks deeper into a medicated stupor, and her father leaves the family for the comforts of the local bars, Aoife cares for her brother Damien, trying to keep him out of harm's way, while all around her friends and neighbours are swept up in the conflict. Meanwhile Cassie, a Republican paramilitary and honeytrap, lures and seduces her victims, inflicting lasting damage. But her infamous tactics have their repercussions, and it isn't long before her past catches up with her. So It Is is an unflinching and suspenseful debut that reflects the factions and fractures of the Troubles period from a new perspective, culminating in a breathless sequence in which the choice between violence and personal morality becomes shockingly necessary.