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Winter Lights
A series of heart-warming and uplifting stories set in a small town during the festive period, exploring the complexities and joys of everyday life.
Red Dust, White Snow
After receiving a mysterious device promising to transport her to a parallel universe, an office worker begins to experience a series of fantastical dreams. The more time she spends in the dream world, the less she wants to wake up; yet as her dreams begins to encroach on her waking life, dream and reality collide with drastic consequences.
Other Names, Other Places
Growing up in London with Tunisian parents, wayward Nessie finds herself caught between cultures. Her life is further complicated by the charismatic Mrs Brown, who befriends her parents and then betrays them. Years later, still struggling with her old patterns of self-sabotage, Nessie begins to wonder: what really happened between her parents and Mrs Brown?
The Kanha and Colbey Trilogy
WHAT CAN SEE WATCHES, WHAT CAN HEAR LISTENS, WHAT CAN BE FOLLOWED IS TRACKED…
Becoming Delilah
On a windswept island off Cape Cod, Delilah moves into a cottage by the shore. The islanders watch the newcomer closely, and their gossip intensifies with every visit from Alan, the married man paying for Delilah’s keep. But when Delilah meets her next-door neighbour, the reclusive Anton, sparks fly and old secrets begin to surface.
The Redemption of Isobel Farrar
England, 1926. Lady Isobel Farrar, an ageing widow, finds herself dwelling on a long-buried secret: as a young woman, she gave up a child for adoption. Now she can’t help but wonder what became of him. When she finally tracks down her long-lost son, will the two be able to lay the past to rest?
Mother Sea
On a remote Indian Ocean island, with the seas rising and the birth rate plummeting, climate scientist Sisi is working hard to protect her home. But her resolve founders when she finds herself widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. With her community under threat, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.
Temper
Following a move to the Netherlands, a young woman dissects the developments of her new life. In her newfound isolation, she develops an unusual friendship with Colette, a woman she neither likes nor can keep away from. As her feelings of dislocation grow, larger anxieties about her purpose – or lack of it – begin to encroach. And underneath it all, a burgeoning frustration bubbles.
With or Without Angels
An ageing artist, faced with his own mortality, embarks on one final artwork. As he battles to complete the project, working with an enigmatic young photographer, he finds his past and present blurring. Through the act of creation and the memories it excavates, the artist comes to a realisation about what matters most, and what he will leave behind when he is gone.
The Moon and Stars
Matthew Capes is a classical tenor with a magnificent voice, but struggles with chronic stage fright. When his old singing partner Angela offers him the chance to perform in a nationwide tour, Matthew hatches 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 Fish
A few decades into the 21st century, Cathy and her wife Ephie plant a paddy field in their permanently flooded garden in Cornwall. Across the globe, people like them are getting used to a changing climate – but they are not the only ones adapting. As sea creatures abandon the oceans to live on land, can people accept yet another new normal?
Starling
All Starling has ever known is a nomadic existence, travelling in a converted van with Mar, her strong-willed mother. But one morning, without explanation, Mar leaves and doesn’t come back. Starling must learn to survive without her mother and build a life on her own terms – but can she ever find a place where she truly belongs?
Instructions for the Working Day
Neil Fischer has inherited a village – his father’s former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany, left to deteriorate for decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Neil is determined to restore the village to its former glory, but is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace. As tensions rise and truths emerge, all signs point to danger.
Braver
Told with warmth, compassion and gentle humour, Braver is an uplifting story about the strength that can be drawn from friendship and community.
The House of Marvellous Books
Tucked away in a near-derelict library in the centre of London, The House of Marvellous Books is a publishing house on the brink of financial disaster. A young junior editor charts the descent of the House in his logbook as it lurches from one failure to the next.
Almost
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.
The Second Person from Porlock
Highgate, London, 1824. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a washed-up opium addict, estranged from his friends and from his neglected wife.
The Piano Room
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.
The Woodcock
It’s 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after the Great War. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier, unexpected tensions and temptations arise.
Erringby
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.
David and Ameena
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.
Relative Secrets
Mary has a secret that she mustn’t tell. But in a care home, with her mind wandering, she’s starting to slip up. Clearing out her grandmother’s old room, Lucy finds something hidden that wasn’t supposed to be found – a locket sheltering a shameful family secret.
Dreaming in Quantum and Other Stories
Lynda Clark’s debut collection: sixteen stories, engrossing, provocative, all written in Lynda’s darkly humorous style.
Valhalla
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.
Broadwater
In this collection, Tottenham-born Jac Shreeves-Lee gives voice to the people of Broadwater Farm. With evocative language and raw storytelling, she compassionately portrays their shared sense of community. A community with a rich cultural heritage, comprising over forty nationalities, generations old.
Beyond Kidding
When Robert 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 ‘Brodie’ has been kidnapped. After all, it’s not like they’re going to find the fake boy.
A Saint in Swindon
A funny and, ultimately, dystopian tale, based on an idea by the book lovers of Swindon town.
Find Me Falling
Bonnie, a traumatised concert pianist, finds refuge at the edge of England, in a cliff-top house haunted by memories and broken dreams. When Dominic, a road sweeper who is visited by neurological hauntings of his own, gives Bonnie a ring he finds on the street, elemental forces are unleashed that neither is able to control.
A Matter of Interpretation
It’s thirteenth-century Europe and a young monk, Michael Scot, has been asked by the Holy Roman Emperor to translate the works of Aristotle and recover his ‘lost’ knowledge.
Conception
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.
The Prince of Mirrors
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.
The Fairlight Book of Short Stories
Volume 1
From flash fiction to mini-novelette, Fairlight presents The Fairlight Book of Short Stories (Volume 1), twenty-four 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
The Tale of Senyor Rodriguez
It’s 1960s Mallorca. Thomas Sebastian, an English conman, is hiding out in the house of the late Senyor Rodriguez – carousing, partying, and falling in love with his beautiful but impossibly young neighbour, Isabella Ferretti. As the boundary between lies and reality blurs, Thomas’ fiction spirals out of control in ways that are quite unexpected.
The Madonna of the Pool
A moving collection of literary short stories which explore the triumphs, compromises and challenges of everyday life. Drawing on a wide array of characters, Helen Stancey shows how small events, insignificant to some, can resonate deeply in the lives of others.
Fairlight Moderns
Dancing in the Shallows
Isla moves to the Isle of Skye to escape her purposeless life. But as she learns more about her family, she must question whether family patterns can really be broken.
Small Wars in Madrid
Alone in his Madrid apartment and faced with the prospect of losing his family, David Aguilera confronts his conflicting Catholic and Jewish identities to reconnect with his wife and children.
The Old Haunts
In his grief, Jamie finds himself sifting through bittersweet memories of his formative years, and must confront his unresolved feelings towards his parents.
The Two-Tailed Snake
North-east India, 1945. Tensions are rising, but fourteen-year-old Joya doesn’t pay much attention to ‘political business’ – until the day her father disappears without a trace.
A Good Year
Rural Cyprus, 1925. Despo is recently married, heavily pregnant and deeply afraid.
Voting Day
In February 1959, Switzerland held a referendum on women’s suffrage. The men voted ‘no’.
Blue Postcards
Three connected narratives and timelines, set in Paris, interspersed with observations of the colour blue.
Taking Flight
Travel from Miami to Alaska in this beautifully told drama of the bond between grandson and grandmother.
Bottled Goods
Alina’s life was on the right track, until the secret service knocked on her door.
Travelling in the Dark
She left for a reason but now she must return home and face her past.
