Salt Publishing

For the first time, this volume gathers together all Tobias Hill’s poems from his four full-length collections in one beautiful and collectable paperback edition, introduced by Maura Dooley. The Collected Poems marks an important moment in British poetry, drawing together Hill’s work from his Eric Gregory Award-winning debut, Year of the Dog (1995), to the bestselling Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow (2006). Hill’s celebrated ‘urban pastoral’ was decadent yet austere, driven through radical visual desire. Here in one volume we can see the extent of his imaginative journey, travelling through towns and cityscapes, presenting a simmering world of captured lives, haunting, but filled with charm and wit. The early work is dominated by Japan, where Hill lived for two years, yet it is his beloved London that becomes the imaginative centre of his work, filled with the sensuous intensity of that great city. Tobias Hill was selected as one of the country’s Next Generation poets in 2004, shortlisted for the 2004 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and named by the TLS as one of the best young writers in the country.

Manchester 1849. Elizabeth Gaskell, newly famous author of Mary Barton, visits a young Irish prostitute in Manchester’s New Bailey prison. The girl is about to be discharged onto the Manchester streets, where her old life of poverty and violence await her. Elizabeth is determined to help her, but few people will employ an ex-prostitute from prison. In desperation, Elizabeth writes to Charles Dickens for advice. Inspired by the real correspondence between Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, Elizabeth and Ruth tells the unforgettable story of two very different women whose lives become inextricably intertwined.

The Best New Fiction —The Mail on SundayDazzling Debuts to kickstart 2026 —Daily MailA quiet neighbourhood of London is about to be shattered. This is a story about people coming together and looking out for each other. No person is an island, including Wilf Kelly, its hero. Many neighbours help him out on the quiet. Also on the quiet, Wilf tames a wild fox and goes on a voyage of self-discovery. Normally, little happens in these mixed streets of families, retirees, podcasters and gossips. A little group create a community garden. An ageing journalist writes nature columns. A left-wing Scotsman longs for the glory days when he interviewed Castro. A disabled professor plans a book clearance. Supine Mario takes far too many drugs. And Wilf Kelly decides to get a fox as a pet. When Wilf is accused of an awful crime, he becomes the target of a police and media firestorm. It’s a drama that galvanises not just the local community but people from all around London. A superbly written debut novel with a big heart, that will make you laugh, cry and remind you of the power of community spirit.

From the secrets of the forest, to the magic of the sea, these nine stories tell of what happens when passion, desire, loneliness and imprisonment lead us on a search for freedom and empowerment - no matter what the cost. A woman makes a deal with gods and goddesses in order to bring a slanderous town down to its knees, a man who has lost everything finds himself in the graveyards of Paris, turning to dark magic to ensure success, an opulent masked ball becomes the stage of spite and revenge, a teenage boy who believes he is in the wrong body calls out to mermaids to enchant him. With strands of classic fairy and folklore weaved through, the unknown - the silent and dark - is explored. Where spirits, deities and witches lurk, but also where the beauty of life and renewal can be found.

Stanly is frustrated. Having set himself up as London's protector, he's finding that the everyday practicalities of superheroism are challenging at best, and downright tedious at worst. So it's almost a relief when an attempt is made on his life and Stanly finds himself rushing headlong into a twisted adventure, with enemies new and old coming out of the woodwork. However, even with his friends and his ever-increasing power behind him, he may have bitten off more than he can chew this time. The monsters are coming ...and nothing will ever be the same!

In Edwardian England, Violet has a fairy tale existence: loving husband, beautiful baby son and luxurious home. She wants for nothing. But soon after the birth of her baby the idyll begins to disintegrate. Violet becomes obsessed by a book of fairy tales her husband has locked away in a safe. Paranoid hallucinations begin to haunt her and she starts to question her sanity. Meanwhile, vulnerable young women are starting to disappear from the nearby asylum. Soon Violet herself is interned in the asylum for treatment only to discover, on coming out, that her husband has hired a nanny while she has been away, the beautiful, enigmatic Clara. The brutality of the asylum is nothing compared to the horrors that now lie in wait.

Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize for new writers A Times Children's Book of the Week A Guardian Top Teen Read of 2015 "Happy birthday, Stanly. We hope you like your present..." Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird is a fairly typical teenager - unless you count the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle named Daryl, and that he gained the powers of flight and telekinesis when he turned sixteen. Unfortunately, his rural Welsh home town is not exactly crying out for its very own superhero. London is calling - but what Stanly finds there is a good deal weirder and more terrifying than anything he could have imagined. Perhaps he should have stayed in Wales ...