Verve Books

January 1965. The orphaned O'Leary siblings - Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy - arrive in the village of Ballycrea, tight-lipped about their troubled past and desperate for a fresh start. After being met with suspicion from most of the locals, the family are thrilled when they're taken under the wing of their well-respected neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan, who offer them work, companionship and an opportunity to fit in. But for one of the O'Learys, this new friendship sparks an intense attachment that makes the dynamic dangerous for all. It's difficult to bury secrets, but almost impossible to bury feelings... Crackling with suspense and intensity from start to finish, Heap Earth Upon It revisits the rural Ireland of Howarth's critically acclaimed debut, delving into claustrophobic relationships and tangled identities, and leaving you wondering who to trust until the very last page.

In 2008, Desiree, January, Monique and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood and of big city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood - overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences - swoops in and stays. Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January\'s got a relationship with a 'good' man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends transition from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another - amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability and the increasing volatility of modern life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.

Jemma would kill to end the housing crisis - one landlord at a time... Jemma has lost everything... Well, the very little she had. Her toxic boyfriend has run off with her best friend, leaving Jemma alone in their flat, and she can't afford the extortionate rent on her own. She's aimless, depressed and, above all, furious. Slowly but surely, her fury finds its focus: landlords. If only something could be done about them... When Jemma's landlord has a fatal accident while carrying out a property repair, she stumbles across her life's mission: to punish as many landlords as possible. She begins targeting landlords who have appeared on her favourite binge-watch, a home-improvement TV show where their greed is laid bare. It's a messy job, but someone's got to do it. Governed by her own rules, Jemma is convinced her actions are just - but how long before this vigilante turns villain?

After escaping a suffocating marriage to her abusive childhood sweetheart, Sylvie Broder decides she is done with love. She returns to graduate school and sets out to prove that, for a straight woman to be truly happy, she must separate love from sex and give up on all pursuits of romance. Driven by PhD research, relationship trauma and pride, Sylvie's new philosophy seems set to stick. Until Robbie comes along. And then Abie... Finding herself falling in love - not once, but twice - Sylvie must make a decision: to be brave and let this love in, or to choose her research and burn everything else to the ground. Deeply relatable and utterly compelling, The End of Romance is an anti-romance for anyone who, despite their very best efforts, has fallen in love and wondered why.

Forget about 007. This heroine has her own brand of spycraft' - Washington Post New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns war makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she's forced to take extreme measures to save herself. An exhilarating page turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century. 'Who Is Vera Kelly? is the twisty, literary, woman-driven spy novel you've always wanted to read' - Amy Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of Girl Waits with Gun 'Knecht's novel is a slow-burn espionage thriller, a complex treatment of queer identity, and an immersive period piece all rolled into one delectable page-turner' - Entertainment Weekly 'Gripping, magnificently written... This is a cool, strolling boulevardier of a book, worldly, wry, unrushed but never slow, which casts its gaze upon the middle of the last century and forces us to consider how it might be failing us still' - New York Times Book Review

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 CWA DEBUT DAGGER FOR UNPUBLISHED FIRST NOVEL She hasn't seen her brother in years. Now, he's dead. When Judi Westerholme finds out her estranged brother has been murdered, she assumes it's connected to his long term drug addiction. Returning home, she is shocked to discover he had been clean for years, had a wife – now missing – a child and led a respectable life. But if he had turned his life around, why was he killed in a drug deal shooting? And where is his wife? Desperate to know what really happened, Judi sets out to uncover the truth, even though it means confronting her own traumatic past. But she's not the only one looking for answers... With a gutsy, unapologetic protagonist, Trust Me, I'm Dead is a gritty and bold crime thriller that explores the sacrifices people will make for their families. 'Gripping and disturbing, Clark delves into dark places close to home. Trust Me, I’m Dead will linger in your mind after you have read it' - Leigh Russell, author of the bestselling Geraldine Steel series