Our November Selections

New month, new books! We're so excited to bring our November selections to you. This month we've got five new incredible releases and one backlist beauty that we think you'll love.

Our Hardback Selections

Heap Earth Upon It by Chloe Michelle Howarth (includes exclusive author’s note) - The author of the bestselling novel, Sunburn, is back with a poignant and beautiful meditation on life lived under the weight of secrets, as three orphaned siblings arrive in a village longing for a fresh start. Released on the 30th of October, we knew we had to include this one in our November picks. Chloe is the master of her craft when it comes to writing an exquisite and hypnotic prose. With its rich gothic atmosphere, vivid characters, and a powerful sense of yearning, Chloe is a real talent and we can't wait to see what she releases in the future. Here's all about the book -

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.

Bitter Sweet by Hattie Williams (includes exclusive author interview) - Bitter Sweet is a strong contender for our favourite book of 2025. Why? With well crafted characters and its powerful exploration of grief and power dynamics, Williams writing kept us completely hooked. Here's more about it -

'In my life, there are things that have happened to me, and things that I have done, that have proven to be moments that have a clear before and an after. One of those moments, perhaps in some ways the biggest, was the day that I met Richard Aveling for the first time.'

Charlie is twenty-three, single and the new publicity assistant at the independent London publishing house Winden & Shane. Richard Aveling is fifty-six, married and the author that has defined his generation.

Charlie has long idolised the charming, illustrious writer, who also represents a link to her late mother, who loved his work. But as they embark on an illicit and all-consuming affair, Charlie is forced to hide the relationship from everyone she cares about. And when the success of Richard's latest book launches him to a new level of fame where all anonymity is lost, she realises she might just be in too deep…

A thought-provoking exploration of a relationship founded in power, control and silence, Bitter Sweet is perfect for book clubs and will appeal to fans of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason and Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors.

Heart the Lover by Lily King - Oh this one tugged at our heartstrings -

Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules. She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games.

Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love. Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth. Written with the precision of poetry and the emotional tide of an epic, Heart the Lover is a celebration of literature and the life-long echoes of young love.

Our Paperbacks

The Merge by Grace Walker (includes author Q&A) - Released on the 6th of November, The Merge is one of the most original books we've read in a while. Blending sci-fi elements with a dystopian setting, it's a thought-provoking book that questions how far we'll go to cling onto the people we love. Here's the blurb -

Once the process begins, there can be no going back, we will always be together…Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer’s. Her daughter Amelia can’t bear to see her mother’s mind fade.

Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world’s first experimental merging process for Alzheimer’s patients, in which Laurie’s ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia’s healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one. Soon Amelia and Laurie join a group of other merge participants: teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancée Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his unwilling addict daughter Lara. As they prepare to move to The Village, a luxurious rehabilitation centre for those who have merged, they quickly begin to question whether everything is really as it seems.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio - A brilliant campus novel with a memorable narrator that will stay with you as she navigates education, dating and the reality of living in the U.S undocumented. One we couldn't wait to include -

When Catalina, a witty, vulnerable and beautiful Ecuadorian student, arrives at Harvard, she feels like one of the chosen.

She is a miracle child who has escaped death in Latin America to be raised by undocumented grandparents and now studies at the most prestigious university in the world. She knows she has to play the part, but she also wants to have a good time in the process. And so begins her era of opulent parties, secret societies, desirable internships, flings with rich men and plenty of vodka sodas.

But in her final year, undocumented immigrants become the target of political turmoil and Catalina’s life back in New York begins to unravel. As the clock ticks on the precarious future of her family, what will she sacrifice to save the people she loves the most?

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Released back in 2019, Breasts and Eggs is a book that is a deep exploration of womanhood, the body, motherhood and identity. It's the kind of book you want to devour slowly, taking into the beauty of Kawakami's writing one paragraph at a time. It sticks out in our head as an important read that we always wanted to include in our subscription. 

On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by her daughter, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession.

Her silence dominates Natsuko’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another. Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family’s past as she faces her own uncertain future.

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