'Smart, funny, and driven by unforgettable characters ... a must-read' Bonnie Garmus, author of Peck and Peck and Lessons in Chemistry

'A rip-roaring adventure of found family, complex sisterhood and tested moral compasses' Sunday Times

'Pure hell-raising entertainment' New York Times

'The biggest publishing event of the year' Mirror

'Exquisite storytelling ... a joyful, heartbreaking, heartwarming read. I loved it so much' Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

“You give a girl a taste of fresh air and then you take it away—she’ll grow fierce and wild to get it back.”

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.

Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the 'unadoptable' girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future.

But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose.

Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

Bold, heartwarming, and riotously funny, The Calamity Club is an unforgettable story of resilience and friendship, and a sisterhood of underestimated women who risk everything to take back control of their fates.

'As witty, bold, and transportive as it is heartbreaking and compassionate' Shelley Read, author of Go as a River

'A gorgeous novel with a lot of heart' Prima

'It’s such a joy to immerse yourself in this world and with these characters ... a really special book that’s been well worth the wait' Good Housekeeping

'So immersive, exciting, and downright fabulous, you never want it to end' Oprah Daily
_

PRAISE FOR THE HELP

'Daring, vitally important and very courageous, I loved and admired The Help. Fantastic' MARIAN KEYES

'Outstanding, immensely funny, very compelling, brilliant' Daily Telegraph

'A laugh-out-loud, vociferously angry must-read' Marie Claire

'Touching, disgraceful, funny. Highly recommended' Daily Mail

'A panoramic, ambitious tale.' The Times
'Exceptional.' Salman Rushdie
'Powerful.' Christine Mangan
'Captivating.' Elle

From the internationally bestselling author of Lullaby, The Country of Others is perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Tracy Chevalier, and Maggie O'Farrell.

1944. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco.

But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Her life is now that of a farmer’s wife – with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm and by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner, Mathilde grows increasingly restless.

As Morocco’s struggle for independence intensifies, Mathilde and her husband find themselves caught in the crossfire.

2026 WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 RSL CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 EAST ANGLIAN BOOK AWARD

‘Entertaining and moving…I came to love these four women as though they were my sisters’ TRACY CHEVALIER

'Heartfelt, thoughtful and engaging ... A thoroughly lovely debut that will win many hearts' JOANNA B QUINN, author of The Whalebone Theatre

They knew they were changing history.
They didn’t know they would change each other.

‘Beautifully captures the power of friendship and love in the wake of extraordinary loss. It was a pleasure to read’ Pip Williams, author of The Dictionary of Lost Words

‘Sparkling … An inspiring reminder of the trail blazed by clever women in the past’ The Times

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1,000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight and find themselves thrust into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship. They have come here from all walks of life, but Dora, Beatrice, Otto and Marianne all long to move on from the Great War, whose ghosts, grief, and secrets still feel very real indeed.

But Oxford is a place caught between tradition and change, where centuries of misogyny and exclusion clash with the promise of new freedoms. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time under the city’s dreaming spires, their friendship will become more important than ever.

The Eights is a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that is forever changed.

‘A beautifully wrought story of women’s rights, freedom, love and experience. I couldn’t put it down’ HARRIET EVANS

‘I became completely involved in the lives of the four pioneering heroines whose friendship is the beating heart of the book’ CLARE CHAMBERS

Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, The Oldie, i Paper, The Standard, Washington Post, Independent, Daily Express

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2024

‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The Telegraph

Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story?

In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth.

From literary London to the Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.

‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction?' Michael Frayn

‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind . . . Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times

‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent

‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ Guardian

Instant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023