Kirstin Innes

'Kirstin Innes is aiming high, writing for readers in the early days of a better nation' A.L. Kennedy, author of Serious Sweet Three days before her fifty-first birthday, Clio Campbell - one-hit-wonder, political activist, life-long-love and one-night-stand - kills herself in her friend Ruth's spare bedroom. And, as practical as she is, Ruth doesn't know what to do. Or how to feel. Because knowing and loving Clio Campbell was never straightforward. To Neil, she was his great unrequited love. He'd known it since their days on picket lines as teenagers. Now she's a sentence in his email inbox: Remember me well. The media had loved her as a sexy young starlet, but laughed her off as a ranting spinster as she aged. But with news of her suicide, Clio Campbell is transformed into a posthumous heroine for politically chaotic times. Stretching over five decades, taking in the miners' strikes to Brexit and beyond; hopping between a tiny Scottish island, a Brixton anarchist squat, the bloody Genoa G8 protests, the poll tax riots and Top of the Pops, Scabby Queen is a portrait of a woman who refuses to compromise, told by her friends and lovers, enemies and fans. As word spreads of what Clio has done, half a century of memories, of pain and of joy are wrenched to the surface. Those who loved her, those who hated her, and those that felt both ways at once, are forced to ask one question: Who was Clio Campbell?

Scabby Queen

A “thoughtful, bruising, poignant, and poetic” (Ian Rankin) debut in which a woman’s search for her missing sister leads her into the world of contemporary sex work. Rona Leonard was only twenty-years-old when she walked out of her sister Fiona’s flat and disappeared. Six years later—worn down by a tedious job, childcare, and an aching absence in her life—Fiona’s mundane existence is blown apart by the revelation that Rona had been working as a prostitute before she vanished. Driven to discover the truth, Fiona embarks on an obsessive quest to investigate the sex industry that claimed her sister. However, as she is drawn into this complex world, Fiona finds herself seduced by the power it offers women in a society determined to see them only as victims. In bold, unflinching prose, Fishnet offers a clear-eyed look at the lives of sex workers, questioning our perception of contemporary femininity and challenging assumptions about power, vulnerability, and choice.

Fishnet

David Bratchpiece

Nightclub, theatre, creative hub, party place, and one of the most important venues in Scotland, Britain and Europe: for almost 25 years, The Arches was the beating heart of Glasgow. In 1991, former punk-turned-theatre director Andy Arnold walked into the disused red brick Victorian railway arches underneath Glasgow's Central Station and immediately saw the potential of the space. Not even he could have imagined its future, as simultaneously one of the biggest and most famous nightclubs in the world and a major player on the European theatre scene. Until its closure following a drug-related death in 2015, The Arches carved its own, indefinable path, playing a vital role in the lives of many Scottish artists along the way. Some of those stars of the future began their careers taking tickets, hanging coats and serving drinks there. For the first time, the people who made the venue get to tell their story. Piecing together accounts from directors, DJs, performers, clubbers, artists, bar tenders, actors, audiences and staff, Brickwork writes the biography of a space that was always more than its bricks and mortar.

Kirstin Innes

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