Kirsty Logan

So here we go, into the dark. Some things can't be spoken about in the light of day. But we can visit our fears at night, in the dark. We can turn them over and weigh them in our hands and maybe that will protect us from them. But maybe not. The characters in this collection find their aspirations for happy homes, happy families and happy memories dissected and imbued with shimmering menace. Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool. Couples wrestle with a lack of connection to their children; a schoolgirl becomes obsessed with the female anatomical models in a museum; and a cheery account of child's day out is undercut by chilling footnotes. These dark tales explore women's fears with electrifying honesty and invention and speak to one another about female bodies, domestic claustrophobia, desire and violence. From a talented writer who has been compared to Angela Carter, Things We Say in the Dark is a powerful contemporary collection of feminist stories, ranging from vicious fairy tales to disturbing horror and tender ghost stories.

Things We Say in the Dark

A shoreside burial coordinator who lives in self-enforced exile as penance for a long-ago mistake and a performer with a floating circus face unexpected life changes and new opportunities in the wake of an offshore storm. A first novel.

The Gracekeepers

The best lives leave a mark.' A bewitching tale of first love, shattering grief, and the dangerous magic that draws us home. Mara's island is one of stories and magic, but every story ends in the same way. She will finish her days on the cliff, turned to stone and gazing out at the horizon like all the islanders before her. Mara's parents - a boxer and a ballerina - chose this enchanted place as a refuge from the turbulence of their previous lives; they wanted to bring up their children somewhere special and safe. But the island and the sea don't care what people want, and when they claim a price from her family, Mara's world unravels. It takes the arrival of Pearl, mysterious and irresistible, to light a spark in Mara again, and allow her to consider a different story for herself. The Gloamingis a gorgeous tale of love and grief, and the gap between fairy tales and real life.

The Gloaming

Eimear McBride

Daisy Johnson

Naomi Booth

Emma Glass

Imogen Hermes Gowar

Irenosen Okojie

Natasha Carthew

Mahsuda Snaith

Liv Little

"DARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID. Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men. From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today."--Provided by publisher.

Now She Is Witch

Winner of the Scott PrizeTwenty tales of lust and loss. These stories feature clockwork hearts, lascivious queens, paper men, island circuses, and a flooded world. On the island of Skye, an antlered girl and a tiger-tailed boy resolve never to be friends – but can they resist their unique connection? In an alternative 19th-century Paris, a love triangle emerges between a man, a woman, and a coin-operated boy. A teenager deals with his sister's death by escaping from their tiny Scottish island – but will she let him leave? In 1920s New Orleans, a young girl comes of age in her mother's brothel. Some of these stories are radical retellings of classic tales, some are modern-day fables, but all explore substitutions for love.

The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales

Neil Gaiman

Claire North

James Smythe

Kamila Shamsie

Amal El-Mohtar

Maria Dahvana Headley

E. J. Swift

Nnedi Okorafor

Monica Byrne

Sophia Al-Maria

Sami Shah

Catherine King

Hermes

Jamal Majoub

J. Y. Yang

K.J. Parker

Kuzhali Manickavel

Nada Adel Sobhi

Saad Hossein

Usman Malik

A fascinating collection of new and classic tales of the fearsome Djinn, from bestselling, award-winning and breakthrough international writers. Imagine a world filled with fierce, fiery beings, hiding in our shadows, in our dreams, under our skins. Eavesdropping and exploring; savaging our bodies, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends. Some have called them genies: these are the Djinn. And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind the wheel of a taxi, in the chorus, between the pages of books. Every language has a word for them. Every culture knows their traditions. Every religion, every history has them hiding in their dark places. There is no part of the world that does not know them. They are the Djinn. They are among us. With stories from: Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherine King, Claire North, E.J. Swift, Hermes (trans. Robin Moger), Jamal Majoub, James Smythe, J.Y. Yang, Kamila Shamsie, Kirsty Logan, K.J. Parker, Kuzhali Manickavel, Maria Dahvana Headley, Monica Byrne, Nada Adel Sobhi, Saad Hossein, Sami Shah, Sophia Al-Maria and Usman Malik.

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories

A Portable Shelter

Helen Oyeyemi

Margaret Atwood

Rachel Seiffert

Stella Duffy

Caroline O'Donoghue

Emma Donoghue

Linda Grant

Ali Smith

Chibundu Onuzo

Eleanor Crewes

Susie Boyt

Claire Kohda

Cn Lester

DRAGON. TIGRESS. SHE-DEVIL.
For centuries past, and all across the world,
HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH.
there are words that have defined and decried us.
HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE.
Words that raise our hackles,
VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT.
fire up our blood;
FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO.
words that tell a story.

In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time.

Stories of the wicket, wild and untamed

Furies

This is a witch story unlike any other. Lux has lost everything when Else finds her in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home - all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons. Else needs Lux's help to destroy the man who wronged her. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries. From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and sometimes by throwing each other to the wolves. 'A story that will hold you tight and not let go' Stylist 'Mesmerising and evocative...There are echoes of everything from the Brothers Grimm to Angela Carter' Observer Powerful, imaginative, compelling - myth-making at its best' Val McDermid 'An impassioned reclaiming of female desire...absorbingly atmospheric' Daily Mail 'Spooky, timeless, feminist, inventive, unsettling' Viv Groksop

‘Myth-making at its best‘ Val McDermid

Now She is Witch

The House of Former Lovers

The Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive

Paul McQuade

Original tales by remarkable writers Hometown Tales is a series of books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction and some are narrative non-fiction - they are all powerful, fascinating and moving, and aim to celebrate regional diversity and explore the meaning of home. In these pages on Glasgow, you'll find two unique memoirs. 'The Old Asylum in the Woods' is an intimate, intensely moving account of growing up in the shadow of Woodilee Hospital by author of The Gracekeepers and The Gloaming, Kirsty Logan. 'Glasgow Sang' is a deeply personal journey on foot through the city, from Kelvin Way Bridge to George Square to the statue of La Pasionaria, by Paul McQuade.

Hometown Tales: Glasgow

On a near-abandoned research base in an Arctic ice field, a skeleton crew works to ensure the centre doesn’t collapse amid treacherous storms. Officially, Trieste Grayling arrives in order to explore and film a sunken shipwreck for a documentary film; privately, she's working through a complicated grief. Trieste soon realises she's not the only one who was attracted to this intense isolation in order to escape her ghosts. 

Each of the crew members harbour dark secrets: Mal, the ever-competent medic conducting mysterious therapy sessions, Sweetie, the reclusive engineer with scarred hands, Thorsteinn, the aloof diver tender, Avelina, the temperamental base manager whose stories of home don't quite add up, Grace, an underwater welder and recovering addict, and Judd, the erratic former member of a ‘90s boy band. As they begin to reach breaking point, each one's hidden ghosts finally comes into the light.

The Sound at the End

North and her bear live on a circus boat, floating between the scattered archipelagoes that are all that remains of the land. To survive, the circus's acrobats, fire-swallowers and pony-tricksters must perform for the few fortunate islanders in return for food and supplies. Callanish tends the watery graves along the equator as penance for a long-ago mistake. She craves forgiveness but instead must spend her days alone with the dying birds that mark people’s mourning for the dead. A storm brings a change in both of their lives that they may not have been looking for, but that may bring them the peace and happiness they have silently yearned for. Will they have the courage to embrace the possibilities of a world where the old boundaries are dissolving?

'Engaging, modern fables with a feminist tang' Sunday Times DARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID. Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men. From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today. 'A thoroughly original package that has a hint of Angela Carter' The Times 'Sharp writing and cleverly done' Spectator

Forgotten Folktales Retold

A Witch Story Unlike Any Other from the Author of the Gracekeepers

An unconventional, unexpectedly funny, brutally honest memoir about infertility, pregnancy and motherhood 'You and your partner want a baby. But your two bodies can't make a baby together.' If you want a baby but your body says otherwise - If you don't know the polite way to say thank you for the sperm - If you're waiting for the sound of a brand-new heartbeat - If you know it takes a village to raise a baby but have no idea who should be doing what - If you're lurching between bliss and bewilderment - If you don't fit the shape of what you've been told a mother should be - Reach for The Unfamiliar and don't let go. Moving and immersive, and written with wisdom, disarming humour and raw honesty, The Unfamiliar casts a fresh eye on motherhood and challenges our assumptions about pregnancy, gender roles, queer identity and what it means to be a parent.

Making a Queer Family

The Unfamiliar

For readers of The Night Circus and Station Eleven, a lyrical and absorbing debut set in a world covered by water As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance. In a world divided between those inhabiting the mainland ("landlockers") and those who float on the sea ("damplings"), loneliness has become a way of life for North and Callanish, until a sudden storm offshore brings change to both their lives--offering them a new understanding of the world they live in and the consequences of the past, while restoring hope in an unexpected future. Inspired in part by Scottish myths and fairytales, The Gracekeepers tells a modern story of an irreparably changed world: one that harbors the same isolation and sadness, but also joys and marvels of our own age. — Finalist, Lambda Literary Award

A Novel

Kirsty Logan

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