The Spider Truces

The Spider Truces
Author: Tom Connolly
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2011-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434007

Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and Great-aunt Mafi -- and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. He is a sensitive soul; awkward and out of place most of the time but funny, too, and with an embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.From early attempts at relationships, to unskilled jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad, Denny, and his affectionate relationship with his intrepid sister, who turns up whenever he needs her -- a new boyfriend in tow every time. The family banter is Ellis's lifeline and a counterpoint to the constant heartache of his desire to know something -- anything -- about his mother. Meanwhile Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.

Men Like Air

Men Like Air
Author: Tom Connolly
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2016-09-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434899

Tom Connolly's dazzling new novel is a funny, turbulent and heartfelt study of male relationships. It is April in Manhattan and the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen-year-old Finn has just arrived in New York City with his irrepressible girlfriend, determined to even the score with his older brother Jack for abandoning him in the aftermath of their parents' deaths. Across town, successful gallery owner Leo is haunted by loneliness, unsettled by the contrast between his life and that of his brother-in-law and oldest friend William, who is enviably content in his faith and his marriage. When Finn wanders into Leo's gallery, a series of unexpected and interconnected events unfold, changing the lives of all four men forever. Beautifully orchestrated and richly comic, Men Like Air is an uplifting story of growth and renewal, mapping the complex workings of the human heart across the streets of New York City.

Invisibles

Invisibles
Author: Ed Siegle
Publisher: Myriad Editions (US&CA)
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0956792618

Invisibles spans two cities by the sea and four decades of music, torture, and romance. From the streets of Brighton to the bars of Rio, Ed Siegle weaves the rhythms of Brazil and the troubles of his characters into an absorbing story of identity, love, and loss. Joel Burns has always believed his father is still alive. His mother Jackie has long been glad to know Gilberto is dead. When a sighting on a news report from Rio de Janeiro suggests Joel might be right, he travels to Brazil determined to find his long-lost father. Nelson, a down-and-out musician guided by the spirits of Jesus, Yemanjá, and his late Aunt Zila, helps Joel retrace his childhood steps—and face up to the contrast between his rosy memories of Gilberto and his mother's accounts of the man's cruelty and the violent times following his arrest and imprisonment by the military authorities. At once familiar and foreign, this sweet, sad, and compulsively readable first novel throngs with visceral memory and unbreakable ordinary heroes.

The Deception Artist

The Deception Artist
Author: Fayette Fox
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2013-05-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434252

Who needs the truth? Eight-year-old Ivy has a vivid imagination and tells lies so that people will like her. With her brother, Brice, in hospital, life at home feels unsettled and things become even more strained after her father loses his job, along with his sense of purpose. Ivy's parents might divorce and her best friend hates her but, ever creative, she abandons her escapist fantasies and determines to uncover the truth. In this sharp and funny literary debut set in Northern California during the 1980s recession, Fayette Fox delves deep into the dark heart of an ordinary American family - and finds out that make-believe isn't just for kids.

Longest Fight

Longest Fight
Author: Emily Bullock
Publisher: Myriad Editions (US&CA)
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2015-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434546

Set in 1950s London amid the gritty and violent world of boxing, this beautiful and brutal debut is the story of one man's struggle to overcome the mistakes and tragedies of his pastJack Munday has been fighting all his life. His early memories are shaped by the thrill of the boxing ring. Since then he has grown numb, scarred by his bullying father and haunted by the tragic fate of his first love. Now a grafting boxing manager, Jack is hungry for change. So when hope and ambition appear in the form of Frank, a young fighter with a winning prospect, and Georgie, a new girl who can match him step for step, Jack seizes his chance for a better future, determined to win at all costs. Inspired by the author's boxing grandfather, the novel is at once a startlingly poignant exploration of love and family loyalty, and a proud evocation of the strength of relationships formed in a violent, ambitious, male-dominated world.

Quilt

Quilt
Author: Nicholas Royle
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2011-08-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434023

Facing the disarray and disorientation around his father's death, a man contends with the strange and haunting power of the house his parents once lived in.He sets about the mundane yet exhausting process of sorting through the remnants of his father's life -- clearing away years of accumulated objects, unearthing forgotten memories and the haunted realms of everyday life. At the same time, he embarks on an eccentric side-project. And as he grows increasingly obsessed with this new project, his grip on reality seems to slip.Nicholas Royle challenges and experiments with literary form to forge a new mode of storytelling that is both playful and inquisitive. Tender, absorbing and at times shockingly funny, this extraordinary novel is both mystery and love story. It confronts the mad hand of grief while embracing the endless possibilities of language.

Alarm Girl

Alarm Girl
Author: Hannah Vincent
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2014-08-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434465

When 11-year-old Indigo and her older brother Robin arrive in South Africa to stay with their father, they find a luxury lifestyle that is a world away from their modest existence back in England. But Indigo is uneasy in the foreign landscape and confused by the family's silence surrounding her mother's recent death. Unable to find solace in either new or old faces, she begins to harbour violent suspicions in place of the truth. Steeped in the dry heat of a South African summer, this keen and touching debut seamlessly interweaves the voices of Indigo and her mother, and beautifully captures the human desire to belong: in a family, in a country, in your own skin.

Busker

Busker
Author: Liam Murray Bell
Publisher: Myriad Editions (US&CA)
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434384

The hard-hitting story of a young man determined to find his voicePlucked from obscurity in Glasgow, Rab Dillon is about to become the next great protest singer. Seduced by promises of stardom, carrying only the guitar given to him by the girl who broke his heart, he travels down to London. There he records the debut album that will speak to the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, and disheartened. One year later, he is sleeping rough on the streets of Brighton. A modern-day ballad set across three cities and two years, The Busker is a richly comic exposé of the music industry, the Occupy movement, homelessness, squatting, and failing to live up to the name you (almost) share with your hero. It is also the story of what survives when the flimsy dreams of fame fall apart.

How You See Me

How You See Me
Author: S.E. Craythorne
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2015-08-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434570

Taut and suspenseful, How You See Me examines the terrifying power of the mind to deceive, not only others but - most destructively of all - ourselves. 'I've probably lied to you. That's habit. I lie to everyone about my family...' Daniel Laird has returned to Norfolk after a nine-year absence to care for his ailing artist father. He describes his uneasy homecoming in a series of letters to his sister, his boss, and to Alice, his one true love. But it is not until he discovers a hidden cache of his father's paintings that the truth begins to surface about why he left all those years ago. The more Daniel writes, the more we learn about his past - and the more we begin to fear for those he holds dear.

So It Is

So It Is
Author: Liam Murray Bell
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2012-06-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1908434155

Spanning the decades that saw Northern Ireland move from brutal conflict to uncertain peace in the 1990s, this powerful new take on the literature of the Troubles is both a political coming-of-age novel and a fast-paced literary thriller. Aoife, a young girl growing up in 1980s Belfast, finds herself the last line of defence between the violence and her family. While her mother sinks deeper into a medicated stupor, and her father leaves the family for the comforts of the local bars, Aoife cares for her brother Damien, trying to keep him out of harm's way, while all around her friends and neighbours are swept up in the conflict. Meanwhile Cassie, a Republican paramilitary and honeytrap, lures and seduces her victims, inflicting lasting damage. But her infamous tacti have their repercussions, and before long her past catches up with her. So It Is is an unflinching and suspenseful debut that reflects the factions and fractures of the Troubles from a new perspective, culminating in a breathless sequence in which the choice between violence and personal morality becomes shockingly acute.