Books published by Linen Press

This new collection of poetry reflects the lives, hopes and fears of women hidden behind walls and bars, lives which few of us can even imagine. Avril has waited until she is absolutely confident that she can capture the complexity of those voices which she does here with extraordinary authenticity, poignancy, and humour. The style is breathtakingly original.

Alice Green realises that reaching fifty is much the same as being invisible so why not make the most of it? Her head-in-the-sand husband doesn't notice the clothes mountain and the piles of pretty stationery.When two police cars draw up outside her house in leafy Edinburgh, Alice knows the game is up. While dealing with the present, she backtracks through her memories, recasting the events and people who chipped away at her confidence and contentment over the years. Run, Alice, Run is an irreverent coming-of-middle-age novel that looks with irony and black humour at the way society defines and diminishes women of all ages.

A faded seaside town in autumn is the backdrop for this elegiac story of a vulnerable boy and the adult who befriends him. Eight year old Neville, who counts stars and steps and grains of sand, is the first to notice that the red beach hut is occupied again. Abbott is on the run after a disturbing cyber attack. Their fleeting friendship, played out on the margins of sea and shore, brings the honesty and compassion both seek. But others watch, judge and misinterpret what they see while Abbot's past runs at their heels. An evocative portrayal of two outsiders who find companionship and solace on a lonely beach. This novel is about the labels we give people who are different and the harm that ensues.

In1843, Edinburgh artist, David Octavius Hill, is commissioned to paint the portraits of 400 ministers who have broken away from the Church of Scotland. Only when he meets Robert Adamson, an early master of the new and fickle art of photography, does this daunting task begin to look feasible.Hill is soon bewitched by the art of light and shade. He and Adamson become the darlings of Edinburgh society, immortalising people and places with their subtle and artistic images. In the Blink of an Eye is a re-imagining of Hill's life in the words of those who were beguiled by his artistry and charismatic charm. Tender, tragic and sometimes humorous, these voices come together in a story of art and science, love and loss, friendship and photography.

The date is 1937. The place Liverpool. Mary escapes a loveless childhood by marrying an infantry soldier who glories in active service.The date is 1952. The place Nairobi. The Mao Mau are rising up to reclaim their land in bloody guerrilla warfare. Mary's adulterous love affair unfolds in the empty rooms and grounds of deserted colonial houses. Trysts go unnoticed until political and personal events move towards their shocking finale. Spanning four decades, this is a novel of both epic proportion and intimate narration. At its heart is the poignant and powerful love affair between Mary, the young wife of an infantry soldier, and an intelligence officer who truly understands Africa and its plight. Their secret meetings are conveniently camouflaged by the hysteria and violence surrounding the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. We watch Mary from her too-young marriage, to her success in the Red Cross during WWII, to the jaded reunion with her husband, to the headlong passion of mature love. The ending is a bombshell.This story, spanning four decades, is told by Mary, her husband, David, and their young children, Eve and Clara, who listen at doors and speak their own fear-fuelled version of the truth.White Lies is about different kinds of war and different kinds of loving. It explores the fragility and partiality of memory and our need to re-write the past so that it does not jar with the stories we tell ourselves and others.

This is a book of many voyages.There is the meandering trail that leads to the right boat for crossing an ocean. There is the preparation stalled in a sweltering American boatyard while arguments about equipment and finance combine with the narrowing of the hurricane window. There is the crossing itself which starts with the wrong weather, broken boat parts, torn sails, serious leaks and a very seasick crew as Scarlet gets blown off course in unkind seas.Male and female monologues form the internal voyages. The skipper's thoughts range from the challenges of fitting a wind vane to almost losing an arm in a tangled genoa to the navigational system of the Puluwat Islanders. His wife describes diminishing supplies, the damp, bruises, blue eggs, jellyfish and her anxiety about the deteriorating health of her son who, suffering from ME, should not have been persuaded to go with them.External and internal journeys criss-cross as Scarlet sails on across 3000 miles of ocean. She would have told a different story.

The Deep Sea chippy and the Fantasy Island bar face each other across the neon glow of Junction Street. Beth shovels chips on one side and Amber spins naked around a pole on the other. Their work is mundane and predictable, each night much like any other, until a sudden, dramatic death forces them to choose between relative safety and risk.Into this situation wanders George, lost and broken-hearted and dressed in a monkey costume.Nothing is Heavy follows these three characters over the course of one intense Saturday night. Unaware that their lives are already intimately connected by a previous tragedy, their fates collide again with completely unpredictable results.What ensues is a hilarious, surreal, furiously-paced adventure involving sex, drugs, chips and angels which hovers masterfully between tragedy and farce.The strength of this truly original novel is that beneath the thrill-a-minute, fast-paced action, Vicki Jarrett deals with serious issues as the unforgettable characters' life-crushing backgrounds are slowly revealed and the past catches up with the present.