Books published by Orion

Don't miss the new novel from the Women's Prize longlisted author of Careless'A rare new talent' THE GUARDIAN''So real, and so very moving' JESSICA RYN'A second heartfelt triumph' ANSTEY HARRISLucy Banbury is fine. Until she isn't...Lucy Banbury isn't the sort of person that everyone gets along with - she's prickly and secretive, and she likes things ordered 'just so'. But things couldn't be going better for her - she swims three times a week, she's on the cusp of a huge promotion at work and she's dating someone perfect on paper.But when she discovers at a family wedding that she's adopted, her whole world is shattered. Those cracks she's taken years to plaster over are beginning to surface and she's not sure how much longer she can keep all her secrets hidden, all whilst pretending to be someone she's not...Because how can you pretend to love your life, when nobody loves you?Praise for Kirsty Capes:'Astounding. Heart-breaking but hopeful, and a fresh new voice' PANDORA SYKES'Moving and beautifully written' LIBBY PAGE'Made me laugh and cry in equal measure' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING'A book that deserves to be a huge hit' STYLIST'The literary equivalent of gold dust' BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH'An incredible debut novel. Kirsty Capes is one to watch' RED'A powerful coming-of-age debut' MARIE CLAIRE'Vigorous and insightful' DAILY MAIL

'Salma El-Wardany deftly reveals searing and poignant truths about the female experience' ASHLEY AUDRAIN'A beautifully written, thought-provoking book from a talented & feminist author' DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE'This novel captures the fierceness of female friendship better than anything I've ever read' BETH O'LEARY'They recognized that they were all existing in a perfect moment, and eventually it would have to end. Other times it felt like it would always be this way. These Impossible Things charts the dreams and disappointments of a group of British Muslim women; Jenna, Kees and Malak. They have been friends for years: the three of them together against the world.Yet one night changes everything between them and they are left adrift, marooned from each other as their lives take different paths. Without the support of each other, nothing seems to go quite right and in the wake of heartbreaks, marriages, new careers and new beginnings, they need each other more than ever. Will they be able to forgive each other in time?These Impossible Things tells the story of three women coming to terms with the choices we make, of reconciling love, loss, faith, womanhood and friendship, and how one moment, in a life where everything feels at odds, can change everything.'I know it will resonate and make so many women feel seen' POORNA BELL'A bracing, tender exploration of friendship, family and faith and their gaping complications. Irresistible' YRSA DALEY-WARD

'I loved Hidden Depths. Immersive, suspenseful and humane, this is a novel to savour' Louise CandlishPassenger...Lily is pregnant, travelling onboard the Titanic to her beloved family in the United States, hoping she can get there before her mind and body give up.For a long time now she's known her husband is not the man he's pretending to be and she's not safe.So, when she meets widower Lawrence she knows he's her last chance for help.Or Prisoner...But Lawrence knows he hasn't got time to save Lily.Lawrence is the only person on board the unsinkable ship who knows he will not disembark in New York.And the danger is much worse than either of them could imagine.Can Lily and Lawrence help each other to safety before it's too late?

'Jenner uses all the questions you never dared to ask about history as an excellent excuse to rummage around in some funny, fascinating, and downright peculiar corners of the past. Every page contains delights, and you will be illuminated and entertained in equal measure.' Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art'If history informs our future, Greg Jenner is one of the best informants out there. He is a natural story-teller, conveying complex ideas and events with pep, verve, and wit. For anyone who regularly asks the question 'Why?', this book is for you.' Susie Dent, author of Word Perfect Why is Italy called Italy? How old is curry? Which people from history would best pull off a casino heist? Who was the richest person of all time? When was the first Monday? What were history's weirdest medical procedures that actually worked? How much horse manure was splattered on the streets of Tudor London? How fast was the medieval Chinese postal system? What did the Flintstones get right about the Stone Age? Who gets to name historical eras, and what will ours be called in 100 years' time? How do we know how people sounded in the past? How old is sign language? In Ask a Historian the author, BBC podcaster, and public historian Greg Jenner provides answers to things you always wondered about, but didn't know who to ask. Responding to 50 genuine questions from the public, Greg whisks you off on an entertaining tour through the ages, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts, and historical characters from the past. Bouncing through a wide range of subjects - from ancient jokebooks, African empires, and bizarre tales of medicinal cannibalism, to the invention of meringues, mirrors, and menstrual pads - Ask A Historian spans the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, and offers up a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities, devoured one morsel at a time.

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL IN THE #1 BESTSELLING RIVERS OF LONDONThere is a world hidden underneath this great city...The London Silver Vaults - for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a celebrity punch-up. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace - only that's what happened.The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London's tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North!And Peter must solve this case soon because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn't know is that he's about to encounter something - and somebody - that nobody ever expects...Effortlessly original, endlessly inventive and hugely entertaining - step into the world of the much-loved, Number One bestselling Rivers of London series.* * * * *PRAISE FOR BEN AARONOVITCH & THE RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES:'Highly entertaining'SUNDAY EXPRESS'Charming, witty, exciting'THE INDEPENDENT'Ben Aaronovitch has created a wonderful world full of mystery, magic and fantastic characters. I love being there more than the real London'NICK FROST'As brilliant and funny as ever ... Masterfully crafted - gives the late, great Terry Pratchett a run for his money'THE SUN'An incredibly fast-moving magical joyride for grown-ups'THE TIMES'Funny and wildly inventive'MAIL ON SUNDAYDiscover why this incredible series has sold over two million copies worldwide. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, you will love the imaginative, irreverent and all-round irresistible RIVERS OF LONDON books.

MAKING HISTORY is an epic exploration of who writes about the past and how the biases of certain storytellers - whether Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare or Simon Schama - continue to influence our ideas about history (and about who we are) today. In this authoritative and entertaining book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses (such as the writers of the Bible, major novelists, dramatists, journalists and political propagandists) influence what become the accepted records of human experience. Is there, he asks, even such a thing as 'objective' history? The depth of Cohen's inquiry and the delight he takes in his subjects includes the practitioners of what he calls 'Bad History,' those thieves of history who twist reality to glorify themselves and conceal their or their country's behaviour. Cohen investigates the published works and private utterances of our greatest historical thinkers to discover the agendas that informed their views of the world, and which in so many ways have informed ours. From the origins of history-writing, when such an idea seemed itself revolutionary, through to television and the digital age, MAKING HISTORY abounds in captivating figures brought to vivid life, from Thucydides and Tacitus to Voltaire and Gibbon, from Winston Churchill to Mary Beard. Rich in character, complex truths and surprising anecdotes, the result is a unique exploration of both the aims and craft of history-making. It will lead us to think anew about our past and ourselves.

When Lily Dunn was just six years old, her father left the family home to follow his guru to India, trading domestic life for clothes dyed in oranges and reds and the promise of enlightenment with the cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Since then he has been a mystery to her. She grew up enthralled by the image of him; effervescent, ambitious and elusive, a writer, publisher and entrepreneur, a man who would appear with gifts from faraway places, and with whom she spent the long, hot summers of her teenage years in Italy, in the company of his wild and wealthy friends.Yet he was also a compulsive liar, a delinquent, a man who abandoned his responsibilities in a pursuit of transcendence that took him from sex addiction, via the Rajneesh cult, to a relentless chase of money, which ended in ruin and finally addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs.A detective story that charts two colliding narratives, Sins of My Father is a daughter's attempt to unravel the mysteries of a father who believed himself to be beyond reproach. A dazzling work of literary memoir, it asks how deep legacies of shame and trauma run, and if we can reconcile unconditional love with irreparable damage.

'Beautifully wrought dark fantasy' NetGalley ReviewerA MAN MARKED BY MAGIC. A WOMAN MARKED BY HER PAST.On the other side of the Shadowpass, rebellion is brewing and refugees have begun to trickle into the city at the edge of the world. Looming high on the cliff is The Nest, a fortress full of mages who offer protection, but also embody everything the rebellion is fighting against: a strict hierarchy based on magic abilities.When Isha arrives as a refugee, she attempts to fit in amongst the other mages, but her Kher tattoo brands her as an outcast. She can't remember her past or why she has the tattoo. All she knows is that she survived. She doesn't intend to give up now.Tatters, who wears the golden collar of a slave, knows that this rebellion is different from past skirmishes. He was once one of the rebels, and technically, they still own him. He plans to stay in the shadows, until Isha appears in his tavern. He's never seen a human with a tattoo, and the markings look eerily familiar . . .As the rebellion carves a path of destruction towards the city, an unlikely friendship forms between a man trying to escape his past and a woman trying to uncover hers, until their secrets threaten to tear them apart.The Collarbound hooks from the opening page and will appeal to fans of magical, brink-of-war settings, like that of The Poppy War and The City of Brass.

More than any other technology, cars have transformed our culture. Cars have created vast wealth as well as novel dreams of freedom and mobility. They have transformed our sense of distance and made the world infinitely more available to our eyes and our imaginations. They have inspired cinema, music and literature; they have, by their need for roads, bridges, filling stations, huge factories and global supply chains, re-engineered the world. Almost everything we now need, want, imagine or aspire to assumes the existence of cars in all their limitless power and their complex systems of meanings.This book celebrates the immense drama and beauty of the car, of the genius embodied in the Ford Model T, of the glory of the brilliant-red Mercedes Benz S-Class made by workers for Nelson Mandela on his release from prison, of Kanye West's 'chopped' Maybach, of the salvation of the Volkswagen Beetle by Major Ivan Hirst, of Elvis Presley's 100 Cadillacs, of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and the BMC Mini and even of that harbinger of the end - the Tesla Model S and its creator Elon Musk.As the age of the car as we know it comes to an end, Bryan Appleyard's brilliantly insightful book tells the story of the rise and fall of the incredible machine that made the modern world what it is today.

'Exquisitely written ... Be prepared to be swept away on an incredible journey' Brad Thor, #1 bestselling author of Black Ice'A story about magical maps that lead to your heart's desire [and] the people who would do anything to find them ... A vastly rich experience' Charles Soule, author of The Oracle YearThere are some maps you can lose yourself in...Nell Young has lived her life in and around maps. Her father, Dr. David Young, was one of the most respected cartographers in the world. But this morning he was found dead - or murdered? - in his office at the New York Public Library. Nell hadn't spoken to her father in years, ever since he fired her after an argument over a seemingly worthless highway roadside map. A map which was mass-produced - and every copy of which is now being found and destroyed. But why? To answer that question, Nell will embark on a dangerous journey into the heart of a conspiracy beyond belief, the secrets behind her family, and the true power that lies in maps . . . THE CARTOGRAPHERS is a story about Art and Science: where they meet, how they both enrich our lives, and how each defines the other. And it's a book about the mystery, history, and ineffable romance of maps.

'This book opens the Pandora's Box on this most complex and puzzling aspect of what it is to be human' Robin Dunbar, author of Friends'Anna Machin offers a lively guide to the many kinds of human love that exist, and the biology and psychology that explain why we love the way we do' Frans de Waal, author of Mama's Last HugIn this entertaining and accessible exploration of love, Oxford anthropologist Dr Anna Machin dives into the science behind the myriad types of love that exist in the world, including romantic love, parental love, friendships, love for pets, football teams, religious love and even love for our smartphones. Through original research brought to life by interviews and case studies, and encompassing such fascinating areas as polyamorous relationships, parasocial (love for a celebrity) and sacred loves, this book argues that it is time to stop putting romantic love on a pedestal. By exploring the science that illuminates the benefits of all our different close relationships, Dr Anna Machin encourages us to reconsider the importance of love in our own lives, to interrogate our own experiences, and to reconnect with the heart of what it really means to be human.

'An army of bitchy, backstabbing, rivalrous literary greats inhabit this energetic history... Loxley's voice is energetic and enthused' The Times'I enjoyed being transported, through Loxley's vignettes, to various corners of London...Loxley's first chapter, on Isherwood, [is] one of the most engaging I've read...a measured and thoughtful debut' Daisy Dunn, The Literary Review 'Will Loxley has a deft touch, wit, and a panoramic eye which would have pleased Cyril Connolly himself.' John Sutherland, author of Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me'A marvelous tour d'Horizon, written with energy and an eye for the spot-on detail, and creating a rich picture of culture, art, work, friendship and love in a London going through extraordinary times.' Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist CafeAmid the sleepless nights of constant explosion and gunfire, and the discomfort, grief and primordial fear, the little office at 6 Lansdowne Terrace seemed to hold intact everything that was great or beautiful about human life. As the streetlamps flickered out and lights were obscured behind brown-paper screens, a subdued atmosphere took hold of London in 1939. Cloistered in pubs and gloomy sitting rooms, London's young writers and artists faced being sent to the front, trading their paintbrushes and pens for the weapons of war. In WRITING IN THE DARK, Will Loxley conjures up this brooding world and tells the story of the defiant magazine Horizon, which sprung up against the odds.Interweaving the personal histories of the magazine's leaders - Cyril Connolly, Stephen Spender and John Lehmann, with their friends and contemporaries Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Dylan Thomas, as well as many more names both familiar and not - Will brings us into these writers' homes and into the little offices at 6 Lansdowne Terrace. WRITING IN THE DARK captures the literary life of WWII, fusing the exhausted melancholy in the aftermath of the Blitz with changes in the writers' own lives, as they moved from city to countryside, from youth to middle age.

The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he's a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who's given in to drink after the death of Marlowe's mother.Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of COAST is Marlowe's troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who's unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy. Together, they will realize that one of their clients may be responsible for murder of her own husband, a washed-up director in debt to Albanian and Russian gangsters, and that the client's trouble-making daughter may not be what she seems.Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighborhoods of modern LA, Ide's COAST is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender.

INAUGURAL LILLY'S LIBRARY BOOK CLUB PICK FROM LILLY SINGH'I really loved this book' Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind 'Patel writes with the wisdom and compassion of an old soul' Celeste Ng 'A love letter to R&B' Susie Yang, author of White Ivy 'Something everyone can relate to' Lilly Singh, author of How to Be a Bawse 'A soulful and seductive love song of a book' Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of The Last Story of Mina Lee 'Absolutely loved it' Luan Goldie, author of Nightingale Point 'It made me laugh and cry' Kavita Puri, author of Partition Voices 'Refreshing...Defiant...Consistently surprising.' The New York Times Book Review Lost in the jungle of Los Angeles, Akash Amin is filled with shame. Shame for liking men. Shame for wanting to be a songwriter. Shame for not being like his perfect brother. Shame for his alcoholism. And most of all, shame for what happened with the first boy he ever loved. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash must return to Illinois to confront his demons and the painful memory of a sexual awakening that became a nightmare.Akash's mum, Renu, is also plagued by guilt. She had it all: doting husband, beautiful house, healthy sons. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband's death approaches Renu can't stop wondering if she chose the wrong life thirty-five years ago and should have stayed in London with her first love.Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they've since created.By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of '90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.

Another blockbuster from bestseller Erica James - set beside the sea in idyllic Pembrokeshire.Angel Sands is a traditional seaside resort of bed and breakfasts, cottages to let and teashops. And with the best views of the tiny beach and surrounding coastline is Paradise House, home to the Baxter girls - or the Sisters of Whimsy as they're known locally. With their mother taking time out to find herself, it's down to Genevieve to maintain the smooth running of the family-owned B&B. Not an easy task, given that their father - now that his wife isn't around - has suddenly become a magnet for the opposite sex. And there's little help from her sisters: Nattie is too busy offending her long-time admirer, and Polly spends most of her days with her head in the clouds or in a book. But when news spreads in the tightly knit community that a nearby dilapidated barn has been sold, Genevieve finds that a bittersweet trip down memory lane is unavoidable...