From the international Number One bestselling author of Someone Else's Shoes - thirty years after Lila's father ran away to Hollywood, he's back to wreck - or save - her life . . .

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A recently broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Not to mention a once promising writing career that is now in freefall. So when her real dad - a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago - suddenly appears on her doorstep wanting to make amends, it feels like the final straw.

But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you- about love, friendship, and what it actually means to be family.

A darkly epic novel about connection, disconnection and destruction - from the New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Let the Great World Spin

**The instant Irish Times top 5 bestseller**
**Named a 2025 book to look out for by the Observer, Financial Times, Irish Times and New European**

'Urgent and utterly compelling' KEVIN BARRY

'Twist lingers long after you've put it down' GUARDIAN

'A Gatsby tale for the internet age' ANNA FUNDER

'One of our greatest storytellers' ELIF SHAFAK

'Masterful ... A surprising, electric book' IRISH TIMES

'A powerfully realist novel of men at sea ... It speaks of the brokenness of our time, the successful and unsuccessful attempts at repairs, and the vulnerability of our world' SALMAN RUSHDIE

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Anthony Fennell, a journalist, is in pursuit of a story buried at the bottom of the sea: the network of tiny fibre-optic tubes that carry the world's information across the ocean floor - and what happens when they break.

So he has travelled to Cape Town to board the George Lecointe, a cable repair vessel captained by Chief of Mission John Conway. Conway is a talented engineer and fearless freediver - and Fennell is quickly captivated by this mysterious, unnerving man and his beautiful partner, Zanele.

As the boat embarks along the west coast of Africa, Fennell learns the rhythms of life at sea, and finds his place among the band of drifters who make up the crew. But as the mission falters, tensions simmer - and Conway is thrown into crisis. A terrible, violent tragedy is unfolding in the life he has left behind on land; and, trapped out at sea, it seems as if the vast expanse of the ocean is closing in.

Then Conway disappears; and Fennell must set out to find him.

As taut and propulsive as a thriller, and a timeless exploration of narrative and truth, Twist is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

'Electrifying, propulsive ... A masterful exploration of the elemental forces at work just below the surface of all our lives' COLIN WALSH, author of Kala

A masterful story of friendship and how much we're willing to risk to possess one of life's most treasured mercies- a second chance

THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER AND TIKTOK SENSATION

Ocean Vuong returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

'A poetic, dramatic and vivid story. It has an epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality' COLM T IB N

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong's writing - formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness - are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies- a second chance.

'Tender and moving' REBECCA SOLNIT
'A masterwork' BRYAN WASHINGTON

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, who “captures the messy essence of being human” (The Washington Post), returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.