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4thestatebooks

The haunting debut novel from beloved, Irish numbe

The haunting debut novel from beloved, Irish number one bestselling author, @sineadgleeson. HAGSTONE is out now.
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On a wild and rugged island cut off and isolated to some, artist Nell feels the island is her home. It is the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape, folklore and the feminine. The mysterious Inions, a commune of women who have travelled there from all over the world, consider it a place of refuge and safety, of solace in nature.
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All the islanders live alongside the strange murmurings that seem to emanate from within the depths of the island, a sound that is almost supernatural – a Summoning as the Inions call it. One day, a letter arrives at Nell’s door from the reclusive Inions who invite Nell into the commune for a commission to produce a magnificent art piece to celebrate their long history. In its creation, Nell will discover things about the community and about herself that will challenge everything she thought she knew.
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Beautifully written, prescient and eerily haunting, Sinéad Gleeson’s debut novel takes in the darker side of human nature and the mysteries of faith and the natural world.
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‘Intelligent, probing’ MAGGIE O'FARRELL
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‘Wild, singular… gripped me from the start’ DOUGLAS STUART
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'Passionate, wild, hugely atmospheric' DAVID NICHOLLS
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‘A gorgeous, mysterious read’ AISLING BEA
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‘Wild, elemental… I adored it’ LOUISE KENNEDY
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#hagstone #sineadgleeson #bookstagramuk #books #literary #irishwriters #4thestatebooks

Reading any of these proofs this weekend? 🌞🌷

Reading any of these proofs this weekend? 🌞🌷🍃🌸🌻🌼😎

📚:
Evenings and Weekends by @ois_mck91
Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero tr. Mara Faye Lethem
Clean by @aliatrabuccozeran tr. Sophie Hughes
Private Rites by @juliakarmfield

#eveningsandweekends #badhabit #clean #privaterites #bookstagramuk #literary #4thestatebooks

The return of Joseph O’Neill, with a story on th

The return of Joseph O’Neill, with a story on the scale of the international phenomenon NETHERLAND: the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African football prodigy who might change their fortunes.
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Let us know in the comments if you'd love to read as we have proofs copies available!
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'I wish there were more books like this' ELIF BATUMAN
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Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the UK, is a desperate young football agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin” – an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Messi.
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Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, the novel is both a tale of family and migration, and an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of football, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making.
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As only he can do, Joseph O'Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.
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‘A fantastic novel, brilliantly crafted’ MARCUS DU SAUTOY
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'Among the best novels I’ve read in a long time' BILL BUFORD
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#josephoneill #books #bookstagram #literaryfiction #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

Beautiful proofs of THE UNWILDING by Marina Kemp a

Beautiful proofs of THE UNWILDING by Marina Kemp are here. A stunning novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry. Coming 4th July.
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Let us know in the comments if you're a UK-based bookstagrammer who'd love to read it. We will be sending copies out this week.
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When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday house of famed novelist Don Travers, she feels that she has made it. And yet as the week unfolds it is not Don but his children and unknowable wife, Lydia, who come to intrigue Zoe most.
✨
On the fringes, Don’s youngest, Nemony, watches as her older siblings begin to navigate the treacherous waters of the adult world. When her adored oldest sister makes a terrible mistake, the holiday ends suddenly, exposing the fissures in their parents’ marriage and leaving her to confront the fallibility of the siblings she so reveres.
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Years later the events of that summer continue to haunt. As Nemony, now a new mother herself, strikes up an unusual friendship with Zoe, she finds solace – but it is soon threatened when she is forced to question the depth of Zoe’s fascination with her family.
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#theunwilding #marinakemp #literaryfiction #literarynovel #contemporaryfiction #familydrama #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

‘I have been glued to Asako Yuzuki’s new novel

‘I have been glued to Asako Yuzuki’s new novel Butter’ NIGEL SLATER
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‘Compelling, delightfully weird’ PANDORA SYKES
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‘A full-fat, Michelin-starred treat’ THE TIMES
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‘A salty morsel with one hell of a bite’ ALICE SLATER
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‘Nothing short of ingenious’ INEWS
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‘Ambitious and unsettling’ GUARDIAN
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The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.
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Asako Yuzuki’s BUTTER is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
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A big thank you to everyone for the BUTTER love. 💛 We’ve absolutely loved reading your reviews, and a special shout-out to all the brilliant booksellers for their udderly delicious displays in shops across the country.
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#butter #butterbook #asakoyuzuki #translatedfiction #japanesefiction #womenintranslation #translatedliterature #4thestatebooks

🌸🌸🌸 These beautiful editions of #TheVirgi

🌸🌸🌸 These beautiful editions of #TheVirginSuicides by Jeffrey Eugenides have us feeling like spring is just around the corner 🌸🌸🌸

Cover designs by @byjotho

#jeffreyeugenides #thevirginsuicides #thevirginsuicidesedit #collinsmodernclassics #literaryclassics #literary #4thestatebooks

Thrilled to share the cover of THE LASTING HARM, t

Thrilled to share the cover of THE LASTING HARM, the explosive account of the trial of the century by award-winning author of My Body Keeps Your Secrets @luciaoc.
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In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 55 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.
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The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.
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Centring the stories of four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by extra material to which Osborne-Crowley has exclusive access, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.
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‘Powerful, vivid and affecting. A compassionate account of the consequences of crime’ @davidnichollswriter
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‘Urgent, necessary and courageous’ @elizabday
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‘The definitive voice on the Epstein horror’ @owenjones84
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‘A brave and essential voice’ @oneilllou
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‘Osborne-Crowley a tenacious and empathetic chronicler of the world who provides a voice for those who have been silenced’ @rebeccawhatsun
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‘Lucia is helping the world to understand the legacy of the trauma that comes with abuse of power’ @vicky.spratt
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#luciaosbornecrowley #thelastingharm #4thestatebooks

New proofs of the incredible BAD HABIT by Alana S.

New proofs of the incredible BAD HABIT by Alana S. Portero are here. ❣️ We have limited copies available for book bloggers, comment below if you are keen to read.
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‘I urge you to read it’ PEDRO ALMÓDVAR
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‘An engulfing novel’ AVNI DOSHI
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‘A ballad, a quest, a revelation. It made me weep more than once’ SABA SAMS
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‘Painful yet unquestionably hopeful’ NICOLA DINAN
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An unnamed young trans woman grows up in a working-class suburb that has no place for her. She discovers community and kinship in downtown Madrid, amid a dazzling party scene animated by charming junkies, glamorous pop divas, and fallen angels. With each step she takes forward in the city, she finds herself confronted by an antagonism she does not yet know how to counter. In this thrilling and yet often frightening place each decision can have the highest of stakes and yet she knows that only she can forge a path forward to the life she truly wants to live.
〰️
Blistering and compassionate, Bad Habit by Alana S Portero is translated by Mara Faye Lethem, and deftly illuminates the ties between gender and class, the search for identity, and the power of chosen family. Shimmering in its lyrical beauty and vivid in its realism, Bad Habit is a searing, mesmerising story of self-realisation that speaks to the outsider in all of us.
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#badhabit #alanasportero #translatedfiction #translatedliterature #lgbtqibooks #literaryfiction #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

‘Katherine Heiny has the comic writer’s knack

‘Katherine Heiny has the comic writer’s knack of taking a character’s idiosyncrasies and making them joyfully relatable. She has a genius for spinning universality out of the absurdly specific’ GUARDIAN
✨
Friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts. The games and rituals performed by the characters in these pages range from mischievous to tender.
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Marlee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. Erica’s elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home.
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From the beloved author of #StandardDeviation and #EarlyMorningRiser, these eleven glittering stories show us love in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime. #GamesandRituals is out in paperback now.

Just a few gems we’ve published so far this year

Just a few gems we’ve published so far this year, and with so many more to come 💎😌✨

#4thestatebooks #bookstagramuk #literaryfiction

We are so excited to share the cover of @oliviapet

We are so excited to share the cover of @oliviapetter’s stunning debut novel, GOLD RUSH. Coming 18th July.
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We give celebrities a power they don’t deserve. Power they haven’t earned. What happens when they exploit it?
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Imagine you’ve just spent the night with the most famous man on the planet. Except you don’t quite remember it. That is what happens to Rose, a twenty-something woman who seemingly has everything going for her.
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Working for one of the most powerful news outlets in the country, Rose spends her days doing PR for glossy magazines. There are tedious spreadsheets, fashion divas, and many A-list parties. It’s at one of those parties where she meets Milo Jax, the world-famous, globally adored, British pop sensation. An unlikely flirtation turns into an even more unlikely evening and then Rose wakes up, unable to piece it all together. What happens next changes everything.
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Gold Rush is a story about consent, celebrity culture, and trying to figure out where women fit in a world that consistently devalues and disrespects their bodies. Proofs coming soon.
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Cover design by @byjotho
#goldrush #oliviapetter #bookstagramuk #books #debutnovel #debut #contemporaryfiction #4thestatebooks

So happy to share that @safiyasinclair has been sh

So happy to share that @safiyasinclair has been shortlisted for the @womensprize for Non-Fiction with HOW TO SAY BABYLON! 💛💚🖤

Huge congratulations, Safiya! 🎉

‘A beautiful, lyrical book about growing up Rastafari in rural Jamaica. It’s exquisitely written and extremely beautiful and enchanting’ @womensprize

‘Dazzling. Potent. Vital’ TARA WESTOVER

‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES

‘I adored this book … Unforgettable, heartbreaking and heartwarming’ ELIF SHAFAK

‘A breathless, scorching memoir of a girlhood’NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

#womensprizefornonfictionfiction #womensprize #womensprize2024 #books #bookstagram #howtosaybabylong #safiyasinclair #4thestatebooks

Delighted to share the cover of THE UNWILDING by @

Delighted to share the cover of THE UNWILDING by @marinakempull, a stunning new novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry. Coming 4th July.
💙
When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday house of famed novelist Don Travers, she feels that she has made it. And yet as the week unfolds it is not Don but his children and unknowable wife, Lydia, who come to intrigue Zoe most.
✨
On the fringes, Don’s youngest, Nemony, watches as her older siblings begin to navigate the treacherous waters of the adult world. When her adored oldest sister makes a terrible mistake, the holiday ends suddenly, exposing the fissures in their parents’ marriage and leaving her to confront the fallibility of the siblings she so reveres.
🦪
Years later the events of that summer continue to haunt. As Nemony, now a new mother herself, strikes up an unusual friendship with Zoe, she finds solace – but it is soon threatened when she is forced to question the depth of Zoe’s fascination with her family.
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Cover design @byjotho
Cover artwork by @ignasi
#theunwilding #marinakemp #bookstagramuk #books #literaryfiction #literary #4thestatebooks

Obsessed with this #CollinsModernClassics edition

Obsessed with this #CollinsModernClassics edition of IF NOBODY SPEAKS OF REMARKABLE THINGS by @jon_mcgregor.
〰️
On a street in a town in the North of England, ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence – street cricket, barbecues, painting windows… A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop. But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening. That this remarkable and horrific event is only poignant to those who saw it, not even meriting a mention on the local news, means that those who witness it will be altered for ever.
〰️
Jon McGregor’s first novel brilliantly evokes the histories and lives of the people in the street to build up an unforgettable human panorama. Breathtakingly original, humane and moving, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is an astonishing debut.
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‘A magical, spellbinding, profound novel’ Maggie O’Farrell
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‘A sensationally accomplished debut … A convincing and moving vision of contemporary Britain’ Sunday Times
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‘This is a novel of wonders’ Observer

Design @byjotho
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#jonmcgregor #ifnobodyspeaksofremarkablethings #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #collinsmodernclassics #4thestatebooks

Fancy reading the sexiest and most romantic debut

Fancy reading the sexiest and most romantic debut novel of 2024? 👀 Experienced by @kateyoungwrites has you covered. And we have spare proofs available… Let us know if you’re a book blogger who’d like to read!
🔥
Bette loves Mei, but Bette and Mei are on a break, so Bette can catch-up on the decade of dating experiences she missed before she came out.
😈
So Bette is (reluctantly) on a dating odyssey: a quest to have lots of casual sex with lots of hot women and come back to Mei more experienced and more certain about what she wants. And now she has new friend Ruth as her queer dating guide, she can’t possibly fail. It’s just three months, then she’ll be back with Mei.
🧡
It’s the perfect plan … isn’t it?
💜
‘Clever, sexy and joyful. I loved it’ @betholearyauthor
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‘A fizzing roller-coaster of a rom-com. The sexiest book you’ll read all year’ @czaronline
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‘I have read 8 million romcoms and this one is my favourite’ @ellarisbridger
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‘Romantic, sexy and heartwarming’ @katyemdavies

🌶️ OUT 6 JUNE 🌶️

#experienced #kateyoung #romcom #romcombooks #spicybooks #spicyreads #queerromcom #queerbooks #lgbtbooks #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

For centuries, people have treated male domination

For centuries, people have treated male domination among humans as natural or inevitable. But what if we recognised gender inequality as something more fragile?
⚡️
In this bold and radical book, Angela Saini seeks the true roots of women’s oppression, uncovering the surprising history of how it became embedded in societies across the globe and is still being remade in the present. The Patriarchs is profoundly hopeful, undercutting old narratives and exposing male supremacy as something well within our power to end. Out now in paperback!
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‘Shows that more equal societies are possible and do thrive - historically, now and everywhere’ GUARDIAN
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‘I learned something new on every page of this totally essential book’ SATHNAM SANGHERA
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‘How stirring it is to read such an optimistic view of our past and of our future in these daunting times’ OBSERVER

#thepatriarchs #angelasaini #thepatriarchy #feminist #feministbooks #feministbook #nonfiction #4thestatebooks

New TEDDY proofs are here! 💄 Let us know in the

New TEDDY proofs are here! 💄 Let us know in the comments if you’d like to receive a copy of this darkly glamourous debut novel.

✨ ‘Your summer read is sorted’ Sunday Times Style

💋 ‘Glamorous, exuberant and propulsive’ Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable

𝑻𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅…

🌞 It is the summer of 1969 and Rome is awash with glamour and intrigue: the stars of Cinecittà are drinking and dancing along the paparazzo-lined Via Veneto, rubbing shoulders with royalty, American expats, and sometimes even Russian spies. Teddy Huntley Carlyle is fresh off a plane from Texas with a new husband in tow and a new life on the horizon. She’s earned a fresh start. In Rome, Teddy will be good. She will wear the right clothes and the perfect lipstick and she will charm her husband’s colleagues at the Embassy.

🎇 And Teddy is good, until the Fourth of July, when her new life explodes alongside the fireworks above her head. She is caught on camera in the arms of the American ambassador just moments after spotting a man from the darkest corner of her past across the room. There it is, the evidence of her depravity, on film. Trying to recover the photographs and keep her reputation intact, Teddy descends into the underbelly of the city…but is she in over her head?

#teddy #emilydunlay #4thestatebooks #bookstagramuk

We are delighted to share the independent bookshop

We are delighted to share the independent bookshop exclusive edition of Blue Sisters by @cocomellors, signed by Coco and complete with Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky sprayed to the edge.

How beautiful is this design? We are not okay. 🥹💙

Pre-order now using the link in our bio.

🦋 ’A stunning exploration of sisterhood and grief, addiction and recovery, pain and pleasure. Captivating’ Tess Gunty

🫐 ‘In Blue Sisters, grief is rendered with gorgeous particularity’ Raven Leilani

🩵 ‘Instantly compelling ... Prepare to be swept along completely by Mellors’ forthright style’ Stylist

Out 23rd May

Cover design by @byjotho
Cover art by Gill Button @buttonfruit

#cocomellors #bluesisters #cleopatraandfrankenstein

‘A spellbinding nightmare’ FERNANDA MELCHOR
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‘Grippingly original, a book of intense power’ PHILIPPE SANDS
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CLEAN begins with an inescapable fact: a girl has died. Told by Estela, a maid to a wealthy, middle class family who speaks to us from a locked room, we hear of her plight and the circumstances that led to this moment. As we enter into her account of her daily existence, we see how her apparently simple life begins to sour, but would that drive her to the unthinkable?
🫧
Disturbing and profound, CLEAN explores domestic work, class and violence, against the backdrop of Chile’s changing political landscape. This is one of the most daring and compelling literary thrillers in international literature.
🫧
PROOFS ARE HERE. Let us know in the comments if you would like a copy to read.
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#clean #aliatrabuccozerán #translatedfiction #translatedliterature #chileanfiction #literarythriller #literarynovel #literary #books #4thestatebooks

A breathtaking historical novel following the incr

A breathtaking historical novel following the incredible construction of the Panama Canal and casting light on the unsung people who lived and laboured in its shadow. Out now.

Ada Bunting, a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados, arrives alone in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work in the grand building project of the Canal.

Francisco, a local fisherman, resents the foreign nations clamouring for a slice of his country, but nothing is more upsetting for him than his son Omar’s decision to work as a digger.

For Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection and independence.

Scientist John Oswald has come from further afield. He has journeyed to Panama in pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But everything hangs in the balance as his wife Marian falls ill herself.

When John witnesses an act of bravery and compassion from Ada one day, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver for his wife. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Breathtaking and impossible to put down, The Great Divide explores the lives of the labourers, fishmongers, journalists, protesters, doctors and soothsayers who lived alongside the construction of the Canal – those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.

#thegreatdivide #cristinahenriquez #panamacanal #books #bookstagramuk #historicalfiction #4thestatebooks

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