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As we head into the Easter weekend, it’s the perfect time to pick up a new book or two. From epic family sagas to genre-blending short-stories, from the streets of London during the Blitz to India’s sacred Saraswati river, dive into a new Serpent’s Tail read this Spring.

Which books do you plan on reading? Let us know on Instagram @SerpentsTail or BlueSky @serpents-tail.bsky.social

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☎️ Intelligence by Robert Newman

From the beloved comedian and writer comes an irresistible novel about love, secrets and WWII espionage. Can two young philosophers capture the attention of London’s spymasters and save thousands of lives before it’s too late?

‘A wonderfully feisty and beguiling novel’ William Boyd

🌊 Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, this is a masterpiece debut novel from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers. When the waters of the Saraswati, a river of Indian legend, start to rise, seven scattered descendants of a forbidden marriage are unexpectedly swept up in its current.

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel … Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’ Observer

🍂 Like Family by Erin White

What if everything you wanted is no longer enough? After a long-held family secret is exposed, tensions that have long been buried begin bubbling to the surface and three couples must confront truths they’ve never shared.

‘Warm, joyful, smart and nuanced’ Curtis Sittenfeld

💗 This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

Abe and Jane have been together for fifty years, two among thousands of lovers in Central Park. Now, Jane is seriously unwell, and together she and Abe look back on their marriage. This is a Love Story is a homage to New York, to pleasure, loss and love that endures.

‘Unapologetically romantic: complicated, colourful and includes many tales that tug at the heartstrings’ New York Times

💚 Discipline by Larissa Pham

Christine is a young writer touring her debut novel – a thinly disguised account of an affair she had with a professor. When the professor reaches out, Christine is drawn back into his orbit. A taut, provocative novel about creativity and sex, coercion and control, with shades of Rachel Cusk and Katie Kitamura.

‘Lush and precise, Discipline reads like a taut thriller even though it is really an elegant exploration of creativity’ Roxane Gay

🐔 I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley 

Alice and Agatha are in love. Freewheeling, hilarious, moving and entertaining, I Am Agatha is a brilliant debut novel, combining the sideways humour of Big Swiss with the heart and strong female characters of Olive Kitteridge.

‘Surprising and spellbinding … a beautiful love story and meditation on grief, memory, art, and the deepest secrets we hold to keep living’ Angie Kim

🐦‍⬛ The Pelican Child by Joy Williams

Lauded as the best story writer of our time, Joy Williams returns with a taut collection that responds to our modern dilemmas with her signature dry wit and deftness of touch. Meet souls lost and found: from the twin heiresses of a dirty industrial fortune, to the pelican child who lives with the ill-tempered Baba Yaga in a little hut on chicken legs.

‘Williams hopes to reignite our sense of wonder in the world, so that we might be rallied to protect it. Here, at the height of her powers, she may just triumph‘ Financial Times

🦌 Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to Torrey Peters’s bestselling debut, Detransition, Baby.  Acidly funny, provocative and inspired, this quartet of tales focuses in on the rough edges of desire.

‘Adventurous, mind-expanding and provocative’ Bernardine Evaristo

🍳 One Sun Only by Camille Bordas

In this prismatic new collection, Camille Bordas’s complex, wry, sometimes dark and always self-aware stories open a window onto the truths and misapprehensions of our shared, flawed humanity. A young woman takes stock following a burglary. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Some win the lottery. Some don’t.

‘Camille Bordas is an invaluable new voice’ George Saunders

In addition to the slew of fantastic works already on bookshop shelves, we have many brilliant books coming out in the coming months. Here are a few highlights from our upcoming spring and summer publishing.

🪽 Song For Another Home by Bora Lee Reed

Bora Lee Reed’s debut novel follows one family’s struggle for survival during the Korean War. Full of heart and rich in history, Song For Another Home is an unforgettable portrait of resilience, courage, friendship and love, perfect for readers of Pachinko and Homegoing. Coming 6th August.

‘Timely, wide-ranging, immersive historical fiction and a magnificent debut’ Laurie Frankel

🐚 The End of Everything by M. John Harrison

A slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure from a master of the surreal and one of our best contemporary novelists. It’s been years since the crisis changed everything. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. It feels like the end. Coming 18th June.

‘At once surreal, seductive, shrewdly funny and wholly terrifying’ Julia Armfield

🪟 Air by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles

Two men venture through strange landscapes towards unknowable destinations. Inventive, enigmatic and chromatically resonant, Air is a haunting journey through a layered universe that may be a dream, the afterlife or reality’s inverted twin, from the author of the International Booker longlisted novel, Eurotrash. Coming 16th July. 

‘In Kracht’s nominal realism, a dreamlike air insistently prevails. You read him and wonder’ Nell Zink

From the treacherous world of the Klondike Gold Rush, to an unforgettable quartet of stories about gender; and from addictive, twisty thrillers that will keep you glued to the sofa, to thoughtful, provocative novels that will leave you questioning the world around you – give yourself and your loved ones the gift of a great book this Christmas!

With love, the Serpent’s Tail and Viper team.

Let us know what you decide to pick up this holiday season on Instagram @SerpentsTail and @Viper.Books, TikTok @SerpentsTailBooks and @Viper.Books, and Bluesky @Serpents-Tail.bsky.social and @ViperBooks.bsky.social!

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UNMISSABLE NEW FICTION

✨ Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles

The Waterstones November Fiction Book of the Month and longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, Eurotrash is a tragicomic masterpiece that sees a middle-aged man and his terminally ill mother on a vodka-fuelled road trip around Switzerland, determined to give away their fortune.

‘Deliciously disrespectful… not only a hilariously unsettling road-trip of a novel, but also an exhilarating read’ Financial Times

✨ Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, Saraswati blends political satire with ecological parable. The lives of seven individuals are transformed by the return of an ancient river in a rapidly changing contemporary India, from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers.

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel… reminiscent of Salman Rushdie and resembling the energy and range of David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth‘ John Self

✨ Service by John Tottenham

A hilarious, caustic look at life at a bookstore in LA through the eyes of a cynical English bookseller. Irascible, witty and darkly humourous, this is a must-read for fans of Black Books or Shaun Bythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller.

‘A brutally honest, insightful, intelligent and absolutely hilarious novel’ Michael Imperioli

✨ Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Acidly funny, provocative and inspired, four stories of trans life past, present and future come together in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women’s Prize-nominated bestseller, Detransition, Baby.

‘Hot, heartbreaking and thrillingly victorious’ Miranda July

ADDICTIVE STORYTELLING

🎄 The Rush by Beth Lewis

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick, The Rush is a gripping historical novel, rich in character and setting, following three women’s fight for fortune and survival in the brutal world of the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush.

‘A rip-roaring adventure that’s rich with drama and gutsy plotlines’ Daily Mail

🎄 This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

An instant New York Times bestseller, this witty, moving portrait of a long New York marriage is the perfect blend of Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton and When Harry Met Sally – as complex, radiant and captivating as the city it’s set in.

‘Performs the magic trick of being a highly specific story that feels universal and timeless. You’ll find that your worldview has been altered’ Liz Moore

🎄 The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine

A celebrity chef, a missing husband and a scandalous tell-all memoir, this deliciously rich, sizzling thriller is perfect for readers of Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband.

‘A compelling take on marriage, motherhood, love, and the sacrifices that women are routinely expected to make’ Guardian

🎄The Wolf of Whindale by Jacob Kerr

Laced with myth, faith and avarice, The Wolf of Whindale is a superbly twisted and ferociously imaginative English horror story, set in a stormy northern landscape, perfect for fans of Andrew Michael Hurley and Alan Garner.

‘A masterclass in English folklore horror fiction’ Buzz Magazine

JAW-DROPPING MYSTERIES

🎁 Murder In Wintertime: Classic Crime Stories edited by Cecily Gayford

Weaving together celebrated stories of murder and mayhem from the greatest writers in the genre, Murder in Wintertime brings a chill that will linger beyond the last frost. Featuring celebrated authors such as Catherine Aird, Carter Dixon, Peter Lovesey and more.

‘Perfect for a quick fix of golden-age crime‘ Janice Hallett

🎁 The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani

Winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year, The Midnight King is a dark thriller about family, trauma and the secrets we hide within. Lucas Cole is a bestselling writer – a quiet and unassuming man, he’s a beloved celebrity in his small town. Lucas Cole is also a serial killer.

‘The best book I’ve read all year. Dark, twisty, gripping and full of pathos’ Sarah Pinborough

🎁 The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

The latest bestselling mystery from the author of The Appeal, Janice Hallett, features battling pub quiz teams, missing landlords and a grisly murder. Told in Janice Hallett’s signature style, through emails, WhatsApp messages and other mixed media, can you piece together the evidence to answer The Killer Question?

‘Hallett’s most fiendishly brilliant book yet… Endlessly inventive and a sheer joy’ Daily Mirror

🎁 A Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss

A delightfully clever legal mystery from KC Guy Morpuss, combining nail-biting courtroom drama with a Christie-esque locked room murder mystery. When the leading lady of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution is beheaded live on stage, every cast member has a motive, but is the killer in the dock?

‘An excellent courtroom drama… Very clever too with all the red herrings and intellectual arguments you could hope for’ Harriet Tyce

PERFECT PAPERBACKS

❄ Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire

Roisin Maguire’s debut novel offers an unconventional and moving family story – Olive Kitteridge or The Shipping News on the edge on the Irish Sea. Grace lives alone in a coastal village in Northern Ireland, filling her days with wild swimming, fishing and quilting. When she saves a bewildered tourist, Evan, from drowning, their lives are unexpectedly thrown together.

‘Full of heart and humour, with two wounded souls at its centre and plenty to say about compassion, community and the power of cold water’ Irish Independent

❄ No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction, No Small Thing follows Livia, Mickey and Summer – three generations of women living in a flat on a South London estate. Burning with hope and desire, this gorgeous debut evokes the power and pain of mothering and the damage we do to the people we love the most.

‘One of the best debut novels I’ve read in recent years… Intense, visceral and beautifully written’ Bernardine Evaristo

❄ The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison 

Beloved author M. John Harrison’s cult classic novel is republished with a new introduction by Julia Armfield. On a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Decades later, none of the participants can remember what transpired; but their clouded memories bind them together.

‘One of the best writers currently at work in English’ Robert Macfarlane

❄ The Dragon Man by Garry Disher

The first novel in the Hal Challis Investigates series, from Australia’s king of crime. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is called to the sleepy town of Waterloo, where women are being abducted and murdered. The media is demanding answers, and with a team who cause as much trouble as they solve, Challis is under increasing pressure to solve the case.

‘A terrific plot, nuanced characters and solid procedures. Done with smooth, assured mastery’ New York Times

❄ The Examiner by Janice Hallett

A masterclass in murder from six-time-bestselling author Janice Hallett. The mature students of Royal Hastings University’s art course have been nothing but trouble. When an examiner arrives to assess their coursework, he becomes convinced that a student was killed on the course and the others covered it up. But is he right? Only a close examination of the evidence will reveal the truth…

‘A joy to read, containing some delicious surprises’ Sunday Times

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Whether you’re trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins or heading to the big screen/sofa for a deliciously spooky film, no Halloween is complete without the perfect Halloween read to curl up with when the night is done. No matter your genre of choice, whether you’re looking for mind-bending twists, a gothic tale with chilling atmosphere, uncanny and insightful stories, a good mystery from the mists of time, or to be scared out of your wits, we’ve got the seasonal read for you this Halloween.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his young daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies. ‘I haven’t read anything this exciting since Gone Girl’ Stephen King

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

In a windswept cottage overlooking the sea, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood companions and the shadowy figure of the Daggerman, who stalked their New England town. ‘So beautiful, so dark and so vivid’ Jennifer Saint

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

Anna Alcott is desperate to have a family. When she finally gets pregnant the doctor tells her she’s lost the baby. Despite her grief, Anna ignores them because she can still feel the baby moving, can see the toll it’s taking on her body. Leading her to wonder, what exactly is growing inside her? ‘A timely, terrifying, heartfelt thriller’ Chris Whitacker

The Underhistory by Kaaron Warren

Fyneshade by Kate Griffin

All is not well at Fyneshade, an ancient and crumbling house in the wilds of Derbyshire. When Marta arrives as a governess she is met with silent servants, an abscent owner, and a son forbidden from entering the house. But Marta is no innocent. Guided by the dark gifts taught to her by her grandmother, she has made her own plans. ‘Marta is Jane Eyre’s black-hearted alter ego’ The Times

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin meets her friend Karel on the street. Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies from the 17th to 20th century. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message. ‘Perry’s masterly piece of postmodern gothic is one of the great achievements of our century’ The Observer

Begars Abbey by V.L. Valentine

Winter 1954, Sam Cooper discovers a stack of hidden letters in her mother’s things, telling of an inheritance and a family that she never knew she had. Begars Abbey is a crumbling pile, inhabited only by Lady Cooper, Sam’s ailing grandmother. Her grandmother cannot speak, and a shadowy woman moves along the corridors at night… ‘A dark gothic delight’ Janice Hallett

A Good House for Children by Kate Collins

The Reeve stands on the edge of the Dorset cliffs, awaiting its next inhabitants. Two women’s stories, separated by 40 years, tell of a house where nothing is as it seems. The longer they stay in the house, the more deadly certain their need to keep the children safe from whatever lurks inside it… ‘A deliciously chilling atmosphere that fans of Shirley Jackson will love’ Francine Toone

The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob Kerr

Eshwood Hall is a great English house surrounded by sprawling woods. It is 1962 and Izzy is thirteen, living in the servants’ quarters and finding freedom exploring the forest and the village beyond. The more she explores, the stranger her surroundings become. The most tantalising of which is the Green Man in the woods who seems to know all about her and her deeply buried secrets. ‘Recalls M. R. James at his nastiest’ Daily Telegraphy

The Plague Letters by V.L. Valentine

London, 1665. Hidden within the growing pile of corpses in his churchyard, Rector Symon Patrick discovers a victim of the pestilence unlike any he has seen before. Someone is performing terrible experiments upon the dying, hiding their bodies amongst the hundreds that fill the death carts. Whoever it is will not stop, and has no mercy… ‘A riotous delve into the dark medical world of Restoration London’ S.G. MacLean

The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass

London, 1774. Susan Bell spends her days within the confines of Westminster Abbey, one of many who live in the grounds of the ancient building. Life at the abbey is uneventful, until a letter from the king arrives, demanding to open the tomb of Edward I. A ghostly figure, a murder and a missing corpse soon cause panic at the abbey, and Susan has no choice but to investigate. ‘A wonderfully clever historical novelist’ Daily Telegraph

The Resident by David Jackson

There’s a serial killer on the run and he’s hiding in your house. The one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims – the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet… ‘A seriously creepy thriller’ Mark Billingham

You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace

It’s not sensible to tangle with a serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Claire will do anything to keep her secret hidden. Let the games begin… ‘Utterly unique, an absolute rollercoaster of a read’ Daily Mail

Flowers From the Void by Gianni Washington

Addictively strange and disturbing, Flowers From the Void is a collection of 13 delectably uncanny tales. A reaper readies herself for her next gruesome assignment and a bereaved African witch prepares for a showdown with a rigidly traditional white Salem coven while an outcast teenage boy is lured into a pact with a schoolfriend that will cost him far more than he ever imagined. ‘Brilliantly unsettling and unsettlingly brilliant’ Ellery Lloyd

Her Body & Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado

In her provocative debut collection, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the mysterious green ribbon from around her neck. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery about a store’s dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted house guest. A dark, shimmering slice into womanhood, both wicked and exquisite. ‘It’s a wild thing, this book, covered in sequins and scales, blazing’ The New York Times

We asked you to send over your questions for Gianni Washington, author of the debut horror short story collection Flowers From the Void. Here’s what she had to say!

Writing a book is a great challenge but what was the most joyful part? 

Sending the final-final version in after making the last of a billion small changes. Getting to that point of satisfaction and acceptance after all the work I’d done made me want to cartwheel around the room.

As a first-time author, what was the most surprising part of the publishing process?

How closely I got to work with the people bringing my book into the world. I expected to form a relationship with my developmental editor, but to have the rest of the process be mostly out of my hands. It was such a pleasure to communicate with my copyeditor, managing editor, publicist, and marketing guru like pals and to be so involved in the book-birthing process beyond writing the initial manuscript.

Would you say there is a central theme that runs across the stories? If so, what is it?

Emotional isolation for sure. I’m super interested in how we perceive our own experience of living versus what we think others experience. More people than you think tend to feel like outsiders and would describe themselves as such—it’s mind-boggling.

Are there any short stories, collections or authors that you drew inspiration from when writing this collection? 

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury inspired my use of a framing device, plus his stories are weird and fun—I love them. Ditto Perchance to Dream by Charles Beaumont, Get in Trouble by Kelly Link, St. Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman—actually Neil Gaiman in general. Also Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Gabrielle Wittkop, Thomas Ligotti, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Vladimir Nabokov… the entire list would make you grow old to read.

What would you like to see more of in the horror genre (books or film)?

This is directed more at film, but I’d like to see more characters getting into bizarre situations despite making the choices a person would likely make irl. It’s fun to watch characters venture into dark, creepy spaces with zero backup or run to the top floor of a building instead of to an area they could logically escape from, but it’s weirdly satisfying to me when a character does everything right and things STILL turn out bonkers.

If you were to base a short story on an existing horror film, which film would you pick?

Either Constantine or The Cabin in the Woods. I really enjoy exploring the “forces greater than humanity” idea; I love how these films do it and the questions they call to mind.

What’s are you planning on writing next?

I’m currently working on a semi-linked collection of short stories about death as concept, experience, and entity. But there’ll be a novel about twins set in North Carolina to occupy you in the meantime 🙂

Flowers From the Void is a collection of 13 grotesquely gothic short stories to keep you awake all night. A reaper readies herself for her next gruesome assignment and a bereaved African witch prepares for a showdown with a rigidly traditional white Salem coven while an outcast teenage boy is lured into a pact with a schoolfriend that will cost him far more than he ever imagined. Out now!

Nicolas Padamsee is the author of England is Mine (Serpent’s Tail, 2024), an Observer best debut novel 2024. It’s the story of David and Hassan, two second-generation immigrants struggling for a sense of identity and belonging in England’s largest metropolis. Amid a wave of online radicalisation and extremism, their fates become inextricably, catastrophically entwined.

We asked Nicolas a few questions to get an insight into his writing process and the inspiration behind this wonderfully raw, urgent debut novel.

Extremism is a word that has many connotations in the modern world, what does it mean to you?

There are few more hotly contested words today than extremism. It is deeply important that it is not thrown around with abandon and does not simply become shorthand for ideologies to which one is passionately opposed. The best definition I have come across is that provided by J. M. Berger, who classes it as ‘the belief that an in-group’s success or survival can never be separated from the need for hostile action against an out-group’ – this entails the designation of ISIS members and white supremacists alike as extremists, but not politicians who simply operate outside the mainstream, such as Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway or Marine Le Pen, and places a valuable emphasis on the inherently social dimension of the concept.

As the founding editor of Arts Against Extremism, can you tell us a bit about this organisation and how it came to be?

Arts Against Extremism is a literary journal I set up while studying for a Creative & Critical Writing PhD at the University of East Anglia. We publish poetry, flash fiction, short stories and novel excerpts that engage with the subject of extremism – blurring black-and-white narratives and encouraging empathy for those ‘beyond the bounds of our personal lot’ (George Eliot) – as well as interviews and essays that consider how art can help to stem the tide of radicalisation. My ambition was to get more readers and writers to engage seriously with the causes and consequences of extremism; to counter it, we have to try to understand it, however uncomfortable that might be. I was inspired to set it up after reading Julia Ebner’s Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, in which she argues that the creative industries have the power to transcend traditional counter-extremism measures.

How has your work with Arts Against Extremism fed into the writing of England is Mine?

We have published a wide range of works, including a short story about division in Cyprus, a novel excerpt about the Bosnian War and flash fiction about Islamism. Reading and editing submissions led me to think more deeply about how radicalisation happens and how it can most effectively be portrayed in fiction. It also motivated me to spend more time wandering the sewers of the internet, which was as fascinating and illuminating as it was troubling.

The global communities that have developed around Call of Duty play a central role in David’s story. How did you approach researching this subset of online gaming culture?

I have been playing Call of Duty for over 20 years now and made many close friends doing so. During the first lockdown in spring 2020, I would regularly log on at around ten p.m. and find myself ambling up to bed to the sound of birdsong. For many people, this is their primary means of socialising – and a source of immense comfort and pleasure. I think there are a lot of men who are quite isolated and feel uncomfortable talking intimately with other men in person, but gain a certain confidence when they pick up their controller and put their headset on. In between the games – racking up frenzied, frantic Killstreaks – a lot of deep conversations do take place. At the same time, I have also seen people I used to play Call of Duty with change intensely over the past few years and move into more fringe communities.

Music is another instrumental part of David’s character. If England is Mine had a soundtrack, what would it be?

Writing England is Mine, I was heavily inspired by British indie rock – from Pet Shop Boys and The Smiths in the eighties, through Placebo and Suede in the nineties, Babyshambles and Arctic Monkeys in the noughties and Ghostpoet and Wolf Alice in the twenty-tens to PinkPantheress and Eliza Shaddad today. I also listened a lot to the subversive industrial metal of Rammstein and the dramatic military pop of Jadu.

Listen to the England is Mine playlist on Spotify and Apple Music.

  Chapter One

She heard them before she saw them, a cluster of brightly coloured chickens, fussing at the water’s edge, flapping and clucking.

‘Silly bitches,’ she said.

Treading water, blinking the salt from her eyes, she watched them for a moment. They were folding towels, stowing phones in yoga-bags, pulling off sandals. They were toeing the water, expressing dismay at its temperature. They were coming in, now. She could hear the giggles and the tiny little screams of surprise as the water met their smooth white feet. They wore dinky little swim-hats and their shoulders were hunched and pale and narrow.

She flipped herself over and ducked down, down, down under the surface, letting the sparkle of her bubbles soothe her, feeling the cold rush over her skin, her belly, her thighs. A cool hand. She felt the tick of her pulse grow heavy as she dived into the dark, but kept going, kept swimming and wriggling downwards until her heart became a knocking in her throat and temples, forcing her to turn back, push to the surface again, pull fresh air in and blink and drip and breathe and look out to sea and try to pretend she was on her own.

‘What the hell are they doing here?’ she grumbled, lying back crossly and kicking great columns of water up into the air, letting it rain down again, delicious. She could have stayed for ages longer but the shrieking and splashing carried out across the still plane of water in the bay – her bay – and jangled her, spoilt it all. No one ever came all the way around here, to this pebbly, inhospitable place. They put up their windbreakers and their deckchairs and the rest of their shit back around the corner on the main beach where the sand lay golden and inviting and cool and bright, and left this place for her.

Bugger, she thought.

She rolled over, disgruntled, looking out to where the grey sea met the grey sky and disappeared, feeling the depths beneath her dangling toes, dark and heavy and beautiful. It was maybe fifteen, twenty metres deep out here, just at the edge of OK, just before the currents began, those whip-strong lines of muscle from east to west, those unstoppable forces, those dangerous beasts. She could see them from where she was, juddering the water ahead, as if freight trains ran just underneath the surface and dragged the sea along.

She swam away, just to be sure, swam a little distance in, towards the shore.

They were still in a tight group, the other women, but they were in the water properly now at last. Their red and green and blue and white heads bobbed up and down as they sketched a communal breaststroke around and around in tight circles, up down, up down, up down, like that fabulous fairground game where you got to hit rodents with a mallet. She wished she had a mallet, now, she surely did.

They’d be there for ages on her beach, she grumped, even after they’d got out of the water – swaddled in special swimming robes and taking photos of themselves, drinking hot things that steamed from shiny metal cups. Adventurers, all. Triumphant explorers of the deep on social media.

She’d have to go in, then. Get it over with.

Damn.

She headed back, slowly, like a schoolchild at the morning bell.

The dog saw her coming, jumped up from the shelter of the dark rocks, and started barking as it always did.

‘Good lad,’ she said, and smiled a little, felt a teensy bit better.

The dog came to the edge of the water, barking, barking, barking.

The chittering and bobbing stopped among the swimmers, and squeaky wondering began.

‘Oh my god, look at that thing – I wonder where its owner is.’

‘I wonder if it will come in? D’you think it will come in?’

‘Oh god, Ellie, I hate dogs, you know I hate dogs. I hope it doesn’t come in.’

‘That’s not a dog, that’s a monster.’

Nervous giggling, swivelling of bright heads.

‘I’m getting a bit cold. I’ll really need to get out, in a minute.’

‘How can we get out, if it’s there, like that? I wonder how we can get out?’

Their voices, rising, travelled faster over water than on land. She could hear every word, their clear assertive diction shining through.

‘Oh my god, look! There’s someone way out there – I bet it’s their dog.’

‘Where?’

‘Where? I can’t see anything.’

‘They haven’t a hat on, or anything. Look – miles away – that black dot, there, see?’

Pause. Everyone looking.

She felt like waving, but didn’t.

Dog, barking and barking.

Barking and barking and barking.

Paws in the water now, barking and barking.

She imagined its mouth open, doing that frothing thing by now, all the teeth jangling in there, sharp in its blunt ugly head.

The heads turning to her, to the dog, to her again.

All standing now, pimpled and chilly no doubt, their silly orange tow-floats dangling, staring out along a pointing finger to where she swam.

‘Unless it’s a seal?’

‘Oh god, Ellie, I hope it’s not a seal. I hate seals.’

She obliged, with a flip of her feet, ducking under, hearing a shriek before the water bubbled over. It was a pity, she thought, in the murky white of it, holding herself down by letting breath stream out. It was a damn pity she wasn’t a seal. Seals could submerge for six minutes or more. Fantastic creatures, altogether. She could have swum right past them, right in to shore, invisible; lolloped out and up the beach and away, before they knew it.

As it was, she thought, bubbling slowly to the surface, she’d have to go past them.

She began to swim again.

She used long, strong, steady strokes, forgetting the others briefly in the tick-tock-tick-tock of it, loving the stretch and the pull of it, loving the slip-slap of it on her face as she turned to snatch a breath, then turned to swim again. She saw the sleek dark rocks slip past, marked her progress on the familiar spikes and lumps of them, felt herself getting close to shore.

‘Excuse me! Hey, excuse me!’

She kept swimming, tick-tock-tick-tock.

‘Hi!’ On two friendly notes, ‘—Excuse me, is that your dog?’

Dog barking and barking and barking.

Its stump of a tail would be whacking back and forth now at the sight of her approaching head. All four legs would be bouncing on the sand at once, as if she’d been gone for a fortnight – stupid thing.

Tick-tock-tick-tock.

Bark, bark, bark, bark.

‘—Hello? Excuse me?’

‘He won’t answer. Why won’t he answer you, Kate?’

‘Rude thing. Horrible, like his dog.’

‘Honestly!’

She must be almost level with them by now.

She could see the seabed, rippled and light, within a toe’s reach below her.

Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.

‘Hey! Can you call your dog, please?’

The voice was bawling now.

‘—You shouldn’t just let it run loose like that, you know. Scaring people. Hello? Hello?’

She paused in the water, blinked it out of her eyes and found her feet on the sand. It crisped nicely between her toes like a welcome home. She looked at them, standing there. The woman stopped shouting. Moderated her tone. Straightened her bony shoulders.

‘It’s – your dog’s being a nuisance! Look! It won’t let us out of the water!’

Behind her, the other women closed in, a line of faces with knitted eyebrows, nervous eyes.

Bark, bark, bark, bark.

The leader’s swimming-hat was a deep purple, no doubt she’d say it was mulberry, with daft little rubber flowers dotted around the edge. Grace knew that if she ripped it off, the hair underneath would be long and shiny and perfumed and smooth. She didn’t, of course. She flicked her own wild seaweed lengths back over her shoulder instead, and let the woman register several things. Then she stood up slowly. Felt gravity pull everything back down, that had floated so nicely before. Watched the woman’s face go slack with surprise. Smiled.

‘Good god, she’s got nothing on.’

‘Oh my lord, I wish I had my phone.’

Tittering behind Purple-hat, who didn’t seem to know where to look.

Bark, bark, bark, bark.

‘Em,’ the woman lowered her head and shook it, as if trying to get rid of the image she’d just seen ‘—your dog—’

‘Not my dog,’ said Grace briskly, heading for shore with great long strides, hearing snickers and snorts behind her, ‘never seen it before in my life.’