Young Ben wants to be just like his awesome dad—bearded.Ben wants a beard. All the most boss people in his town have them. The baker, the barbers, the butcher, they're all bewhiskered—even the old lady who waits at the bus stop has one. Most of all though, Ben wants a beard just like his dad.He tries his best to start on some scruff, but nothing works quite right. And when his dad explains he might have to wait 'til he's older for a beard of his own, he dec...

In the charming and lighthearted picture book, The Runaway Belly Button, John Flannery and Mika Song bring to life the sweetly goofy Belly Button as she reminds you how nice it is to be sparkling clean.Grace loved to get dirty. But she was also pretty good at getting clean—she took proper care of Hands, paid extra attention to Feet, and even remembered to scrub behind Ears. There was just one body part she tended to forget: Belly Button.Day after d...

A plump and placid Blackpool teenager, Christine Walker quits her lowly civil service job when she is publicly humiliated by a colleague who she has a crush on. She uses her freedom from work to: reread her cherished Harry Potter novels; fantasise about various celebrities and write sexually charged fan letters to them; experiment with vodka; ignore her twenty-seven diet books; ride her beloved rollercoasters in Blackpool Pleasure Beach; then finally lose her Catholic faith. Christine fall...

This comic novella features an easy-going young Manchester United star striker, Billy Atherton. He craves maturity when he is chosen by a lesbian couple, Sarah and Ellen, to father their child. Sarah Eastwood is a charismatic American nurse who discovers Billy when he arrives at her hospital as an emergency case with a horrific football injury. Sarah's instincts scream to her that he is The One.Billy comes into conflict with his devout Catholic mother when he bravely agrees to be t...

Carlington Park G.C. is a series of daft comic sketches and stories about the ground-staff set on a newly opened golf course in north Manchester. One of the assistant green-keepers, Adrian 'Chaddy' Chadwick is the main character in most of the stories. He has daft theories about most things in his life and, in his own mind, he regards himself as an undiscovered genius. His workmates tolerate his craziness because he means well most of the time and he genuinely feels he can help people cope...

Paddy Murnaghan meets by chance his future wife, Grace on a Saturday night in Cambridge. He is studying Engineering she English Literature. When they meet again he outlines his ambitions for himself and his future family during a punt on the river Cam. Paddy is a self-proclaimed king who wants Grace to be his queen. Paddy is the captain of the Cambridge University rugby team but he gets badly injured during a match. Grace nurses him back to health but the injury ends his rugby career. A gi...

The long autobiographical essay, "Madness" is the first-hand, darkly comical account of the development and subsequent management of the author's paranoid schizophrenia. The story, "Next of Kin" is about a local government officer, Ellie Roberts who organises public health funerals (or what used to be called paupers' funerals). On visiting the flat of a deceased woman, Nnedi Alabi, she discovers in her ramshackle belongings a novel manuscript that she reads and enjoys. The text resonates w...

Bill & Maggie: A Dark Story Of Love is an experimental, darkly comical novella that delves into the mind of Bill Burton who is an unemployable, noisome, deluded, socially isolated, and personality disordered celebrity stalker although he regards himself as a, "distant lover." He has a streak of dangerous naivety and foolishness running through him. He blindly pursues his beloved Maggie Best who is a very cynical and world-weary television presenter-cum-journalist and B-list celebrity. Bill...

Joshua West is a twenty-five year old physics graduate. He has lived the life of a recluse in his parent's comfortable Cambridge home for two years. Joshua has been influenced by the Japanese phenomenon called Hikikomori whereby thousands of young men have withdrawn from society. Having had plenty of time to ponder his situation he has concluded that he is now obsolete. Joshua is therefore preparing himself and his family for his imminent act of ritualistic suicide. Part of his preparation...

The charismatic Mancunian television presenter Tommy Armstrong, The King of Saturday Night, is a bad man who wants to get much, much badder by exploring occultism and embracing evil. Suffering from an extreme form of satiated boredom in his plush Chelsea home, he befriends two Satanists who guide and instruct him in his quest for contemporary endarkenment.Tommy's expedition to endarkenment includes his born-again Christian former wife; a tabloid kiss-and-tell story; a rape; his wit...

* Don't miss NO REGRET, the brand new novel from Martina Cole. Coming October 2025. *With family, there's a dangerous line between love and hate...Reaching the darkest corners of family life, THE FAITHLESS by the 'undisputed queen of crime writing' (Guardian) and Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Martina Cole is an unputdownable novel about a deadly ambition that trumps family loyalty...Cynthia Tailor i...

USA TODAY BESTSELLER • In a charming cozy mystery series debut, Leslie Nagel’s irrepressible small-town heroine finds that her fellow book club members may be taking their Agatha Christie a bit too literally—and murder a bit too lightly.Charley Carpenter has poured heart and soul into her clothing store, Old Hat Vintage Fashions. She’ll do anything to make it a success—even join the stuffy Agathas Book Club in order to cultivate customers among the wealthy...