SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE

Pumkin Patterson dreams of a life beyond her Jamaican hometown. But what we dream of and where we belong arent always the same thing
This heartfelt and uplifting story is for fans of The Girl With the Louding Voice and The Reading List
'An engaging coming-of-age tale' THE TIMES
'The word-of-mouth sensation that's making waves . . . Luminous' IRENOSEN OKOJIE, STYLIST
'Will linger in your heart long after the final page. An absolute must-read' ABI DARÉ, author of The Girl With the Louding Voice
A delightful story set in Jamaica, amid heartbreak, hopefulness, and mirth CHARMAINE WILKERSON, author of Black Cake
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For Pumkin Patterson, family is complicated.

Theres her mother Paulette, who ignores her. Theres her beloved Auntie Sophie, who her mother resents. And theres her grandmother, who has always played favourites.
Whenever tensions rise, Pumkin retreats to the kitchen - creating the Jamaican bread puddings and coconut drops that have always given her comfort.

When Sophie moves to France for work, she vows to send for her niece in one years time. But in order to follow her aunt, Pumkin has a mountain to climb. Starting with the question of how shell manage to escape her mother, and make enough money to get to Marseille.

Inspired by her skills in the kitchen, Pumkin turns to her community in the hope that she can sell enough sweet treats to bake her way out. But when her school and her mother discover her plan, everything shes worked so hard for may slip through her fingers . . .

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'A dazzling coming-of-age novel set in the 1990s with an unforgettable heroine' RED
'An ode to the families we create for ourselves . . . Pumkin is a wonderful main character you are willing to succeed' GLAMOUR
'A treat from start to finish' SARAH HAYWOOD, author of The Cactus

'I read this book with my heart in my mouth, hoping all of Pumkin's dreams would come true' BREANNE MC IVOR, author of The God of Good Looks
A tender exploration of familial love, both the family youre born to, and the one you find along the way CHARLENE CARR, author of Hold My Girl

'A story so rich and resonant I never wanted it to end' JULIETTA HENDERSON, author of The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman
READERS ARE LOVING SWEETNESS IN THE SKIN

'This. Was. Amazing! I was hooked from the very first page.' Reader review

'Absolutely charming. I read it on one sitting, I just couldnt peel myself away from the story of Pumpkin!' Reader review

'I enjoyed reading it and was rooting for Pumkin to find her way on her journey to herself' Reader review

'Funny and heartwarming. Highly recommend adding to your wish list of books to read next year' Reader review
'I have not enjoyed a book as much as this for a VERY long time! This has everything for me that I want from a book' Reader review

Andrew Motion's prose memoir In the Blood (2006) was widely acclaimed, praised as an act of magical retrieval and a hymn to familial love. Now, over a decade later and after moving to live and work in the United States, Motion looks back once more to recreate a stunning biographical sequel - but this time in verse.

Essex Clay rekindles, expands and gives a tragic resonance to subjects that have haunted the poet throughout his writing life. In the first part, he tells the story of his mother's riding accident, long unconsciousness and slow death; in the second, he remembers the end of his father's life; and in the third, he describes an encounter that deepens the poem's tangled themes of loss and memory and retrieval. Although the prevailing mood of the poem has a sweeping Tennysonian melancholy, its wealth of physical details and its narrative momentum make it as compelling as a fast-paced novel: a settling of accounts which admits that final resolutions are impossible.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018

Even the men in black armor, the ones
Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else

Are they so buffered against, if not love's blade
Sizing up the heart's familiar meat?

In Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men and violence. The various connotations of the title, taken from a spiritual once sung on the Underground Railroad which smuggled slaves to safety in 19th-century America, resurface throughout the book, binding past and present together. Collaged voices and documents recreate both the correspondence between slave owners and the letters sent home by African Americans enlisted in the US Civil War. Survivors' reports attest to the experiences of recent immigrants and refugees. Accounts of near-death experiences intertwine with the modern-day fallout of a corporation's illegal pollution of a major river and the surrounding land; and, in a series of beautiful lyrical pieces, the poet's everyday world and the growth and flourishing of her daughter are observed with a tender and witty eye. Marrying the contemporary and the historical to a sense of the transcendent, haunted and holy, this is a luminous book by one of America's essential poets.