Jo Baker

A reimagining of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" from the perspectives of its below-stairs servants captures the drama of the Bennet household from the sideline viewpoint of Sarah, an orphaned housemaid.

Longbourn

A dark, thrilling new novel from the best-selling author of Longbourn: a work of riveting psychological suspense that grapples with how to live as a woman in the world--or in the pages of a book--when the stakes are dangerously high. When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote English countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the bustle of London and the scene of a violent assault she is desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of her new life and the demands of single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative-writing class. When a troubled student starts turning in chapters that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognizes herself as the main character in his book--and he has written her a horrific fate. Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late? At once a breathless cat-and-mouse game and a layered interrogation of the fetishization of the female body, The Body Lies gives us an essential story for our time that will have you checking the locks on your doors.

The Body Lies

A Novel

Midnight News

From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a stunning new novel that follows an unnamed writer--Samuel Beckett--whose life and extraordinary literary gift are permanently shaped in the forge of war. When war breaks out in Europe in 1939, a young, unknown writer journeys from his home in neutral Ireland to conflict-ridden Paris and is drawn into the maelstrom. With him we experience the hardships yet stubborn vibrancy at the heart of Europe during the Nazis' rise to power; his friendships with James Joyce and other luminaries; his quietly passionate devotion to the Frenchwoman who will become his lifelong companion; his secret work for the French Resistance and narrow escapes from the Gestapo; his flight from occupied Paris to the countryside; and the rubble of his life after liberation. And through it all we are witness to workings of a uniquely brilliant mind struggling to create a language that will express his experience of this shattered world. Here is a remarkable story of survival and determination, and a portrait of the extremes of human experience alchemized into timeless art.

A Country Road, a Tree

Growing up motherless in an isolated community, Malin Reed has always been made to feel different from everybody else. The fact that, according to Malin's father, the absent mother was actually a mermaid only makes matters worse. When Malin's father dies, leaving behind nothing but his stories, Malin's choice at last becomes clear: stay, and never feel at home, or leave and go in search of mermaids and the fantastical inheritance that, up to now, has always seemed completely out of reach. a picaresque journey that crosses oceans and continents - from the high seas to desert plains, from a time of slavery to life in a circus - until it finally leads to a discovery that is the very last thing Malin would ever have expected... Beautifully written and hauntingly strange, set in an unspecified historical past, The Mermaid's Child is a remarkable piece of storytelling, weaving together the fantastical and the inevitable through the power of the imagination.

The Mermaid's Child

After her mother dies, Rachel sets off alone to pack up and sell off the remnants of her family?s isolated country house. But from the moment she steps through the front door, she feels that the house contains more than she had expected. Generations earlier, a young housemaid, Lizzy, called the same dwelling home. On course for a life of service no different from her mother and her mother?s mother before her, Lizzy?s world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious lodger.

The Telling

From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a gripping, intricately voiced novel of one young woman’s unraveling during the Blitz—a story of WWII intrigue, love, and danger. It is 1940 and bombs are falling on London. Watching from her attic window, Charlotte sees enemy planes flying in over the city and her neighbours' homes turning to rubble. Still grieving for her beloved brother who never returned from France, Charlotte has moved away from her overbearing father and built a new life for herself. She works as a typist for the Ministry of Information, rents a room in a ramshackle house, and shares gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena. Every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after each heartbreaking loss Charlotte comes to fear that something—or someone—else is responsible. Who is the shadow man that seems to be following her? Is her mind playing tricks? As Charlotte begins to hear the voices of her lost friends, her nerves become increasingly frayed. Soon she finds herself taken against her will to an asylum in the countryside, a place in which she has a painful history and no clear means of escape . . . Utterly riveting and hypnotic, The Midnight News is a love story, a war story, and an unforgettable journey into the fragile mind and fierce heart of an extraordinary young woman.

A novel

The Midnight News

"A ghost story of the most unusual kind, The Telling is a thrilling--and sometimes chilling--tale about two women, separated by almost two centuries, grappling with change and loss"--

The telling

L'irlandese

As Sombras de Longbourn

---A GUARDIAN BEST SUMMER READ--- 'A very modern interrogation of violent fiction. Fiendishly readable' SARAH MOSS, GUARDIAN 'Powerful and moving' ERIN KELLY, author of He Said/She Said ______________ When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start. But when one of her students starts sending in chapters from his novel that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognises herself as the main character in his book - and he has written her a horrific fate. Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late? At once a breathless battle-of-wits and a disarming exploration of sexual politics, The Body Lies is an essential book for our times. ___________________ 'Outstanding' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'A literary exploration of consent, entitlement and how narratives can be bent, misappropriated and wrested back. I loved it' SARAH VAUGHAN 'A propulsive #MeToo thriller.' GUARDIAN 'Gripping. The perfect marriage of risky literary fiction and full-on thriller' MARIA SEMPLE 'Page-turning thriller and examination of how women's bodies are treated, in life and in fiction.' THE BOOKSELLER 'A novelist with a gift for intimate and atmospheric storytelling' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Baker's heroine is one of the most believable I've seen on the page in a long time...nuanced, non-linear, lifelike' TLS 'Gripping and fast-paced' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

‘A propulsive #Metoo thriller’ GUARDIAN

• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story • If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

A debut novel by the author of Longbourn follows the gritty story of a young Oxford graduate's search for belonging against a backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Reprint.

Offcomer

Im Hause Longbourn

A multigenerational saga follows the experiences of four family members, including a young factory worker who leaves to fight in World War I and his champion cyclist son, who makes important military contributions on D-Day.

The Undertow

It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother, who never returned from France, she is trying to keep herself out of trouble: holding down a typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena, and dodging her overbearing father.

On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds—a source of unexpected joy amid the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he’s following her.

As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte’s nerves become increasingly frayed. She no longer knows whom to trust. She can’t even trust herself . . .

BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LONGBOURN 'Skillful . . . daring . . . extraordinary' The Guardian 'Beautifully written, empathetic and unflinching, it is very, very good' Daily Mail 'Insightful . . . beautifully paced . . . authentic' The Irish Times Paris, 1939: The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon, he will put is own life and those of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance... Spies, artists, deprivation, danger and passion: this is a story of life at the edges of human experience, and of how one man came to translate it all into art. Sunday Express Book of the Month Praise for Jo Baker's LONGBOURN: 'Intoxicating' Guardian 'Engrossing' Sunday Times 'Audacious' New York Times

From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a remarkable imagining of Samuel Beckett’s wartime experiences. In 1939 Paris, the ground rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs-Élysées, and a young, unknown writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon he will put them both in mortal danger by joining the Resistance. Through the years that follow, we are witness to the workings of a uniquely brilliant mind struggling to create a language to express a shattered world. A story of survival and determination, of spies and artists, passion and danger, A Country Road, A Tree is a portrait of the extremes of human experience alchemized into one man’s timeless art.

A Country Road, A Tree

BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LONGBOURN 'Skilful . . . daring . . . extraordinary' The Guardian 'A fascinating fictional account of Samuel Beckett's wartime years' IAN RANKIN 'Beautifully written, empathetic and unflinching, it is very, very good' Daily Mail 'Marvellous, spare, moving' FRANCIS SPUFFORD 'Insightful . . . beautifully paced . . . authentic' The Irish Times Paris, 1939- The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon, he will put is own life and those of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance... Spies, artists, deprivation, danger and passion- this is a story of life at the edges of human experience, and of how one man came to translate it all into art. Sunday Express Book of the Month Praise for Jo Baker's LONGBOURN- 'Intoxicating' Guardian 'Engrossing' Sunday Times 'Audacious' New York Times

Jo Baker

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