Olga Wojtas
Olga Wojtas is an unconventional – and witty – writer of cosy crime fiction whose surrealist humour has been compared to the likes of P.G. Wodehouse, Jasper Fforde, Blackadder and the Marx Brothers. She was born and brought up in Edinburgh, where she attended James Gillespie’s High School – the model for the Marcia Blaine School for Girls (in Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). Olga won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2014, and has amassed an impressive following for the Miss Blaine’s Prefect series, as well as several award nominations. A journalist for more than 30 years, Olga was Scottish editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement before she began adding creative writing to her portfolio.
Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace
by Olga Wojtas
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SHORTLISTED: CrimeFest Last Laugh Award, 2021
LONGLISTED: Comedy Women in Print Prize, 2020
The intrepid librarian Shona McMonagle, erstwhile Marcia Blaine Academy prefect and an accomplished linguist and martial artist, finds herself in an isolated French mountain village, Sans-Soleil, which has no sunlight because of its topography. It’s reeling from a spate of unexplained deaths, and Shona has once again travelled back in time to help out.
Forging an uneasy alliance with newly widowed Madeleine, Shona is soon drawn into a full-blown vampire hunt, involving several notable villagers, the world-renowned soprano Mary Garden – and even Count Dracula himself. Will Shona solve the mystery, secure justice for the murder victims and make it through a deathly denouement in the hall of mirrors to return to present-day Morningside Library?
Cover for first edition. Still distributing whilst stocks last.
Prizes and awards
LONGLISTED: Comedy Women in Print Prize, 2020
SHORTLISTED: CrimeFest Last Laugh Award, 2021
REVIEWS OF Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace
“A thoroughly enjoyable romp.” York Press: Book of the Week
"The genius of Olga Wojtas’ writing is that she is able to combine fact and fiction to delightful effect." Live and Deadly
“Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace is so clever, hugely enjoyable and absolutely hilarious.” Portobello Book Blog
“I couldn’t wait to be reunited with this character. I utterly love her company. So funny, so brisk, and above all, so well educated! More, more, more, please.” Lynne Truss
“The plot is engaging and keeps you turning the page … it is the journey itself that is the reward. Highly recommended.” Undiscovered Scotland
“Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace is a marvellous romp through history, myth, and legend, and delights by playing with all of these … often impish and wry … rip-roaring, genuinely thrilling, and laugh-out-loud funny.” Alistair Braidwood, Scots Whay Hae
“Effortlessly blends together a number of genres … Smart, funny and all-round good company, wherever Shona goes, readers will eagerly follow.” Rhona Shennan, Scotsman
“Audacious … witty and fun.” Alastair Mabbott, Herald
Nicola Martin
Nicola Martin studied at the University of East Anglia and the University of California, Berkeley. After many years working as a senior copywriter in the low carbon technology sphere, she is now a freelance writer. Dead Ringer, her first novel, won the Lakeland Book of the Year Prize for Fiction.
Dead Ringer
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WINNER: Lakeland Book of the Year 2021, The Gilpin Hotel and Lake Prize for Fiction ‘Will delight fans of Killing Eve.” Daily Mail The idea is simple, vain, exciting. Tap the app, upload a picture, find your #deadringer – and if you like, set up a meeting in real life. When Ella and Jem connect, the resemblance is uncanny, but their lives are polar opposites. One is stuck in a rut in her Northern hometown, while the other, an aspiring actor living in a multimillion-pound mansion, is a Chelsea socialite who knows she’s skating on thin ice. Other than their looks, their only similarity is the desire to escape. Is it possible to hide in your double’s skin? And at what cost? All too believable, twisty, compelling and fast – Dead Ringer will leave you reeling.
Prizes and awards
WINNER: Lakeland Book of the Year 2021, The Gilpin Hotel and Lake Prize for Fiction
REVIEWS OF Dead Ringer
“Dead Ringer takes you on a riotous and compelling ride. Nicola Martin delivers an accomplished debut, one that successfully captures the twisted inherent desires that surface when two differing lives become dangerously entwined.” Lloyd Otis, author of Dead Lands
“What a cracking debut! Tense, thrilling, thought-provoking.” Alex Kane, author of No Looking Back
“[This] scintillating debut is pacy, often witty, always succinct, a credible and well-constructed tale of two young women … Excellent. Buy this book. Nicola Martin is a writer to watch.” Bob Cornwell, Crimetime
“A serious meditation on who we are when we spend hours and hours on social media … a fast-moving thriller … a cracking read.” Judith Sullivan, Shots Magazine
“A tense and compelling story that courageously embraces contemporary themes ranging from new tech consumption to mental health … plays out as a treacherous and disturbing nightmare … will delight fans of Killing Eve.” Daily Mail
Adelle Hay
Adelle Hay is a lifelong Brontë aficionada and a passionate advocate for Anne Brontë’s place in the canon of classic English writers, alongside her better-known sisters, Charlotte and Emily. The Brontës inspired Adelle’s love of books from a young age, and she even went on to become a bookbinder before starting work on an academic project that focuses on textual criticism of Anne Brontë’s work, and how it has been edited ever since. Adelle’s dream is to create a digital archive of all the Brontë manuscripts in existence, ensuring the sisters’ seminal writing is preserved for future generations to read, interpret and enjoy.
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Buy Anne Brontë Reimagined
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Anne Bronte: for so long underestimated, from her own day to modern times. But why exactly has this remarkably talented and pioneering author been so overlooked? Anne’s writing has often been compared harshly with that of Charlotte and Emily – as if living in her sisters’ shadows throughout her life wasn’t enough. But her reputation, literary and personal, has changed dramatically since Agnes Grey was first published in 1846. Then, shocked reviewers complained of her ‘crudeness’ and ‘vulgarity’ – words used to this day to belittle women writing about oppression. Her second and most famous work, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was groundbreaking in its subject matter: marital and alcohol abuse and the rights of married women. A book that refused to sweep difficult truths under the carpet. A book so ahead of its time that even her sisters weren’t ready for it, Charlotte being one of its harshest critics. And yet could this even be the best of all the Bronte works? With such a contradictory life and legacy: who was Anne, really? It’s time to find out.
REVIEWS OF Anne Brontë Reimagined
"[Anne] is seen and shown to be ahead of her time and in this treatment, she finds an era in which her concerns, approach, philosophy and imagination ring truer than in her own ... as is not always the case with biographies, the subject is allowed to speak for herself ... well worth reading.“ Helen Brown, Courier
“What pleases me most [of recent books on Anne] … and best reveals the sources of Anne’s strength, is Hay’s chapter on “Anne in Nature”, with its sensitive readings of her poetry and novels.” Jacqueline Banerjee, Times Literary Supplement
"This is a sensitive, thoughtful, and enriching book that shines a vibrant new light on Anne Brontë calling for a radical reimagining of her work and life in the popular imagination. It does that rare thing in Brontë books of acknowledging Anne's genius without comparing her to her sisters or diminishing any of their talents and achievements ... to firmly reposition her as a revolutionary author whose voice still needs to be heard today." Dr Sophie Franklin
“An important contribution to Brontë studies that reinforces why Anne Brontë is such a significant Victorian writer and why her books remain relevant to contemporary culture.” Claire O’Callaghan
Marion Dunn
Marion Dunn is a laboratory technician in a Northern university. She has always had a penchant for active outdoor challenges, from potholing to cycling, but did not take up gym work until she was bitten by the boxing bug. The Boxing Diaries is her first book.
On turning fifty, Marion Dunn had a sudden desire to try out boxing. Despite the immense effort this required – the relentless, bone-sapping exhaustion of training with endless circuits and repeats – her whim quickly became a love affair with this most precise, disciplined of sports. Her account of a quest to master its essential techniques is a story of obsession, determination and sheer graft. It’s also a story of the small-town amateur boxing gym – its unique camaraderie, triumphs and setbacks – and a routine of punishing fitness training, a laser focus on balance, intense willpower. From the sweat and toil in shabby youth clubs and chilly old drill halls, Marion takes us through the three years’ preparation before she is ready to step into the ring and spar for real against opponents. Every movement, each micro-improvement, every emotion, is revelatory and inspirational.
REVIEWS OF The Boxing Diaries
"An entertaining, surprising and enjoyable read. Highly recommended!" Amazon customer
" ... this book has been an eye-opener, as well as very enjoyable, and often funny." Amazon customer
"An inspiring read." Amazon customer
Angela Meyer
Angela Meyer’s Joan Smokes won the inaugural Mslexia Novella Competition in 2019. Her short fiction has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings.
By day she works as a publisher for Echo Publishing, an Australian imprint of Bonnier Books UK, and in this role has discovered and developed a range of award-winning, globally published and bestselling talent, including global number one bestselling author Heather Morris.
A Superior Spectre, Angela’s debut full-length novel, has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards.
Joan Smokes
by Angela Meyer
Winner of the inaugural Mslexia Novella Award, 2019
She used to be someone else, but now she’s arrived in Vegas, where she can start again. It won’t do to let the past leak in. It’s the Sixties now. She’s going to become … Joan.
She makes a list: Buy a new dress (fitted, floral). Dye her hair (dark). Curl it. Buy red lipstick. Buy cigarettes and a lighter, too: Joan, she decides, is a smoker.
There’s no need to dwell on why she’s here, what went before. She is just moving forward, one foot in front of the other, becoming that new person. Joan.
This city of flashing neon, casinos and shows is full of distractions. Finding a job will be quick and easy. Things to do. New people to meet. A clean sheet.
She’s certainly not thinking about Jack, or … No. Not any more.
Her new life starts right here, right now.
Prizes and awards
Winner of Mslexia Novella Award, 2019
REVIEWS OF Joan Smokes
‘There is so much to admire in Joan Smokes – the winning entry of the inaugural Mslexia Novella Competition. Its pared-back brittle language is as stark as the Nevada landscape. It’s a sophisticated piece of writing, in which the author pushes at the boundaries of language and form; anguish and suffering are evoked at every turn, in thwarted rhythms and rough syntax. But the real magic is in how the author puts the reader so surely in the protagonist’s shoes. It feels like a cliché to say that good writing should ‘suck you into another psyche’ as Barbara Kingsolver puts it, but empathy is what we all need more of, especially now. As an act of empathy, as well as a beautifully rendered work of literature, Joan Smokes shines.’ Eloise Millar, Mslexia judge
Anna Levin
Anna Levin is a writer with a special interest in people’s connection with the natural world, and she makes complex scientific subjects interesting and accessible to a general readership.
A former section editor with BBC Wildlife, Anna now writes for a wide variety of publications and environmental organisations. She collaborated with renowned wildlife photographer Laurie Campbell for the book Ripples on the River – Celebrating the Return of the Otter (2021, Bloomsbury).
Her book Incandescent, a deep dive into our relationship with artificial light, was published in 2019. Her latest book, Dark Skies, part of the In the Moment series, highlights the importance of dark and starry skies and our relationship with the night.
We need to talk about light Light is changing, dramatically. Our world is getting brighter – you can see it from space. But is brighter always better? Artificial light is voracious and spreading. Vanquishing precious darkness across the planet, when we are supposed to be using less energy. The quality of light has altered as well. Technology and legislation have crushed warm incandescent lighting in favour of harsher, often glaring alternatives. Light is fundamental – it really matters. It interacts with life in profound yet subtle ways: it tells plants which way to grow, birds where to fly and coral when to spawn. It tells each and every one of us when to sleep, wake, eat. We mess with the eternal rhythm of dawn-day-dusk-night at our peril. But mess with it we have, and we still don’t truly understand the consequences. In Incandescent, journalist Anna Levin reveals her own fraught relationship with changes in lighting, and she explores its real impact on nature, our built environment, health and psychological well-being. We need to talk about light, urgently. And ask the critical question: just how bright is our future?
Angela Meyer
Angela Meyer’s Joan Smokes won the inaugural Mslexia Novella Competition in 2019. Her short fiction has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings.
By day she works as a publisher for Echo Publishing, an Australian imprint of Bonnier Books UK, and in this role has discovered and developed a range of award-winning, globally published and bestselling talent, including global number one bestselling author Heather Morris.
A Superior Spectre, Angela’s debut full-length novel, has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards.
A Superior Spectre
by Angela Meyer
“A brilliant, deeply unsettling work.” Books + Publishing
Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with shame, he runs away to a remote part of Scotland with a piece of beta tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.
In the late 1860s, Leonora lives in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature. Contemplating the social conventions that bind her, her contented life and a secret romantic friendship with the local laird are interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh. But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions.
A Superior Spectre is a novel about curiosity, entitlement and manipulation. It reminds us that the scariest ghosts aren’t the ones that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.
REVIEWS OF A Superior Spectre
“A Superior Spectre is an ambitious and curious venture. Meyer straddles historical drama and dystopian fiction, and yet manages to cross the divide.” Thuy On, Sydney Morning Herald
“A brilliant, deeply unsettling work with the unapologetically feminist rage, passion and awareness of books such as The Natural Way of Things or Margaret Atwood’s seminal The Handmaid’s Tale.” Books + Publishing
“This is one of those rare books that penetrates deep into the reader’s most secret self. Read it and hold it close.” The Saturday Paper
“In turns horrible, sweet, erotic, tense, challenging, beautiful, disgusting, solemn, abhorrent and moving, A Superior Spectre is a novel no serious reader will forget in a hurry.” John Purcell, Booktopia
Christopher New
Christopher New is the author of Chinese Spring and the New York Times bestselling novel Shanghai, part of his critically acclaimed China Coast trilogy. Born in the UK and educated at Oxford and Princeton Universities, he is a former Head of the Philosophy Department at Hong Kong University, and he has written a number of highly praised novels set in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Chinese Spring
Hong Kong, 2012. Dimitri Johnson learns that he is dying. Stunned by his doctor’s prognosis, he nevertheless makes his ritual annual pilgrimage to the candlelight vigil for the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. But this year, he thinks, may be his last. So little time remains.
Over on the mainland, Chinese academic Yu Guodong is arrested for protesting against an official land grab in his ancestral village. Guodong’s wife appeals to Dimitri’s family for help, but taking on the forces of the state is fraught with danger. And isn’t it simply a fool’s errand, anyway?
A powerful family drama set against the backdrop of the burgeoning protest movement that led to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, Chinese Spring explores the reality of democracy and dissent in modern China. And begs the question: have things really changed for the post-Tiananmen generation?
REVIEWS OF Chinese Spring
“Prescient in its themes, or rather, aware of the ebbs and flows of history and the place of the individual inside of it, Chinese Spring is a document of past, present and future of Hong Kong’s problems, told through the eyes of a person who belongs to Hong Kong but as an outsider. Relentless in its vision, Chinese Spring is a welcome addition to the catalogue of social realist novels, as well as the tomes of novel-as-philosophical inquiry.” Kiran Bhat, Cha, An Asian Literary Journal (24 Aug 2020)
“An affecting family drama with a cast of interesting and well-drawn characters. New creates a touching, melancholic atmosphere and the pages slip by with ease. There is a haunting quality to the novel, and it lingers in the memory.” The Herald
“Full of drama, combining politics and family dynamics … a thoroughly emotive and engaging read and it was difficult not to be swept up in the significant historical moments.” Rhianon Holley, Buzz magazine
Iain Maitland
Iain Maitland is the author of thrillers: The Scribbler (2020) Mr Todd’s Reckoning (2019) and Sweet William (2017) as well as two non-fiction books on mental health: Dear Michael, Love Dad (2016) and Out of the Madhouse (2018). An ambassador for Stem4, the teenage mental health charity, Iain also speaks on mental health issues in the workplace. A writer since 1987, he is a journalist and has written more than 50 books, mainly on business, which have been published around the world.
Mr Todd’s Reckoning
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Buy Mr Todd’s Reckoning
Norman Bates is alive and well. And he’s living just next door.
Behind the normal door of a normal house, in a normal street, two men are slowly driving each other insane. One of them is a psychopath.
The father:
Mr Todd is at his wits’ end. He’s been robbed of his job as a tax inspector and is now stuck at home… with him. Frustrated. Lonely. Angry. Really angry.
The son:
Adrian has no job, no friends. He is at home all day, obsessively chopping vegetables and tap-tap-tapping on his computer. And he’s getting worse, disappearing for hours at a time, sneaking o to who-knows-where?
The unholy spirit:
In the safety of suburbia, one man has developed a taste for killing. And he’ll kill again.
REVIEWS OF Mr Todd’s Reckoning
'Maitland conjures madness from the inside, looking out … a brave book.' Jeff Noon, Spectator
'A dark chilling read, but I have to say a lot of fun too. There is a clever poetic ending that restores balance to the world but it’s a long journey down a dark tunnel before the light. Mr Todd’s Reckoning is gripping and gritty, exciting and scary.' NB literary magazine
'A deliciously dark and disturbing read … incredibly dry wit … dark to the nth degree …wonderfully surprising, with a couple of real gasp-out-loud incidents.' Raven Crime Reads
'Splendidly creepy.' Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail
'Iain Maitland’s prose is sparse, gripping and mesmerising … superbly crafted … spellbinding and gripping. … brilliantly observed … The setting of an ordinary two-bedroomed bungalow in suburbia is genius. Iain Maitland makes sublime use of the concept that none of us knows quite what goes on behind other people’s closed front doors, so that the possibilities presented in Mr Todd’s Reckoning are quite terrifying. … sparkling, mesmerising … absolutely magnificent.” Linda Hill, Linda’s Book Bag
'From page one Iain Maitland hurls you through the secret underground tunnels of an insane mind bent on destruction. Cleverly conceived, what begins as quite touching drives relentlessly onwards into furious criminality. Mr Todd’s Reckoning is phenomenally dark and utterly compelling.' Chris Dolan
'Just great. Truly scary, a fabulous dive into the mind of a classic, self-justifying psychopath … A fantastic book.' Barbara Nadel
Alan Brown
Born and brought up in Aberdeen, Alan Brown left to study environmental and then physical chemistry in Edinburgh, spurred on by a desire to know the particular workings of the world. He then worked as a research chemist, and later translator, in France for a few years where he developed a lifelong passion for the country’s language, culture and literature.
Having initially sought refuge from the instabilities of academic life in Edinburgh’s financial and cultural institutions he then became a freelance programmer, analyst and change manager before giving in to the urge to write.
The place of bicycles in a mentally and physically healthy life and in the circular economy of liveable cities is another enduring passion, and Overlander, his first published work, is in part an attempt to express the deep joy that can come from cycling an ordinary bike over any terrain, but especially through our hills and forests.
Seeking a temporary escape from city life and a mad modern world, Alan Brown plots out a personal challenge: an epic coast-to-coast trip through the wild and lonely interior of the Highlands.
He traverses paths historic and new, eschewing creature comforts and high-tech cycle gear, trusting his (mostly) serviceable mongrel bike. Armed with the essentials and a sense of adventure and curiosity, he discovers more about nature, history, people, his country, the concept of risk, and himself, than he ever thought possible.
Alan traces a route from Argyllshire’s Loch Etive across remote Rannoch Moor, the beautiful glens of Perthshire and dramatic Grampian terrain to reach the Moray Firth at Findhorn. Ready for all weathers and obstacles, he succumbs to the hypnotic daily routine of ride, eat, sleep, repeat. He’s savouring the landscapes, the wildlife and the solitude, and relishing the self-reliance. He is also picking up clues to past lives, and discovering how the land has been altered for game sports – or conserved for wild- and birdlife.
It’s a route where Alan gets to spend time with nature and himself, where he takes his time, wild camping under the stars, on a journey of discovery in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
REVIEWS OF Overlander
"An outstanding debut, brimming with charming anecdotes, helpful advice and poignant discussions about Scotland and the UK today, making it a timely read." Chiara Bullen, The Great Outdoors
"Filled with enticing descriptions of extraordinary terrain, basic refuges, wonderful wildlife, colourful characters … An enjoyable account of an epic journey." Julie Rand, Cycle magazine
"The perfect read for cycling and adventure lovers." Kenny Smith, Scottish Field
"A challenging cycle through near-wilderness … [Alan Brown] returns with a laudable vision to see the Highlands criss-crossed with cycling paths that would reconnect an increasingly isolated urbanised population with the natural world." Helen Moat, BBC Countryfile magazine
"Sensitive, personal and culturally informed … an eloquent reminder of the wonderful country we live in … Time to get on my bike." Andy Wightman MSP
"A remarkable book, the tale of a strenuous mini-adventure and a clarion call to those who manage our upland areas." Cameron McNeish
"Cheerfully debunks much of the off-putting preciousness of the hardcore cycling fraternity to return cross country cycling to what it should be." Lesley Riddoch
