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Launched in 2018, VERVE Books is an independent publisher of pageturning, diverse and original fiction penned by fresh and impactful voices.
Our books are connected by rich storytelling, vividly imagined settings and unforgettable characters. The list is tightly curated by a women-led team of passionate booklovers whose hope is to bring together an eclectic collection of books for modern readers.
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THE DAMAGES
GENEVIEVE SCOTT
What I remember best about that week in January is trying to keep track of all the lies I told...
1998. Ontario has been hit by a days-long, life-endangering ice storm, and on Regis University campus, with classes cancelled, the students are partying. Amid it all, eighteenyear-old Ros’s roommate, Megan, goes missing. As a panicked search ensues, Ros is blamed for not keeping a closer eye on Megan, and the incident casts a shadow over the next two decades of her life.
2020. Ros’s former partner, Lukas, the father of her elevenyear-old son, is accused of a sexual assault. The accusation brings new details of an old story to light, forcing Ros to revisit a dark moment from her past. Ros must take a hard look not only at the father of her child, but also at her own mistakes, her own trauma, and at the supposedly liberal period she grew up in.
Sharp and propulsive, The Damages is an engrossing novel that contemplates memory, trauma, friendship and identity in the context of a post-#MeToo world.
‘An intelligent and intense read about how power structures are passed on – The Damages held me riveted in a tight, icy grip’
– CLAIRE CAMERON
‘A probing, courageous work – a dance along the tightropes of memory, justice and love’
– SARAH HENSTRA
APRIL 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /the-damages
PBO 978-0-85730-869-6 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 352pp // EB (available now) 978-0-85730-870-2
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS PRH Canada – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION California, USA
GENEVIEVE SCOTT is a Canadian writer. Her first novel, Catch My Drift, was published in 2018 with Goose Lane Editions and her short fiction has been published in literary journals in Canada and the UK. Genevieve holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She teaches writing at the Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach and mentors at-risk teen writers through the LA-based nonprofit, WriteGirl. Genevieve grew up in Toronto and currently lives in Irvine, California, with her partner and son.
genevievescott.com
@4genscott
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SUN SEEKERS
RACHEL M c RADY
A vital, illuminating debut novel about memory, storytelling and a broken family uniting in the face of a terrifying crisis.
Six-year-old Gracie Lynn is perpetually curious and bighearted. Convinced she knows how to save her beloved grandfather, John, from the ‘worm’ that is eating his brain – a metaphor her mother once used to explain John’s dementia and sundown syndrome – Gracie helps him break out of his nursing home, and the two disappear together on a quest to chase the sun.
But what’s an adventure for Gracie is a nightmare scenario for her estranged parents, LeeAnn and Dan. There’s no way to predict where John might have taken their young daughter, or if he’s capable of keeping her safe.
An emotionally resonant novel, Sun Seekers artfully explores the truths of parenthood, the ways in which we sometimes hurt those we love most and the universal experience of deep loss – even when the person is still here.
‘My favourite type of novel: beautifully written prose delivering deep truths about family and the nature of grief… An incredible debut by a writer to watch’
– BRENDA JANOWITZ
‘In her impactful debut, Rachel McRady explores the intricate dynamics of a fractured family. Through multiple perspectives, she paints a poignant portrait of the complexities of relationships that resonate with us all’
– JO PIAZZA
Perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman, Mark Haddon, Clare Pooley and Nicholas Sparks
MAY 2024
vervebooks.co.uk /sun-seekers
PBO 978-0-85730-863-4 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB (available now) 978-0-85730-864-1
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS
Alcove Press – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION Virginia, USA
RACHEL M c RADY is an Emmy-winning writer and editor for Entertainment Tonight. She’s been writing novels since before she could write herself, dictating stories to her very patient mother on an old computer in the 90s. Sun Seekers is her debut novel. Rachel has lived in New York City and London, writing for a handful of publications including the Washington Post, Us Weekly, Time, Motherly, Teen Vogue, Parade and more. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, Caleb, and daughters, Iona and Isla.
vervebooks.co.uk/rachel-mcrady @rachelmcrady
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DELIVER ME
ELLE NASH
From the author of Nudes and Animals Eat Each Other comes an unsettling story of motherhood, manipulation and murder.
At a meatpacking facility in Missouri, Dee-Dee and her coworkers kill and butcher 40,000 chickens in a single shift. The work is repetitive and brutal, with each stab and cut a punishment to her hands and joints, but Dee-Dee’s more concerned with what is happening inside her body. After a series of devastating miscarriages, Dee-Dee has found herself pregnant, and she is determined to carry this child to term.
Dee-Dee fled the Pentecostal church years ago, but judgment follows her in the form of regular calls from her mother, whose raspy voice urges her to quit living in sin and marry her boyfriend, Daddy, an underemployed ex-con with an insect fetish. With a child on the way, at long last Dee-Dee can bask in her mother and boyfriend’s newfound attention. She will matter. She will be loved. She will be complete.
When her charismatic friend Sloane reappears after a twenty-year absence, feeding her insecurities and awakening suppressed desires, Dee-Dee fears she will go back to living in the shadows. Neither the ultimate indignity of yet another miscarriage nor Sloane’s own pregnancy deters her: she must prepare for the baby’s arrival.
‘Audacious, disturbing, and utterly unique, Elle Nash’s Deliver Me is body horror at its most shocking and unforgettable’
– ERIC L a ROCCA
‘Brilliant, fearless, and utterly deranged, Deliver Me is a gift to readers who love a seriously unhinged woman’
– CHELSEA G SUMMERS
JUNE 2024
vervebooks.co.uk /deliver-me
PBO 978-0-85730-861-0 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB (available now) 978-0-85730-862-7
CATEGORY Literary Fiction / Body Horror // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS
Unnamed Press – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION Glasgow, UK
ELLE NASH is the author of Gag Reflex (Clash Books) and Animals Eat Each Other (404ink), and the short story collection Nudes (404ink). Upon publication of Animals Eat Each Other in the UK, Elle appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to present the work of underrepresented voices with Amnesty International, and to speak about sex, death and feminism in literature. Her work appears in Guernica, Adroit, The Creative Independent, Hazlitt, Literary Hub, Cosmopolitan, New York Tyrant and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine, runs the Goth Book Club and currently lives in Glasgow.
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ellenash.net @saderotica
TRUST AND SAFETY
LAURA BLACKETT & EVE GLEICHMAN
Whip-smart and searingly funny, Trust and Safety examines questions of authenticity, betrayal, belonging and entitlement, while poking fun at contemporary fear of the ‘gay agenda’.
Newlywed Rosie has grown disenchanted with NYC. Inspired by Instagram ads, she starts thirsting for a rural life upstate – one full of beauty and simplicity. Willing to do anything for Rosie’s happiness, her tech-bro husband, Jordan, acquiesces to her vision for the future, and they offer – well above asking price – on a beautiful, historic fixerupper in the Hudson Valley. But when Jordan suddenly loses his job on the day they close the deal, the couple is forced to rent out the property’s dilapidated outbuilding.
Enter Dylan and Lark: an incredibly attractive and handy queer couple who offer to rent the outbuilding and help Rosie and Jordan with repairs. They’re living the life Rosie had envisioned for herself: hand-built furniture, herbal tinctures, guinea hens, and hand-dyed linens. Rosie grows increasingly infatuated with their new tenants – especially with modelesque and charismatic Dylan – to Jordan’s increasing distress...
‘Sexy, surprising, witty and beautifully written… A complete delight from start to finish’
– ANDREA BARTZ
JUNE 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /trust-and-safety
PBO 978-0-85730-881-8 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-882-5
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // OTHER PUBLISHERS Dutton – USA & Canada // AUDIO
EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION New York, USA
‘Wickedly funny, astute and brilliantly, terribly relatable … I could not put it down’
– LAURA KAY
EVE GLEICHMAN and LAURA BLACKETT are writing partners in Brooklyn. They met ten years ago as neighbours in the same apartment building, and soon after began collaborating on their debut novel, The Very Nice Box, which became a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
eveandlaura.work
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Also AVAILABLE THE VERY NICE BOX
978-0-85730-826-9 £9.99
978-0-85730-827-6
PB
EB
HOW CAN I HELP YOU
LAURA SIMS
A razor-sharp suspense about two librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.
No one knows Margo’s real name.
Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.
That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom offers a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper - even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.
Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession.
‘A dark and spellbinding descent into jolly madness’
– MONA AWAD
‘A delicious mystery begging to be enjoyed beachside… Sure to satisfy just about any thriller craving’
– ROLLING STONE
‘Unnerving … reads like a homage to Shirley Jackson’s work’
– NEW YORK TIMES (A Thriller of the Year)
‘A gripping and dark psychological thriller… Delicious … I read it one sitting’
– HARLAN COBEN
A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week
A CrimeReads Book of the Month
A Town & Country Must-Read Book of the Summer
LAURA SIMS is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker
JULY 2024
vervebooks.co.uk /how-can-i-help-you
PBO 978-0-85730-875-7 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 224pp // EB (available now) 978-0-85730-876-4
CATEGORY Crime Thriller // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada
AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Putnam – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION New Jersey, USA
An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast and more. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a reference librarian and hosts the library’s lecture series.
laurasims.net
@ljsims50
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THE NUDE
C. MICHELLE LINDLEY
Set on a sultry Greek island, The Nude is a seductive debut about art, cultural theft and female desire.
1999: An island off the southern coast of Greece. Art historian Elizabeth Clarke arrives with the intent to acquire a rare female sculpture. But what begins as a quest for a highly valued cultural artifact evolves into a trip that will force Elizabeth to contend with her ambition, her desire and her troubling history.
Disoriented by jet lag, debilitating migraines and a dependence on prescription pills, Elizabeth finds herself enthralled by her new surroundings – and equally, by her translator’s inscrutable wife, a young artist named Theo.
As the nude’s acquisition proves to be riskier than she could have ever imagined, the fates of Elizabeth and the sculpture are called into question. To find a way out, Elizabeth must grapple with the role she’s played in the global art trade and the ethical fallout her personal and professional decisions could leave behind.
‘Cerebral and hallucinatory, seductive and unsettling… A fever dream of a debut’
– ANTONIA ANGRESS
‘A remarkable debut, a slow-burn page-turner that turns a sweltering Greek island into a haunting house of mirrors’
– CHRIS BOHJALIAN
JULY 2024
vervebooks.co.uk /the-nude
PBO 978-0-85730-883-2 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-884-9
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Atria – USA & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION New York, USA
C. MICHELLE LINDLEY ’s writing has been featured in The Georgia Review, Conjunctions and more. She has an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Berkeley in English and Art History. The Nude is her first novel.
cmichellelindley.com
@cmlindleywriter
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Court es y o f .C ehciMll
BLUE HOUR
TIFFANY CLARKE HARRISON
** A BARACK OBAMA 2023 SUMMER READING SELECTION **
What is motherhood in the midst of uncertainty, buried trauma and an unravelling America? What it’s always been – a love song. Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an America that’s coming undone. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class.
Unmoored by the grief of a recent, devastating miscarriage and Noah’s fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world. Yet her husband Asher – contributing white Jewish genes alongside her Black-Japanese ones to any potential child – is just as desperate to keep trying.
Throwing herself into a new documentary on motherhood and making secret visits to Noah in the hospital, this is when she learns she is, impossibly, pregnant. As life shifts once more, she must decide what she dares hope for the shape of her future to be.
Fearless, timely, blazing with voice, Blue Hour is a fragmentary debut with unignorable storytelling power.
‘Gasp-worthy… How did Harrison achieve this spectacular feat of emotional withholding while also making readers feel so much?’
– VULTURE (A Book of the Year)
‘Full of musings, debate, anger, distress and yet, ultimately, hope, Blue Hour is incredibly powerful’
– GOOD MORNING AMERICA
AUGUST 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /blue-hour
PBO 978-0-85730-877-1 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 160pp // EB 978-0-85730-878-8
CATEGORY Literary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada
AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Soft Skull Press – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION North Carolina, USA
TIFFANY CLARKE HARRISON writes about your feelings. The ones that feel good, the ones that don’t, and definitely the ones you don’t want anyone to know. Writing novels has always been the goal, and Blue Hour is her debut. She graduated from Salisbury University with a BA in English, Creative Writing Concentration, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Queens University of Charlotte. Tiffany lives with her husband and two children in North Carolina.
tiffanyclarkeharrison.com
@tiffanyclarkeharrison
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PLACEHOLDERS
JAMES ROSEMAN
An unflinching and emotionally insightful debut about cultural identity, homesickness, love and loss.
In the five years following his brother’s death, Aaron has built himself a life of solitary routines. After moving from Dublin to Boston and illegally overstaying her visa, Róisín has done the same.
When the two meet on a night out, they each find in the other something missing in their lives. A semblance of home.
Their relationship is complicated by their disparate religious backgrounds – Aaron is Jewish; Roísín is atheist – and by the harsh realities of everyday life. Just as they’re pushed to their breaking point, Roísín realises she is pregnant.
Placeholders is a poignant story of loneliness corrected and the transformative power of love. The next fix for readers of Sally Rooney, Ben Lerner, Nick Hornby and Coco Mellors.
‘A subtle, beautifully written story of two young people trying to make a life – together and as individuals – under the pressures of late capitalism… written with an unflinching tenderness’
–
LARISSA PHAM
For fans of Normal People and Past Lives.
PBO 978-0-85730-857-3
JAMES ROSEMAN is an American author born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and raised outside of Boston. He’s lived in Dublin, Ireland, since 2019. He received his MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College, Vermont. Placeholders is his debut novel.
jamesroseman.com @jsrwrites
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£9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
// EB
// CATEGORY
Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex
EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION Dublin,
vervebooks.co.uk /placeholders
PAGE EXTENT 256pp
978-0-85730-858-0
Contemporary
Canada AUDIO
Ireland SEPTEMBER 2024
ph ot o : S a r a h Conn
THE REST OF YOU
MAAME BLUE
A tender and thought-provoking novel set in today’s London and mid-90s Ghana about generational trauma and the Black British experience.
Ghanaian-Londoner and massage therapist Whitney Appiah was born with a special gift. On the cusp of turning thirty, she can physically sense where her clients’ trauma lies and heal them. But Whitney has no idea that she too is suffering. Tragic events from her youth have left a terrible, unseen mark.
When a dangerous encounter with the man she’s dating triggers a wave of fragmented recollections, Whitney embarks on a journey to reclaim her memories and the truth that is buried deep in her early childhood in Kumasi.
Spanning three decades and told through the voices of Whitney, her aunts – Gloria and Aretha – and their house help, Maame Serwaa, The Rest of You explores what happens when we try to resolve the mysteries of our past.
Perfect for fans of Candace Carty Williams’s Queenie, Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Anna Hope’s Expectation.
OCTOBER 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /the-rest-of-you
PBO 978-0-85730-879-5 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-880-1
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS HarperCollins – USA & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION London, UK
MAAME BLUE is a GhanaianLondoner, part-time Melbourne resident and author of the novel Bad Love (Jacaranda Books). She is the winner of the 2021 Betty Trask Award. Maame is also a recipient of the 2022 Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, an Arts Council England 2022 Develop Your Creative Practice grant and was a 2022 POCC Artist-in-Residence. Her short stories have appeared in Not Quite Right For Us (Flipped Eye Publishing), New Australian Fiction 2020 (Kill Your Darlings) and Joyful, Joyful (Pan Macmillan). Maame’s writing has appeared in multiple media publications, including Refinery29, the Independent and the i
maamebluewrites.com
@maame_blue
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NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
ERIN M c CABE #4
ROBYN GIGL
Fans of The Good Wife and Anatomy of a Scandal will devour this propulsive legal thriller.
New Jersey State Trooper Jon Mazer has been charged with killing Black investigative reporter Stewart Marshall in a racially charged, headline-making murder. The evidence against attorney Erin McCabe’s new client is overwhelming. Mazer’s argument? He’s a gay officer being set up to take the fall in an even bigger story.
Mazer swears he was a secret source for Marshall’s exposé about the Lords of Discipline – a covert gang operating within the New Jersey State Police, notorious for enforcing their own code of rogue and racist rules. Prepared to do anything to make sure Mazer doesn’t become another victim, Erin and her law partner, Duane Swisher, find themselves mired in a conspiracy of corruption deeper than they imagined – and far more dangerous than they feared.
OCTOBER 2024
vervebooks.co.uk /nothing-but-the-truth
PBO 978-0-85730-887-0 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 384pp // EB (May 2024) 978-0-85730-846 -7
CATEGORY Legal Thriller // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada
AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Kensington – US & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION New York, USA
Also AVAILABLE
BY WAY OF SORROW
PB 978-0-85730-835-1 £9.99 // EB 978-0-85730-836-8
SURVIVOR’S GUILT
PB 978-0-85730-845-0 £9.99 // EB 978-0-85730-846-7
REMAIN SILENT
PB 978-0-85730-859-7 £10.99 // EB 978-0-85730-860-3
ROBYN GIGL is the author of the Erin McCabe legal thriller series and an attorney, speaker and activist who has been honoured by the ACLU-NJ and the New Jersey Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Robyn is a partner at Dilworth Paxson, LLP in Freehold, New Jersey, and a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality, NJ’s largest LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Organization. In 2023, Robyn won the inaugural Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing. A frequent lecturer on diversity issues, she lives in New Jersey where she continues to practice law by day and work on her next novel by night. Fortunately, she has a very boring social life.
robyngigl.com @robyngigl
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THE GHOSTS OF PARIS
BILLIE WALKER #2
TARA MOSS
In postwar London and Paris, the search for a missing husband puts Billie Walker on a collision course with an underground network of Nazi criminals.
It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of WWII, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where painful memories of her own husband’s disappearance also lurk.
As Billie’s search for her client’s husband takes her from the upper echelons of Paris’s Ritz hotel to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she’ll need to keep her gun at the ready, because something even more terrible than a few old memories might be following her around the City of Light…
‘Enough page-turning suspense to keep you up reading far later than you intended!’
– PETER JAMES
‘A cracking thriller, with a marvellous, strong, flamboyant heroine’
– JOANNE HARRIS
NOVEMBER 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /the-ghosts-of-paris
PBO 978-0-85730-873-3 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 352pp // EB (April 2024) 978-0-85730-874-0
CATEGORY Historical Mystery // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada, ANZ // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Dutton –USA, HarperCollins – Canada, HarperCollins Australia – ANZ
‘Brilliantly atmospheric and completely immersive… A cinematic and important feminist noir – dark as midnight velvet and tough as steel’
– HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN
TARA MOSS is an internationally bestselling author, human rights activist, documentary and podcast host and former model. Her crime novels have been published in nineteen countries and thirteen languages, and her memoir, The Fictional Woman, was a #1 international bestseller. Moss is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has received the Edna Ryan Award for significant contributions to feminist debate and for speaking out on behalf of women and children. In 2017, she was recognised as one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life.
taramoss.com
@Tara_Moss
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photo: Berndt Sellheim
Also AVAILABLE THE WAR WIDOW PB 978-0-85730-867-2 £9.99 EB 978-0-85730-868-9
ISAAC
CURTIS GARNER
Set in London across a single, life-altering summer, Isaac interrogates masculinity and queerness in the digital age and offers a fresh take on desire and intimacy, adolescent obsession and dangerous first love.
After inexperienced seventeen-year-old Isaac loses his virginity through a dating app – a disappointing yet addictive experience – he spends his final months before university escaping into a dizzying new world of casual sex with forgettable men. This all changes when he meets twentyeight-year-old Harrison at a party.
Isaac is immediately infatuated by the handsome, charismatic artist, but while they grow closer, his sense of self becomes increasingly hazy. Harrison’s demands shift constantly, and after Isaac tries everything to prove his worthiness, he must take a hard look at his ideas about love, sex and men, and his relationship with himself.
‘Explores the vulnerability of growing up as a modern gay man, and the thrilling tensions of power, desire and shame in queer relationships… Scenes from this novel have lingered in my mind for months after reading it. I hope readers enjoy meeting Isaac as much as I did’
– LILY LINDON
Follow Curtis’ journey as a debut author and subscribe to his Substack for exclusive updates on Isaac, music recommendations, book reviews and more.
NOVEMBER 2024 vervebooks.co.uk /isaac
PBO 978-0-85730-865-8 £9.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-866-5
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS World All Languages AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION London, UK
CURTIS GARNER was born in Cornwall in 1996. When he was eighteen, he moved to London to study Creative Writing and English Literature at the University of Greenwich. He graduated in 2017 and has been working in publishing since. In 2020, he also received an MA with Distinction from Manchester Writing School, where much of Isaac was written. In his spare time, he reviews novels on Instagram (@queer_novels). He lives in Hackney.
vervebooks.co.uk /curtis-garner @curtis_garner
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GONE TO EARTH
JEN SHAW #3
JANE JESMOND
From the author of On The Edge and Cut Adrift – a Sunday Times Best Crime Novel of 2023 –comes the third and final instalment in the action-packed, ‘pulse-pounding’ Jen Shaw series.
Still reeling from a life-threatening experience on the coast of Calais, daredevil climber Jen Shaw finds herself in Glasgow for a funeral – and in search of answers.
As her dogged determination propels her closer to the criminal underworld than ever before, Jen becomes the target of some dangerous, powerful people. The fact that her estranged father is also in the city, for reasons of his own, only adds greater confusion and risk.
In the absence of anyone she can truly trust, Jen must rely on her own instincts and everything she’s learnt from her close bond with police officer Nick Crawford for survival. Even if it means going undercover herself.
PBO 978-0-85730-871-9 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-872-6 // CATEGORY Crime Thriller // RIGHTS World // AUDIO rights available JANUARY 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /gone-to-earth
Also AVAILABLE
ON THE EDGE
PB 978-0-85730-816-0 £9.99 // EB 978-0-85730-817-7
CUT ADRIFT
PB 978-0-85730-837-5 £9.99 // EB 978-0-85730-838-2
A QUIET CONTAGION
PB 978-0-85730-849-8 £9.99 // EB 978-0-85730-850-4
JANE JESMOND writes crime, thriller and mystery fiction. Her debut novel, On The Edge – the first in a series featuring dynamic, daredevil protagonist Jen Shaw – was a Sunday Times Best Crime Fiction of the Month pick. The second in the series, Cut Adrift, was the Times Thriller of the Month and a Sunday Times Best Crime Book of 2023. Jesmond is also the author of a speculative standalone, Her (Storm Publishers, 2023). Although she loves writing (and reading) thrillers and mysteries, her real life is very quiet and unexciting. She lives by the sea in the northwest tip of France with a husband and a cat and enjoys coastal walks and village life. Unlike Jen Shaw, she is terrified of heights!
jane-jesmond.com
@AuthorJJesmond
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A KIND OF MADNESS
UCHE OKONKWO
A searing, unflinching collection of stories set in Nigeria that explore community expectations, familial strife and the struggle for survival.
In ten vivid, evocative stories set in contemporary Nigeria, A Kind of Madness unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and inviting us all to consider the question: why is it that the people and places we hold closest are so often the ones that drive us to madness?
‘Steady-handed and gut-punching. I’m in awe of this mad collection, this necessary writer’
– NOVIOLET BULAWAYO
‘Absorbing. I was immersed in the familiar world of these tender, playfully haunting, darkly funny stories. Okonkwo is a writer to watch’
– CHINELO OKPARANTA
‘Hilarious and heartbreaking. . . . A delightful debut’
–
JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI
‘Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Okonkwo’s mastery of the form is as rich as some of the short story’s best practitioners and deserves every recognition it is sure to get’
– CHIGOZIE OBIOMA
‘Okonkwo has a Chekhovian eye for the tangle of internal motivations and assumptions that steer her characters Readers will be eager for more’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
‘Surprising, illuminating, and deeply human’ – BOOKLIST
JANUARY 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /A-Kind-of-Madness
PBO 978-0-85730-901-3 £12.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 208pp // EB 978-0-85730-902-0 // CATEGORY
Contemporary Short Stories // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada, Nigeria & Anglophone West Africa // AUDIO rights available OTHER PUBLISHERS Tin House – USA & Canada, Narrative Landscapes – Nigeria // AUTHOR LOCATION Nebraska, USA
UCHE OKONKWO ’s stories have been published in A Public Space, One Story, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 and Lagos Noir, among others. A former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and resident at Art Omi, she is a recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy and a Steinbeck Fellowship. Okonkwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently pursuing a creative writing PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
ucheokonkwo.com
@ucheanne
16
An Oprah Daily Most Anticipated Book of 2024 **
photo: Chris Cox
**
HUMAN, ANIMAL SETH INSUA
A revealing novel about the importance of connection in a divided world, Human, Animal is an ode to the wild and an elegy for what we have lost.
Since the death of his brother, veteran dairy farmer George has been struggling to keep the family business afloat. His troubles only worsen when animal rights activists descend on his cowshed one morning, to film content for their social media.
The fallout is unprecedented, especially as George’s youngest child appears to side with the activists. As the family navigate the real-world consequences of going viral, George’s elderly mother sleepwalks back to her youth, to a secret she has carried with her for decades – one that could change everything for them all.
Perfect for fans of Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart, A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson and The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Rijneveld.
FEBRUARY 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /human-animal
PBO 978-0-85730-889-4 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-890-0
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS World English Language // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
SETH INSUA is an Anglo-Spanish writer and artist. He was born in Kent in 1989. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a First in English Language and Literature. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and The London Magazine’s Short Story Competition and was a semi-finalist in the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. He currently lives with his husband, David, between Newcastle upon Tyne and Madrid. Human, Animal is his first novel.
sethinsua.com
@sethinsua
17
photo: David Royal
VIPER IN THE NEST
Lizzie Hardwicke #3
GEORGINA CLARKE
London, June 1759. When a charmless civil servant takes his own life, few are interested in his death. But Lizzie Hardwicke, sex worker and sometime sleuth for the magistrate, can see no reason why a man who had everything to look forward to would wish to end his life.
Lizzie’s search for answers takes her from the smoke-filled rooms of fashionable gambling houses, where politicians mix ambition with pleasure, to the violent streets of Soho, ready to erupt with riots in the sultry summer heat. All the while, she is navigating her complicated feelings for the magistrate’s trusted assistant, Will Davenport, and a disturbing situation at home.
Then a gambling house owner is brutally murdered, and Lizzie finds herself tangled in a chaos that she cannot control. The darkest of secrets threatens to turn Davenport against her forever; its exposure will send her to the gallows.
‘A gripping page-turner with a sassy and fabulously original heroine in the form of Lizzie Hardwicke –I loved it!’
– ANNIE LYONS, author of Eudora Honeysett is Quite Well, Thank You
APRIL 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /Viper-in-the-Nest
PBO 978-0-85730-895-5 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-896-2
CATEGORY Historical Mystery // RIGHTS World English Language AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION Worcester, UK
THE DAZZLE OF THE LIGHT
PB 978-0-85730-830-6 £10.99
EB 978-0-85730-831-3
GEORGINA CLARKE has a degree in theology and completed a PhD in history part-time, while working as a parish priest. Her love of the past is at the heart of her fiction: her Lizzie Hardwicke crime series is set in the mid-eighteenth century, and her standalone novel –The Dazzle of the Light – unfolds in 1920s London and is inspired by the real-life activities of the womenled Forty Thieves crime syndicate. Georgina is currently a tutor at the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham. When she’s not working, she enjoys dressmaking, running and mooching around old houses. She lives in Worcester with her husband, son and two lively cats.
georginaclarkeauthor.com @clarkegeorgina1
18
photo: Anastasia Jobson
Also AVAILABLE
DEATH AND THE HARLOT
Lizzie Hardwicke #1
GEORGINA CLARKE
The year is 1759, and London is shrouded in a cloak of fear. With the constables at the mercy of highwaymen, it’s a perilous time to work the already dangerous streets of Soho. Lizzie Hardwicke makes her living as a sex worker, somewhat protected from the fray as one of Mrs Farley’s girls. But then one of her wealthy customers is found brutally murdered... and Lizzie was the last person to see him alive.
Constable William Davenport has no hard evidence against Lizzie, but his presence and questions make life increasingly difficult. Desperate to be rid of him and prove her innocence, Lizzie turns amateur detective, determined to find the true killer, whatever the cost. Yet as the body count rises, Lizzie realises that, just like her, everyone has a secret they will do almost anything to keep buried...
‘From sumptuous depravity to brutal murder, Death and the Harlot is a wild ride through the seedy side of 1750s London, while its heroine, Lizzie Hardwicke, is razor sharp and brilliantly original. I couldn’t put it down’ – JOE HEAP
MARCH 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /Death-and-the-Harlot
PBO 978-0-85730-897-9 £10.99 (new edition) // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm) // PAGE EXTENT 320pp
EB 978-0-85730-898-6 // CATEGORY Historical Mystery // RIGHTS World English Language
THE CORPSE PLAYED DEAD
Lizzie Hardwicke #2
GEORGINA CLARKE
When an undercover assignment for the Bow Street magistrate sees sex worker and sometime sleuth Lizzie Hardwicke trade Mrs Farley’s Bawdy House in Soho for life as a seamstress at the theatre on Drury Lane, it becomes clear quite quickly that what goes on in the wings is much more intriguing than the theatrics being played out onstage.
When a high-profile investor is brutally hanged at centre stage, Lizzie discovers the body and is once again thrown together with the handsome Inspector Will Davenport. With the suspect list rivalling any casting call, Lizzie will have to use every trick she’s hidden up her sleeves to unravel the tangled threads and bring the culprit into the spotlight.
MARCH 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /The-Corpse-Played-Dead
PBO 978-0-85730-899-3 £10.99 (new edition) // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm) // PAGE EXTENT 320pp
EB 978-0-85730-900-6 // CATEGORY Historical Mystery // RIGHTS World English Language
19
HOPE YOU ARE SATISFIED
TANIA MALIK
Hope You Are Satisfied welcomes you to Dubai as you’ve never seen it before...
Twenty-five-year-old Riya works for Discover Arabia, a rinky-dink tour guide company in the far-flung outpost of Dubai. It’s 1990, and the city’s iconic skyline, along with its global reputation, remains but a gleam in developers’ eyes. For Riya, it’s a desert purgatory that spreads out between her family back home in India and her unknown future.
As political tensions run high, international arms dealers, American soldiers, CIA consultants, corrupt bosses and wayward vacationers all compete for Discover Arabia’s attention. Meanwhile, Riya and her colleagues – all young people from South Asia, Africa and Europe – begin to plan their exit strategies.
Will a favour from Dubai’s most notorious fixer offer Riya the chance to fulfil her financial obligations and escape to the United States? Or will the impending possibility of an invasion by Saddam Hussein make Riya’s problems (along with everyone else’s) a moot point?
An astute satire in the vein of The White Lotus, with a touch of espionage. Malik’s cast of characters undo the ‘guest worker’ stereotype one tequila shot at a time, even as their world teeters on the cusp of an explosive global conflict.
‘Exuberant, thrilling, and compassionate to the last page, Malik’s sun-soaked novel is a testament to the power of friendships forged far from home’
– LEIGH N. GALLAGHER
FEBRUARY 2025 vervebooks.co.uk /Hope-You-Are-Satisfied
PBO 978-0-85730-887-0 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 288pp // EB 978-0-85730-888-7
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction/Espionage
RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes
OTHER PUBLISHERS Unnamed Press – USA & Canada
AUTHOR LOCATION San Francisco, USA
‘Set in the 90s as the world teeters on the precipice of Desert Storm, Malik brings her cast of characters skillfully to life, then introduces a smart mousetrap of a plot that keeps the pages turning at breakneck pace. A truly absorbing read!’ – SUZANNE RINDELL
TANIA MALIK is the author of Three Bargains and Hope You Are Satisfied. She was educated in boarding schools in the foothills of the Himalayas and has had a varied career in the travel and non-profit fields. She was raised in India, Africa and the Middle East and currently lives in San Francisco’s Bay Area.
taniamalik.com
@taniamalik
20
photo: Paul Stonehouse
COMING SOON ...
SUPERBLOOM
EMILY BUCHANAN
A stunning story of grief, love, activism and belonging. Superbloom follows Fifi, a hopeful activist turned influencer, who, in the depths of her grief, believes her recently deceased boyfriend has been reincarnated as a houseplant.
2025
vervebooks.co.uk /Superbloom
PBO 978-0-85730-893-1 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-894-8
CATEGORY Contemporary Fiction // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada // AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // OTHER PUBLISHERS Park Row – USA & Canada // AUTHOR LOCATION Norwich, UK
emilybuchanan.co.uk
@emilyebuchanan
SLASHED BEAUTIES
A. RUSHBY
History meets fantasy in Australian author A. Rushby’s feminist page-turner inspired by the infamous Anatomical Venuses. Grotesque and gothic, this is a tale of betrayal, sisterhood and reclamation as Alys tries to escape the haunting voices of the past in order to ensure her own future.
2025
vervebooks.co.uk /slashed-beauties
PBO 978-0-85730-885-6 £10.99 // FORMAT B (198 x 129mm)
PAGE EXTENT 320pp // EB 978-0-85730-886-3
CATEGORY Historical Fantasy // RIGHTS UK & Comm ex Canada
AUDIO EDITION W F Howes // AUTHOR LOCATION Queensland, Australia
21
photo: Priya Oades photo: Quince and Mulberry Studios
allisonlowryauthor.com @allisonrushbyauthor
VERVE BOOKS BACKLIST
Trust Me, I’m Dead Sherryl Clark 978-0-85730-804-7
Just Like Mother Anne Heltzel 978-0-85730-843-6
Paper Names
Susie Luo 978-0-85730-855-9
Dead and Gone Sherryl Clark 978-0-85730-806-1
Sunburn
Chloe Michelle Howarth 978-0-85730-841-2
Dead Flowers
Nicola Monaghan 978-0-85730-802-3
Mad, Bad and Dead Sherryl Clark 978-0-85730-820-7
Who Is Vera Kelly? Rosalie Knecht 978-0-85730-810-8
Wish You Were Here
Nicola Monaghan 978-0-85730-808-5
Fear and Lovely Anjana Appachana
978-0-85730-832-0 £10.99
Ripe
Sarah Rose Etter 978-0-85730-851-1
Vera Kelly Is Not A Mystery Rosalie Knecht 978-0-85730-812-2
Bird Spotting in a Small Town
Sophie Morton-Thomas 978-0-85730-853-5
Saturnalia
Stephanie Feldman
978-0-85730-839-9 £9.99
Vera Kelly
Lost and Found Rosalie Knecht 978-0-85730-828-3
The Righteous Spy Merle Nygate 978-0-85730-800-9
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Sister of Mine
Laurie Petrou
978-0-85730-847-4
Stargazer
Laurie Petrou
978-0-5730-822-1
Impostor Syndrome
Kathy Wang
978-0-85730-824-5
The Lost Girls
Heather Young
978-0-85730-818-4
The Distant Dead
Heather Young
978-0-85730-814-6
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