Adult Fiction

• Publisher: Black & White Publishing
• ISBN: 978 1 84502 129 0
• Publication Date: August 2007
• Format: hbk, 234 x 156 mm
• Extent: 320 pp
• Price: £14.99
• Rights available: World

A captivating debut novel from an exciting new Scottish author. Crossing three generations, bridging two continents and spanning over twenty years, this is an intriguing novel that tackles issues of identity, exile and belonging and the conflict between sexual desire and family loyalty from an entirely fresh perspective. Thoughtful, beautiful, tender and, at times, unsettling, The Picnic hails the arrival of a brilliant new literary talent.

• Publisher: CHROMA (imprint of Black & White Publishing)
• ISBN: 978 1 84502 083 5
• Publication Date: May 2007
• Format: pbk, 216 x 134 mm
• Extent: 256 pp
• Price: £9.99
• Rights available: World

Set in London and Edinburgh, Meet Me Under the Westway is an acutely observed look at the world of theatre and the arts. Straight talking, fresh and entertaining, Stephen Thompson’s novel is a satirical yet brassy view of modern friendships and ambitions which perfectly captures the relationships of the young(ish) and irresponsible. With a keen eye for detail, Thompson crafts brilliantly observed scenarios from the world of creative thirty-somethings who are desperately trying to make their mark.

• Publisher: Black & White Publishing
• ISBN: 978 1 84502 103 0
• Publication Date: September 2007
• Format: hbk, 190 x 127 mm
• Extent: 288 pp
• Price: £12.00
• Rights available: World, UK & Commonwealth (incl. Canada) audio rights sold to Oakhill Publishing

This is the story of one man’s heroic quest to realise his dreams. A misfi t with a bad self-image, he refuses to give us his real name ‘through shame’. What we do know is that he works as a script-reader for Alba, a Scottish media conglomeration. A frustrated writer himself, he is tortured by two questions: ‘Once we realise we’re never going to be a somebody, can we still convince ourselves that being a nobody is worthwhile?’; and ‘What happens to us when our ambition outstrips our talent?’

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 935 1
• Publication Date: May 2007
• Format: hbk, 234 x 153 mm
• Extent: 394 pp
• Price: £14.99
• Rights available: World except North America, excluding Australia (Text), Spain (Anagrama), Germany (Schoeffl ing), France (Christian Bourgois), Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Podium), Vietnam (Security Publishing), Albania (Skopje), Romania (Rao), Brazil (Editora Record)

“The law of dreams is, keep moving.” For fifteen-year-old Fergus, moving is less of a choice than a necessity. Following the destruction of his home and the brutal deaths of his family by murder and disease, he is forced off the land where he grew up, losing everyone and everything he has ever loved. So begins an epic journey that takes him from the west coast of Ireland in the year of the Great Famine to the docks and bordellos of Liverpool and fi nally to the other side of the world.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 979 5
• Publication Date: January 2008
• Format: pbk, 214 x 135 mm
• Extent: 240pp
• Price: £10.99
• Rights available: World

Emily is a studious young woman obsessed with Catholic saints and murderers. She lives at home with her father in Mexico City and works in the orphanage founded by her grandmother – a relatively quiet life that is turned upside down when she embarks on a doomed relationship with her mysterious first cousin. Written in astonishing, poetic prose, this is a startling, beautiful novel. Jennifer Clement conjures a reality heavy with the weight of Catholic faith and local superstition, and despite the modern-day setting there is a timeless quality to the writing that makes it read like a compelling fable.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84767 044 1
• Publication date: May 2008
• Format: pbk, 216x135 mm
• Extent: tbc
• Price: £10.99
• Rights available: World

Set in Glasgow over fifteen years, part coming-of-age, part love story, part family drama, Anne Donovan’s new novel is a wonderful follow-up to the critically acclaimed Buddha Da. At its heart lies Fiona, the second child in the O’Connell family, whose home life is more turbulent than most, from her mother’s sudden death and her father’s subsequent breakdown, to the havoc wreaked by her younger twin sisters, Mona and Rona. Fiona finds escape in her art, in her love of Emily Bronte and ultimately in the Kaurs, the Sikh family that live nearby. Moving and funny by turns, it is a heart-warming story of friendship, belonging and finding one’s place in the world.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 184195 995 5
• Publication Date: July 2007
• Format: pbk, 198 x 129mm
• Extent: 280pp
• Price: £7.99
• Rights available: World

Shielded from emotional and physical abuse by layers of fat, Lilian struggles to escape a suffocating existence in the home of her tyrannical Victorian father and her elegant but ineffectual mother. Madness, cruelty and sexuality permeate the family’s upper-crust Australian world. She’s a person large in spirit as well as body, who wants to invent her own story, rather than allow it to be invented for her. Life presents her with many obstacles, including the sinister advances of her father – but in spite of this she succeeds. Triumphantly she makes her life her own, savouring every moment with the reminder that “everything matters”.

Kate Grenville was born in Sydney, Australia. Her novel The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize and became a long-running bestseller. Her other works of fiction have been published to acclaim in Australia and overseas and have won state and national awards. Most recently, The Secret River, also published by Canongate, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2006).

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 988 7
• Publication date: February 2008
• Format: hbk, 234 x 153mm
• Extent: 302pp
• Price: £16.99
• Rights available: World, excluding Netherlands (Arbeiderspers), France (Editions Metailie), Canada (HarperCollins), Germany (Pendo), Australia (Text), UK Large Print (W F Howes)

From the bombed-out villages of Kandahar to the drawing rooms of Camden Town, Adam Kellas’s world is forged from extremes. War-correspondent, spurned lover, friend, would-be novelist, Adam has been many things. And like the world around him, on the firestep of the twenty-first century, his life is showing distinct signs of cracking apart. Only the memory of a fleeting connection with the beautiful, elusive Astrid, a fellow reporter in Afghanistan, offers any possibility of hope.

With all the explosive drama of the prize-winning The People’s Act of Love, James Meek’s new novel, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, spans continents and cultures. It is a timeless tale of the pursuit of love set against the machinations of today’s world stage, and will cement Meek’s place as one of the most important writers of his generation.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 967 2
• Publication date: November 2007
• Format: hbk, 198 x 129mm
• Extent: 800pp
• Price: £7.99
• Rights available: World, excluding North America, Iceland, Korea, Australia (Text), Spain (RBA), Italy (Bompiani), Finland (Tammi), Brazil (Editora Record), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Sweden (Wahlstrom & Widstrand), Portugal (Presenca), Germany (Beck), Poland (Znak), Japan (Shinchosa), France (Editions des Deux Terres), Greece (Motibo), Israel (Keter), Hungary (Gabo), Turkey (Merkez Kitap), Russia (AST), Lithuania (Media Incognito), Bulgaria (Ednorog), Romania (Humanitas), Taiwan (Crown), UK Large Print (BBC Audiobooks)

By 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the world’s most famous author, had become an almost religious figure, surrounded on his lavish estate by family and followers alike. Set in the tumultuous last year of the count’s life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife, Sofya, and his leading disciple, Vladimir Chertkov. Narrated in six different voices, including Tolstoy’s own from his diaries and literary works, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction.

Jay Parini is a novelist and poet. He is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. His six novels include Benjamin’s Crossing and The Apprentice Lover. His volumes of poetry include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 957 3
• Publication date: July 2007
• Format: hbk, 214 x 135mm
• Extent: 452pp
• Price: £12.99
• Rights available: World excluding North America, France (Editions Carriere), Portugal (Circulo de Leitores/Editora Bertrand), Spain (Paidos), Bulgaria (Ednorog), Netherlands (Querido), Taiwan (Eurasian), Japan (Hayakawa), China (Horizonal Media), Russia (Inostranka), Germany (Kindler/Rowohlt), Korea (Minumsa), Israel (Miskal), Italy (Newton & Compton), Turkey (Plato), Romania (Rao), Australia (Text).

When Ariel Manto discovers a copy of ‘The End of Mr. Y’ in a second-hand bookshop, she can’t believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And cursed. With ‘Mr. Y’ under her arm, Ariel is thrust into an adventure of faith, physics, love, death and everything in between. Part gothic mystery, part time-travelling love story, The End of Mr. Y sends us on a wild and irresistible quest into our deepest selves and our biggest questions.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 868 2
• Publication date: March 2008
• Format: hbk, tbc
• Extent: tbc
• Price: £14.99
• Rights available: World

Once Upon A Time in England tells the story of a family struggling to make its way through a world of prejudice and racism in Northern England. With tenderness and insight, Helen Walsh charts the journey of Robbie, his Asian wife Sushelia and their bookish son and tomboy daughter across a decade. Through their heartbreaking story, Helen Walsh offers an unforgettable portrait of the world in which we live, and is confirmed as a writer of searing power.

Helen Walsh was born in Warrington in 1977. Her debut novel, Brass, was published to great acclaim by Canongate in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize for First Novels.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84767 042 7
• Publication Date: February 2008
• Format: B format
• Extent: tbc
• Price: £7.99
• Rights available: World, excluding Israel (Xargol)

From the bones of biblical tales, David Maine creates compulsively readable and startlingly modern dramas. As blind Samson, chained within the Philistines’ great temple, relives his career, revelling in the brutal violence and oblivious to his own hubris, he reveals his mission from his zealot God. He’s killed Philistines and Canaanites, razing their crops and villages and wreaking murderous havoc whenever his Lord – though more often he himself – has been dishonoured. His delight in killing for God still knows no bounds, and his Herculean speed and strength seem unstoppable, until Dalila comes along . . .

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 929 0
• Publication Date: April 2007
• Format: 214 x 135mm
• Extent: 288 pp
• Price: £10.99
• Rights available: World, excluding Canada (Doubleday Canada,) US (MacAdam/Cage), France (Editions du Panama), Italy (Piemme), Germany (DTV), Netherlands (Podium), Spain (Urano).

Sean’s days are of a kind. The factory. The line. The chickens . . . And his dreams of escape. But today, his brother Archie gets out of jail on early release. Which would be great if Archie weren’t a little loose in the head. And if Sean didn’t still owe him a thousand pounds. Testing the boundaries of brotherly love, this white-knuckle ride brings to life one unforgettable day. With the scruffy joie de vivre of Roddy Doyle, Mark McNay’s debut will leave you bowled-over and breathless. Fresh marks the arrival of a major new talent.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 978 1 84195 592 6
• Publication Date: August 2004
• Format: 198 x 130 mm
• Extent: 188pp
• Price: £7.99
• Rights available: World

Set during the Second World War and on a large Scottish estate where two brothers are employed as cone-gatherers, Robin Jenkins’s greatest novel is an immensely powerful examination of good and evil, and mankind’s propensity for both. With its themes of class conflict, war, evil and envy, The Cone-Gatherers is a towering work of fiction that remains as relevant today as when it was first published. Suspenseful, dark and unforgettable, it is one of the masterpieces of modern Scottish literature.This novel was previously published in Penguin’s prestigious Modern Classics series and was first published by Canongate in 2004.

Robin Jenkins was born in 1912. His first novel was published in 1950 and nearly thirty works of fiction have followed, many of which have been graced with literary awards and have remained in print for decades. He lived, for most of his life, in Argyll, Scotland. He died in February 2005.

• Publisher: Luath Press
• ISBN: 978 1 90522 283 4
• Publication Date: June 2007
• Format: pbk, 210 x 135 mm
• Extent: 263 pp
• Price: £9.99
• Rights available: World

Sonny Jim McConaughy is no stranger to trouble. He blackmails his lawyer, scams the insurance company, drinks, takes drugs and sleeps around. His girlfriend Rhonda, determined to stop him destroying them both, pits herself against him in a desperate battle of attrition.
However, Sonny Jim has stumbled into more trouble than even he can handle, waking up to find himself accused of attempted murder with no memory of the previous drunken night.
A book to make you laugh and cringe throughout, filled with grit, realism, dark humour and a hilarious cast of misfits.

• Publisher: Luath Press
• ISBN: 978 1 90522 255 1
• Publication Date: October 2006
• Format: pbk, 210 x 135 mm
• Extent: 192 pp
• Price: £9.99
• Rights available: World

When Cal MacCarl gets a phone call to his bachelor flat in Glasgow asking him to come to the bedside of his Aunt Mary, dying miles away on the Isle of Lewis, he embarks on a journey of discovery. With both his parents dead, his Aunt Mary is his only remaining blood link. When she goes he will be the last of the family line and he couldn’t care less.
In the days between his aunt’s death and funeral he is drawn into the role of genealogy detective. In a place where everyone knows everything about everybody, Cal finds that secrets are buried deep and begins to understand that Aunt Mary was not the woman he knew and he might not be the person he thought he was.

• Publisher: Luath Press
• ISBN: 978 1 905222 575 9
• Publication Date: March 2007
• Format: pbk, 210 x 135 mm
• Extent: 280 pp
• Price: £7.99
• Rights available: World

Three men from Coatbridge set out for Italy to find a monk reputed to possess healing powers in order to help psychiatrically disturbed Jimmy Brogan. However, when they arrive on the mountain, they find that healing isn’t that easy to come by. This is a funny, provocative story of redemption. As the characters learn that the monastery cannot provide sanctuary from Jimmy’s past, they are all challenged to face their own lives.

Monks was originally published by Hodder as The Big Q.

• Publisher: Luath Press
• ISBN: 978 1 990630 706 6
• Publication Date: October 2007
• Format: hbk, 198 x 129 mm
• Extent: 256 pp
• Price: £12.99
• Rights available: World

Golf, ethics and the Kama Sutra: sexual morality goes out of the window in this fabulously funny rom-com.

The August and Venerable Golf Club of St Magnus is in trouble. Under an ancient deed, the members discover that their beloved Clubhouse will revert to the daughter of the local fishmonger if, on her eighteenth birthday, she is still a virgin. The birthday is imminent, and the Secretary decides to take matters into his own hands.
As the day of reckoning draws near, suitors, snakes, Sanskrit, fish, tsunamis, the Kama Sutra, secret tunnels, Japanese reporters, the halls of Harmonia, and the fated footsteps of true love pop up like sprinklers on a golf course or vowels in the Vedas. This irreverent story twists and winds like an Indian python towards its surprising soft-breathed apocalypse.
A beguiling first novel, with all the comedy value of Stephen Fry, Tom Sharpe and PG Wodehouse put together.

Shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize.

• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton/Penguin
• ISBN: 024 1 14320 9
• Publication Date: 04 Aug 2005
• Format: hbk, 129 x 198mm
• Extent: 272 pp
• Price: £10.99
• Rights available: World, excluding UK, Netherlands & Romania

The Stornoway Way is a provocative, lyrical novel, which chronicles the misadventures of an idiosyncratic young Scotsman in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland who rails against the constraints of his extraordinary but vanishing island culture as well as western civilisation as a whole. A debut novel with refreshing and arresting style, humour and insight.

Kevin MacNeil was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis. He was British Council Writer in Residence at Uppsala University, Sweden, 2002-3 and inaugural Iain Crichton Smith Writing Fellow in the Scottish Highlands. His poetry has been translated into ten languages and he has performed his English and Gaelic work in places as diverse as Columbia, Malta, America, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the Czech Republic. He has also written for radio, television and film. This is his first novel.