Faber and Faber We Don’t Know What We’re Doing Morris Thomas

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, another future classic from Costa Winner Kate Saunders (Five Children on the Western Front) • Emily watched, in a trance of astonishment, as the bear opened the picnic basket, took out a tartan rug and spread it on Holly’s bed • And then the penguin spoke • Actually spoke • ‘What’s going on? This isn’t Pointed End!’ • The bear said, ‘It looks like a human bedroom. We must’ve come through the wrong door.’ • ‘But there aren’t any doors to the hard world in Deep Smockeroon! And we don’t have a human bedroom any more. We’re in a box in the attic.’ • What if there exists a world powered by imagination? • A world of silliness, where humans and their toys live on long after they’ve left the Hard World . . . and what if the door between that world and this one was broken? • Welcome to the Land of Neverendings

'Hello there.' I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow airport, then up into the stranger's face. 'Do I know you?' Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but are either of them being serious, could they actually go through with it and, if they did, what would be their chances of getting away with it? Back in Boston, Ted's wife Miranda is busy site managing the construction of their dream home, a beautiful house out on the Maine coastline. But what secrets is she carrying and to what lengths might she go to protect the vision she has of her deserved future? A sublimely plotted novel of trust and betrayal, The Kind Worth Killing will keep you gripped and guessing late into the night

‘I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silence…’ • To the authorities in pursuit of him, outlaw Ned Kelly is a horse thief, bank robber and police-killer. But to his fellow ordinary Australians, Kelly is their own Robin Hood. In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey brings the famous bushranger wildly and passionately to life

From the funniest voice in young fiction today, the fifth in this irresistible series for young readers about imaginary friends in hilarious rhyming text and with adorable illustrations by Ella Okstad • Ava danced round her room, • Shouting: “Hip hip hooray! • It’s holiday time! • And we’re going today!” • Ava is excited to be going on holiday to the seaside. But with Squishy McFluff, the mischievous invisible cat coming along things are bound to get very, very silly • Rising star Pip Jones continues to give her quirky twist to everyday experiences in this warm and humorous series. The jaunty rhyming text is perfect for reading aloud, and Ella Okstad’s gorgeous, distinctive illustrations will help more confident readers learn to read by themselves for the first time

There can't be a woman alive who hasn't once realised, in a moment of panic, that she's in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man. Louise Doughty, more sure-footed with each novel, leads her unnerved reader into dark territory. A compelling and bravely-written book. (Hilary Mantel). A superb novel. Grown-up, genuinely suspenseful, wonderfully well-constructed, intelligent and provocative. I really didn't want to finish it. And I don't say that very often. (Julie Myerson). Once you start you can't stop reading. Terrific. (Helen Dunmore). Yvonne Carmichael has worked hard to achieve the life she always wanted: a high-flying career in genetics, a beautiful home, a good relationship with her husband and their two grown-up children

‘Many years have now gone by, and jealousy compels me to keep her name a secret, even from my readers. But I must provide a full and truthful account of what happened.’ • A studious young man spends a summer helping a master well-digger search for water on a barren plain • As the two struggle in the summer heat, they develop a filial bond neither has known before. In the nearby town where they spend their evenings, a travelling theatre group has come to stay. The young man is fascinated by the Red-Haired Woman, an alluring member of the troupe, and their brief but intense love affair drives everything else from his mind • But in his distraction, a horrible accident occurs, which will haunt him for thirty years. Until he decides to track down the Red-Haired Woman and finally understand the fallout from that unforgettable summer

Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him becoming soldiers of a different kind, however, it proves to be the defining decision of his life when, having witnessed the murder of a fellow RIC policeman, he is wrongly accused of identifying the executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him he is forced to flee Sligo, his friends, family and beloved girl, Viv • What follows is the story of this flight, his subsequent wanderings, and the haunting pull of home that always afflicts him. Tender, witty, troubling and tragic, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty tells the secret history of a lost man

We’re Mennonites. As far as I know, we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager • Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City’s East Village. Instead she’s trapped in East Village, Manitoba: a town with no train station, no bar, and where job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir • Since her mother and sister have left home, Nomi lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher. Fighting against the restraints of the town, Nomi’s longing for a future of opportunity and hope sets her on course towards a climax at once startling and inevitable

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • ‘Be sure you don’t answer the door to anyone you don’t know.’ • A little Patricia Highsmith, a touch of Shirley Jackson: the long-neglected Celia Fremlin wrote short, sharp stories that threw women’s lives into shiver-inducing relief • In each of these twinned tales, a mother and daughter meet again, and an ordinary home becomes the setting for a return of the repressed • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

We weren’t supposed to be going to the pictures that night. We weren’t even meant to be outside, not in a blackout, and definitely not when German bombs had been falling on London all month like pennies from a jar • February, 1941. After months of bombing raids in London, twelve-year-old Olive Bradshaw and her little brother Cliff are evacuated to the Devon coast. The only person with two spare beds is Mr Ephraim, the local lighthouse keeper. But he’s not used to company and he certainly doesn’t want any evacuees • Desperate to be helpful, Olive becomes his post-girl, carrying secret messages (as she likes to think of the letters) to the villagers. But Olive has a secret of her own. Her older sister Sukie went missing in an air raid, and she’s desperate to discover what happened to her

What if…? • A large wolf escapes its captors • A cult leader breaks out of psychiatric care • A disillusioned woman is forced to end her self imposed exile • Stefan Spjut’s latest novel explores the ancient notion that our forests may be inhabited by beings we do not understand, creatures neither animal nor human, living in the shadows • Thriller, horror fiction, suspense, Trolls is set ten years on from hit novel Stallo, as Susso Myrén’s world once again starts to shift around her

What if you had a vision that something terrible was going to happen? • A train crash, a department store fire, an assassination • What if you could share your vision, and prevent a disaster? • In 1966, John Barker, a British psychiatrist working in an outdated British mental hospital, established the Premonitions Bureau to investigate this very idea. He would find a network of curious correspondents, and among them two highly gifted ‘percipients’. Together, they predicted calamities and international incidents with uncanny accuracy. And then, they gave Barker their most disturbing warning: that he was about to die