“In the windowless back offices of a designer furniture showroom, women stand in a circle, stuffed into ill-fitting black jeans, grey jeans, olive jeans One of them is explaining something from her real, nonwork life, something about returning something she bought online – the frustration and indignity of the experience”. So begins Halle Butler’s searingly sharp, funny and frightening second novel, The New Me, a story of a young life which shrivels just as it should be blooming. Millie, Butler’s…

Being a teenager is difficult. For most of us reading this, we’ve been there, done that and got umpteen t-shirts to show for it. Add in newly divorced parents, a brother you never see, mounting schoolwork, and a UCAS application, all while dealing with a break-up from the boy you thought you’d marry, it’s easy to see why overworked schoolgirl Audrey Winters is feeling the strain. With faithful and straight-talking compan`ion, Leroy, at her side, she sets about trying to rebuild her life, her emotions and her attitude…

The past is funny place. For some of us, it’s good. For some of us, it’s bad. For some, it sits in the middle, simply bordering on whether it needs to be spoken about or not. For Florence Claybourne, the past is an almighty landscape of confusion, betrayal and bewilderment, offset by a man called Ronnie Butler, whose menacing presence brought sorrow into the lives of Florence and those around her. Having assumed she had killed Butler after an altercation near a canal, Florence is stunned when a man by the same name…