Watermarks by Lenka Janiurek

Lenka Janiurek has written the remarkable story of her life - an unflinching account of loss, success, love, despair, and the solace of the natural world.

---

Watermarks
Life, Death and Swimming
By Lenka Janiurek
Allison & Busby / HB / 21 May 2020 / £14.99

Lenka Janiurek’s story really begins with the death of her mother when she was nine. She is the daughter of a Polish immigrant father, and one of eight children. Across the years she is plagued by the rage, addiction and despair of the controlling men she is closest to. This memoir grapples with identity, of trying to find a place in a world and within a family, that don’t feel like your own.

This remarkable story from the 1960s to the present day, describes the loss of her mother to her relationships with 2 stepmothers, early success as a playwright, extensive travel, and encounters with both extreme wealth and poverty. Throughout Lenka explores and celebrates the beauty and tragedy of living life to the full.

Watermarks is a stunning evocation of alienation, searching, and the restorative power of nature.  

---

Talking points

• Wild swimming – Water has been central to Lenka’s life, at the moment she swims in the sea every day. 

• Green housing – Lenka is passionate about housing solutions, she helped build a straw bale house in Pembrokeshire. It was Grand Designs Eco home award winner in 2008.

• Living with chronic illness – both Lenka and her younger daughter have had ME, severely limiting their lives.

• Living off grid for a year up a mountain in West Wales 20 years ago.

• Extensive travel in remote areas of India with 2 children.

• Inherited trauma – trying to understand and process the legacies of war, secrets, grief, addiction, violence, and the loss of country and identity.

---

About LENKA JANIUREK

LENKA JANIUREK was born in York. At the age of 17 she won the prestigious Young Writer’s Competition at the Royal Court Theatre and subsequently had three plays on at the Royal Court Theatre, a platform play at the National Theatre, and one at the Other Place with the RSC in Stratford-on-Avon. She has facilitated workshops in writing, drama, art, and well-being, in schools, colleges, at camps, and in a women's prison. And worked as a baker, fundraiser, caretaker, green builder and researcher. She has four children. She lives close to the sea in Wales.

Lenka is available for interviews, features and events.

---

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear

Number 15 in bestselling Maisie Dobbs series…

---

The American Agent
By Jacqueline Winspear
26 March 2019 | Hardback £19.99 | Allison & Busby

When an American war correspondent’s murder is concealed by British authorities, Maisie Dobbs agrees to work with an agent of the US Department of Justice to help an old friend discover the truth.

With German bombs raining down on London, Maisie is torn between the demands of solving this dangerous case and the need to protect a young evacuee. And what will happen when she faces losing her dearest friend and the possibility that she might be falling in love again?

Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in Kent and emigrated to the USA in 1990. She has written extensively for journals, newspapers and magazines, and has worked in book publishing on both sides of the Atlantic. The Maisie Dobbs series of crime novels is beloved by readers worldwide – always going into the New York Times top 10 on publication. Jacqueline will be available for interviews, events and written features.

More info at: jacquelinewinspear.com

---

‘An outstanding historical series’ - New York Times

‘Maisie Dobbs is a revelation.’ - Alexander McCall Smith

'I'm a huge Maisie Dobbs fan' - Lee Child

‘Wry and immensely readable’ - Daily Mail

‘A series that seems to get better with every entry’ - Wall Street Journal

---

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this book, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

The Homecoming by Rosie Howard

A major new series for fans of Katie Fforde, Veronica Henry, Carole Matthews and Jill Mansell

A heart-warming and witty new series that combines a cosy Sussex setting, relationship drama and a cast of endearing characters.

---

The Homecoming (Havenbury 1) by Rosie Howard | Published in hardback by Allison & Busby on 15 February 2018 | £19.99

The Homecoming by Rosie Howard

Maddy fled the idyllic market town of Havenbury Magna three years ago, the scene of a traumatic incident she revisits most clearly in her dreams. Even so, when she is called back to help at the Havenbury Arms when her godfather Patrick suffers a heart attack, she is unprepared for the welter of emotions her return provokes.

Psychologist and ex-army officer Ben is sure he can help Maddy to resolve her fears, until he finds himself falling for her, and struggling with a recently uncovered family secret of which Maddy is blissfully unaware.

Then Maddy's mother, Helen, arrives and Patrick himself must confront a few uncomfortable truths about his history and the pub’s future.

The Homecoming is page-turning escapism at its best, and the start of an exciting new series.

---

Author biography

With a father in the forces and the diplomatic corps, Rosie Howard spent much of her childhood in UK boarding schools, joining her parents in exotic destinations during holidays. After obtaining a degree in music she pursued a career in public relations, campaigning, political lobbying and freelance journalism but realized her preference for making things up and switched to writing novels instead. She lives in a West Sussex village with her husband and two children in a cottage with roses around the door.

rosiehoward.com / @RosieHowardBook

---

Talking points

• Home / interiors – Rosie lives in a beautiful little cottage which she and her husband renovated themselves (photos available)
• Family - raising a teenage daughter, a son with special needs, caring for elderly parents
• Commenting on disability rights, equality for women, working women and access to childcare
• Rural pub closures and community solutions – beer ties, pubs being sold off for housing, which features in the novel
• Childhood spent in boarding schools – learning to be tough and resourceful

---

More information

For more information about this book, please contact me.

Love And Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet comes a moving novel with astonishing scope.

“Ford’s boundless compassion for the human spirit, in all its strengths andweaknesses, makes him one of our most unique and compelling storytellers”

— Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

---

Allison & Busby / £14.99 / Hardback / Fiction / 12 September 2017

1909, Seattle. At the World’s Fair a half-Chinese boy called Ernest Young is raffled off as a prize. He ends up working in a brothel in Seattle’s famed Red Light District and falls in love with Maisie, the daughter of a flamboyant madam, and Fahn, a karayukisan, a Japanese maid sold into servitude.

On the eve of the new World’s Fair in 1962, Ernest looks back on the past, the memories he made with his beloved wife while his daughter, a reporter, begins to unravel their tragic past.

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from China to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the Western name “Ford”. Jamie grew up in Seattle and worked as an art director and creative director, before becoming a full-time writer.  He now lives in Montana with his wife and children. 

For more information please visit www.jamieford.com. Twitter: @JamieFord

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet spent two years on the New York Times Bestseller list.  It has been translated into 29 languages. Jamie Ford is currently writing the screenplay.

---

More information

For more information about this book, please contact me.

Purged by Peter Laws

Debut crime novel, first in a series, by Baptist minister Peter Laws

Introducing Matt Hunter, a sociology professor, who also assists the police over religiously-motivated crimes…

“A tight and gripping story…Purged [is] a book that is nigh impossible to put down and will leave the reader hooked from start to finish…let’s welcome Matt Hunter to the world of macabre crime fiction. He’s a damaged, complicated and interesting man, and we’re looking forward to spending more time with him.”

— Starburst Magazine

---

Purged by Peter Laws
Allison & Busby / 16 February 2017 / £12.99 / trade paperback 

Matt Hunter lost his faith a long time ago. Formerly a minister, now a professor of sociology, he’s writing a book that debunks the Christian faith while assisting the police with religiously motivated crimes. 

On holiday with his family in Oxfordshire, Matt finds himself on edge in a seemingly idyllic village where wooden crosses hang at every turn. The stay becomes more sinister still when a local girl goes missing, followed by further disappearances. Caught up in an investigation that brings memories to the surface that he would prefer stay buried deep, Matt is on the trail of a killer determined to save us all.

Peter Laws is an ordained Baptist minister with a taste for the macabre. He writes a monthly column in The Fortean Times and also hosts the popular podcast and YouTube show The Flicks That Church Forgot which reviews horror films from a theological perspective. He regularly speaks and preaches at churches and has spoken at movie premieres, beer tasting evenings and paranormal conferences. He lives with his family in Bedfordshire.  Unleashed, the next Matt Hunter novel, will be published in 2018.  He is currently writing a non-fiction book for Icon Books exploring why we are drawn to the morbid (to be published in 2018). He's travelling the country drinking with vampires, hunting werewolves and meeting the women who collect dead babies (in Reborn doll form). 

Follow Peter on twitter @revpeterlaws and find out more at www.peterlaws.co.uk.  
He is available for interview, events and to write features.

For more information about this book please contact us.