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Over-thinker, under-achiever, champion vibes-killer. After spectacularly blowing up her life, twenty-one-year-old Nora Byrne retreats to the family home with little to show for herself but a shiny new autism diagnosis. But it's hard to process this news under the critical eye of her mother, who already treats her like the black sheep, and the rest of her less-than-understanding family. Worst of all, it's the week before Christmas, which means mandatory socialising with the neighbours - including Fran, her childhood best friend, last seen when she broke his heart (again). Nora's only goal is to get through the interminable family dinners, awkward Fran encounters and excessive holiday festivities without crying, throwing up, or finding new ways to humiliate herself. But with her track record, it's not going to be easy ... A heartfelt, hilarious and romantic story about burning out, coming home and finding yourself, no matter how messy and imperfect the process. 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'Delightfully subversive, I loved it' RED

The darkly funny new novel from Polari Prize-shortlisted author Crystal Jeans, inspired in part by Dickens' Great Expectations...

It's 1924, and the village of Skimpole is full of secrets.

When Anastasia's mother dies, she must move in with 'the Aunt' - a writer, too fearsome for a first name, who lives in a dilapidated mansion with her dogs.

But mysteries abound: who wrote the raunchy love letters she discovers in the Aunt's bedroom, signed 'Big Willy'? Why do the villagers hate the Aunt so much? And how did Anastasia's father, who passed before she was born, really die?

When the Aunt's friends arrive at the house one summer, wreathed in cigarette smoke and an air of debauchery, Anastasia may be closer to finding answers - but the truth will turn her world upside down...

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How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life's givens get given a second chance.",{"_791":953,"_793":966,"_770":967},{"_791":953,"_793":969,"_770":1251},"Penguin Books, Limited",{"_791":953,"_793":798,"_770":1076},{"_791":953,"_793":974,"_770":975},{"_791":953,"_793":1079,"_770":1255},"HISTORICAL FICTION; FICTION & RELATED ITEMS_EUROPE; FICTION & RELATED ITEMS",{"_791":953,"_793":980,"_770":1257},"2015-05-04",{"_791":953,"_793":983,"_770":1259},"384",{"_791":953,"_793":801,"_770":1261},"Penguin UK",{"_791":807,"_793":724,"_770":988},{"_791":807,"_793":990,"_770":991},{"_791":807,"_793":813,"_770":991},{"_791":807,"_793":994,"_770":1266},"03/03/2026",{"_791":807,"_793":997,"_770":1268},"28.0",{"_791":807,"_793":1000,"_770":1099},{"_791":823,"_793":824,"_770":1271},"Fiction,Quilting",{"_791":823,"_793":724,"_770":1273},"Fiction;Quilting",{"_791":823,"_793":828,"_770":1275},"FICTIO,QUILT",{"_791":823,"_793":1009,"_770":1277},"FICTIO;QUILT",{"_791":823,"_793":832,"_770":1279},"FICTION,DESIGN & CRAFT",{"_791":823,"_793":1014,"_770":1281},"FICTION;DESIGN & CRAFT",{"_791":823,"_793":837,"_770":1283},"FICTION & POETRY,THE ARTS",{"_791":823,"_793":1019,"_770":1285},"FICTION & POETRY;THE ARTS",{"_791":823,"_793":842,"_770":1022},{"_791":823,"_793":1024,"_770":1025},{"_791":823,"_793":844,"_770":845},{"_791":823,"_793":1028,"_770":845},{"_755":1291},[1292],{"_758":109,"_759":-5,"_123":1293,"_203":1294,"_761":1298,"_767":1299,"_17":1229,"_771":1301,"_773":1302},"gid://shopify/ProductVariant/45740007522501",{"_1034":1295,"_1035":1134,"_123":1296,"_939":1232,"_1038":1297},"How to Be Both Cover Image","gid://shopify/ProductImage/41085924081861",1345,{"_763":764,"_765":1268},[1300],{"_744":745,"_770":1229},"9780141025209",{"_775":1303},[1304],{"_778":1305},{"_780":109,"_126":1306},{"_744":722},"relatedProductsCollectionUrl","/collections/shop-all?shopify_products%5BrefinementList%5D%5Bmeta.categories.sub_merged%5D%5B0%5D=FICTION","relatedProductsFirstSubCategory","city","columbus","actionData","errors"]

Boyhood

by David Keenan