New Releases by Kate Pullinger

For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Anne Tyler, a powerful, heartrending novel about a man on the run from himself, by Governor General''s Award-winning author Kate Pullinger. On a rain-soaked Vancouver sidewalk in 1995, a homeless man fights for breath. Forest Green is the story of how he ended up there. Arthur Lunn is a golden boy who spends long summer days roaming the hills and swimming in the lakes of the Okanagan Valley. But the Great Depression is destroying lives, even in Art''s remote and bucolic hometown. Soon, Art finds himself caught up in a battle between the town and the vagrants flowing through it, and before long the tension reaches a boiling point. A catastrophe follows--and changes everything. The trauma from this event shapes and haunts Art''s life moving forward, from his experiences as a soldier in World War II to his reckless, nomadic working days in logging camps across British Columbia to his turbulent relationship with his one great love--a woman he cannot believe he deserves. Painful, poignant, yet full of hope, Forest Green explores how trauma can warp our lives while love can help us to mend.

Sometimes everything is not enough... Fran has a good life: a happy marriage to a successful man, a healthy, sweet-natured toddler, a nice London flat. Then, one day, she walks out, leaving it all behind. As Fran travels to Las Vegas and on to Vancouver she is haunted by memories of her own childhood and driven to reconnect with her estranged mother, Ireni, whose descent into alcoholism has left her destitute. Will understanding why her own mother failed as a parent help Fran lay the ghosts of her past to rest and return home to her husband and child, or is she destined to repeat her mother’s mistakes? Praise for A Little Stranger: “The dark side of motherhood explored in a tale of terror and rage” Independent “Gripping, sharp and brilliantly kind. She knows the gamble that life is and she never once flinches. Her books are always revelations. What a good read” Ali Smith “Pullinger treats with thoughtful sympathy that profound taboo, the breaking of the mother-baby bond” Guardian “A Little Stranger is that extraordinary thing: a mix of literary excellence and finesse combined with a very ordinary and accessible look at life” Sunday Express

WHEN EVERYTHING WAS FALLING APART, SOMEONE FELL INTO PLACE... Suburban housewife Harriet spends her days doing what she’s worst at. Formerly a local radio host, now she grocery shops for her family who has too much to eat, parents a son who refuses to communicate with her, and tries to be a wife to a man who hasn’t embraced her in years. But what starts out as a mundane trip to the supermarket turns her world upside down when a mysterious man named Yacub falls out of the sky from the landing gear of an airplane and lands on her car in the parking lot—and survives. He’s starving and he’s freezing cold. What can she do but bring him home to her family? Suddenly her son has stepped away from the video games and her husband is looking at her once again—even if it’s because they think she’s crazy for taking in a complete stranger stinking of petrol. And who is Yacub, this young man who escaped from a Dubai labor camp and stowed away in the belly of the plane to travel around the world? And is it a coincidence that he’s dropped into Harriet’s life just at the moment when a long-buried secret from her past threatens to come to light? Inspired by real-life accounts of airplane stowaways, Landing Gear is a highly imaginative story of colliding worlds and extraordinary connections in an age where we may have the world at the touch of a screen, but might need some help seeing what’s right in front of us. PRAISE FOR LANDING GEAR: "An extraordinary idea, brilliantly executed" Viv Groskop, Red Magazine “Landing Gear is a beautiful and profound story about finding love, peace and meaning in a too-busy world.” Quill and Quire (starred review) "Pullinger''s empathy for the characters makes them hugely likable, even the truculent streak of adolescence that is Jack" Alfred Hickling, Guardian "A portrait of a modern nuclear family - explosive, searing - Landing Gear is truly a novel for our brave new world" Merilyn Simonds, author of Convict Lover "A wonderful novel, a novel of secrets - each carefully and cleverly revealed, all abetting a propulsive storyline that offers up starting revelations to the very end. This is the work of a writer at the top of her game, and I absolutely loved it." Craig Davidson, author of Cataract City "Innovative, enthralling, kinetic and often subversively funny. Alongside Landing Gear''s stowaway, Yacub, we freefall and rip a hole right through modern society''s illusions of any shared comfort zone. I loved the headlong rush, the imperiled tenderness" Kathleen Winter, author of Annabel "A turbulent and exhilarating ride through modern family relationships, our cultural divide and the unexpected things that come crashing into our lives" Brian Francis, author of Natural Order "Pulliinger''s exquisite writing draws us into a world in which character negotiate between the probable and the all-but-impossible. ''How can they survive this?'' we ask ourselves, and then it hits us: we all do." Wayne Grady, author of Emancipation Day

Audrey is a journalist living in London. Anonymous in the city she has left her troubled past far behind in Canada. A passionate affair with Jack, and an intense new friendship with Shereen bring uncertainties and confusion and Audrey finds herself drawn into the dramatic story of James Douglas,19th Century pioneer and the first mixed race Governor of British Columbia. As she digs deeper into his life she is forced to confront her own past, her high school friendship with Jane and the affair they had with a teacher. Spanning two centuries The Last Time I Saw Jane is a powerful novel of love and betrayal, race and sex, and the magnetic pull of the past on the present. Praise for The Last Time I Saw Jane: “A thought-provoking and entertaining addition to the genre of exile” Observer “Sensually exquisite” The Times

Agnes Samuel is an American, beautiful, witty, cool, the kind of woman people remember. She arrives among the respectable citizens of Warboys like a cat among the pigeons. Before long she has insinuated herself into the affections of the sleepy Fenland village and into the heart of the ancient Throckmorton family, a family that harbours a dark secret. Nobody remembers another Agnes Samuel from long ago, a frightened girl betrayed by her wealthy neighbours and hanged as a witch. Weird Sister is a chilling tale of revenge across generations that will send shivers your spine. Praise for Weird Sister: “A perfect, gruesome, little tale” Independent on Sunday “Daphne du Maurier retold by Margaret Atwood” Times Literary Supplement “Pullinger has created a thrilling combination of Rebecca and Mrs Danvers” Independent “Pullinger’s exercise in gothic fantasy is as seductively clever as its heroine." Sunday Times “The real possibility that, this time, good will not overcome evil keeps you reading.” Daily Telegraph “This is a bewitching yarn, perfect reading for a dark winter’s night with the wind howling at the door.” Daily Mail

When her mistress departs from Victorian London society to seek relief from tuberculosis symptoms in Egypt, maid Sally throws herself into their new culture and comes to know freedoms she has never experienced before she is harshly reminded of her humble station in life.

A new collection of the best in contemporary women''s writing to celebrate the Asham Award 2009

Is Mina simply unfashionably promiscuous or is there something more sinister about her vampiric attitude to men? Where Does The Kissing End? is a Dracula forthe end of the century. It asks;where does the pleasure end and the hurting begin?

Delving deeply into the characters'' pasts, this novel reveals why Ada has stopped speaking, the history of the piano and the secret of Flora''s conception. Baines''s mysterious past is also revealed, and readers discover what lies behind Stewart''s stark loneliness.