Jenn Ashworth Libri

Quando giunge da un torbido passato nella sua nuova casa in un tranquillo quartiere inglese, con la testa piena di propositi presi dai suoi libri sull’autostima, Annie pensa che a ventisette anni la sua vita sia finalmente iniziata. Si fissa subito su Neil, un giovane vicino di casa, scambiando la sua gentilezza per interesse sentimentale nonostante lui conviva felicemente con una modella di nome Lucy. Portando avanti il proprio programma di miglioramento personale, Annie organizza una catastrofica festa per conoscere i vicini di casa, si regala una nuova acconciatura e inizia a tormentare Lucy. Poco alla volta, però, emergono dettagli inquietanti del suo passato: dove sono finiti il suo ex marito e la loro figlioletta? Chi sono gli uomini che Annie ha incontrato attraverso la rivista erotica per amanti delle donne obese Abundance? È una vittima della solitudine e di un’infanzia infelice oppure una pericolosa sociopatica bugiarda e con gravi disturbi mentali? Con uno stile dalla sconvolgente lucidità Jenn Ashworth cattura il lettore e lo tiene avvinto dall’inizio alla fine, portandolo con sé attraverso una trama ricca tanto di eventi quanto di elucubrazioni e introspezioni, uno sguardo lucido come davvero pochi sul tortuoso cammino di quella che a conti fatti resta pur sempre la vita di una persona “normale”.

A genre-bending meditation on sickness, spirituality, creativity, and the redemptive powers of writing. Notes Made While Falling is both a genre-bending memoir and a cultural study of traumatized and sickened selves in fiction and film. It offers a fresh, visceral, and idiosyncratic perspective on creativity, spirituality, illness, and the limits of fiction itself. At its heart is a story of a disastrously traumatic childbirth, its long aftermath, and the out-of-time roots of both trauma and creativity in an extraordinary childhood. Moving from fairgrounds to Agatha Christie, from literary festivals to neuroscience and the Bible, from Chernobyl to King Lear, Ashworth takes us on a fantastic journey through familiar landscapes transformed through unexpected encounters and comic combinations. The everyday provides the ground for the macabre and the absurd, as the narration twists and stretches time. Hovering on the edge of madness, writing, it seems, might keep us sane—or might just allow us to keep on living. In Notes Made While Falling, Ashworth calls for a redefinition of the creative work of thinking, writing, teaching, and being, and she underlines the necessity of a fearlessly compassionate and empathic attention to vulnerability and fragility.

It's Friday in the Leeke household, but this is no ordinary Friday and the Leekes are a little unusual: they are Lancastrian Mormons, and this evening their son Gary will return from 2 years as a missionary in Salt Lake City. His mother is planning a celebratory dinner - with difficulty, since she's virtually housebound with an undiagnosed, embarrassing condition. What she doesn't realise is that the rest of the family - her meek husband, disturbed oldest son, and teenage daughter - have other plans for the evening, each involving drastic and irrevocable action.

A deeply affecting and unconventional love story, shot through with anger, black humour and grief.

Set against a backdrop of a predatory adult world, the story follows teenage girls grappling with lies, jealousy, and their own naivety. The darkly humorous narrative explores the unsettling dynamics of adolescence, ultimately leading to tragic consequences as the characters navigate their complicated relationships and the dangers that surround them.

A sick old man determines the day of his death and the means by which he will end his noble' existence. On his last day, he tells the story of his noble' past, and of his philosophy as a noble.

Two women are connected by the notorious Gosforth Massacre of 1917, a murder case famous among true-crime fans and internet sleuths. They strike up an email conversation and begin an uneasy investigation into their mutual ancestor Hattie Soak. The Night Visitors explores ghosts, obsession and inherited evil.

A haunting and otherworldly tale of the impact on one family of a guest with seemingly magical powers, who alters the course of their lives in ways neither they nor he foresee.

Hometown Tales: Celebrating regional voices Two powerful pieces of fiction set in Preston and Manchester