Cirrus@Austlit

'Mila can't shake her grief for the life she thought she'd have. She's broke, childless, and single. But her developing relationship with Josh, a sugar baby, opens her eyes to new possibilities.

'Then Josh goes missing on a trip to Europe — a presumed suicide. Mila, and Josh’s best friend Kyle, are devastated, yet they suspect something is amiss. Together, they feel compelled to trace Josh’s steps across Budapest, Prague and Berlin, seeking clues in his last posts online.

'Yet is there one mysterious factor Mila hasn't considered?

'Is running toward danger the only way for Mila to meet her true capacity? Or will it mean yet more loss?

'This genre-defying stunner asks how we might make the most of our power in the face of fear, loss, and the unknown. It celebrates our ability, despite great challenges, to be intimate with others and with the world.'(Publication summary)

'She used to be someone else, but now she’s arrived in Vegas, 
where she can start again. It won’t do to let the past leak in. It’s the Sixties now. She’s going to become … Joan.

'She makes a list: Buy a new dress (fitted, floral). Dye her hair (dark). Curl it. Buy red lipstick. Buy cigarettes and a lighter, too: Joan, she decides, is a smoker.

'There’s no need to dwell on why she’s here, what went before. She is just moving forward, one foot in front of the other, becoming that new person. Joan.

'This city of flashing neon, casinos and shows is full of distractions. Finding a job will be quick and easy. Things to do. New people to meet. A clean sheet.

'She’s certainly not thinking about Jack, or … No. Not any more.

'Her new life starts right here, right now.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Nothing Missed 'is a poignant story of loss and grief, and a yearning to not feel pain; where a dead Martian serves as the numbing stand-in for our 'connected' modern world. Or is the desire to join with the 'other' a metaphor for racial harmony' Either way this postmodern tale, though it has ephemeral ties with Wells, is thought-provoking and touching.'

Source: Foreword.

'Sometimes, when I am in a period of great anxiety, I fantasise about running away. I am alone and anonymous in a European city like Venice. The distance from every-thing I know, and the solitude, seem luxurious, spacious, calming. What am I running away from? Or what, specifically, am I seeking? I've had this fantasy for a long time. For as long as I've had intimate .relationships, and wanted to be incredibly close to another person. For as long as I've been seriously writing. For as long as I've been seeking the space, and time, to develop and explore my own imagination. This whole time, like most writers, I have worked, studied, juggled opportunities and obligations. That is life; that is what we do.' (Introduction)

'Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with the shame of his desires, he runs away to remote Scotland with a piece of experimental tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.

'In the late 1860s, Leonora lives a contented life in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature, her hands and mind kept busy. Contemplating her future and the social conventions that bind her, a secret romantic friendship with the local laird is interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh – an intimidating, sooty city; the place where her mother perished.

'But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions that bear no resemblance to anything she has ever seen or known…

'A Superior Spectre is a highly accomplished debut novel about our capacity for curiosity, and our dangerous entitlement to it, and reminds us the scariest ghosts aren’t those that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.'(Publication summary)

'An aging actress looks out at the view from her hotel room: a shopping centre, KFC, a discount garage; the Pacific Ocean somewhere behind it all. A city that feels too big or too small (compared to the country, compared to London). You can't get lost. Her phone makes the sound of a Bernard Herrmann score...' (Publication abstract)