Stories by @emilycox

Workhorse

An astonishing portrait of a city on the brink of a dizzying new era and a story about a young woman who will do anything to infiltrate the rarefied world of New York's fashion elite. New York City, 2001. Editorial Assistant Clodagh “Clo” Harmon wants nothing more than to rise through the ranks at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine. But there’s just one problem: she doesn’t have the right pedigree. Clo is a ‘workhorse’ in a world of beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected ‘show horses’ and it seems that her fortunes will never change. That is until Clo meets Harry Wood, a reporter with visions of his own media empire and the person who might be Clo’s ally in gaming the system…or is he the only thing standing between Clo and her rightful place at the top? Clo begins to wade across boundaries, taking ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the Important Person she wants to be. But who is Clo under all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners? And who are we if we share her desires? As wickedly funny as it is darkly unsettling, Workhorse is an astonishing story of envy and ambition, set against the glamour and privilege of media and high society in New York at its height.

Stoner

Read the greatest rediscovered classic of recent years 'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life. 'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby 'A terrific novel of echoing sadness' Julian Barnes

The Happy Couple

Meet Celine and Luke--for all intents and purposes the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more inter­ested in piano than in domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine’s sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest), as the only one with any emotional distance, observes her friends like ants in a colony. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after--but does it lie at the end of an aisle?

Victorian Psycho

Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate’s dreary confines and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more trouble she has sticking to her plan. Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past until her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning. Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.

Ordinary Time

Ann is a reluctant Vicar's wife. She tries her best but her husband only has eyes for God, her son is asking questions she can't answer, and it is all too easy to displease the congregation. When her brother needs her help, Ann travels from Cornwall up to London. There she meets Jamie, and a new world unexpectedly opens up. Ann knows what the older women of the parish would say - she's made her bed and now she has to lie in it. But once she has been led into temptation, it may prove impossible to resist . . .

Good Bad Girl

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things . . . Twenty years after a baby is stolen from her push-chair, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth. Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but at eighty-years-young, she’s planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning up mess and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything. Edith’s own daughter, Clio, won’t speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio’s door . . . and their intentions aren’t good. With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might just find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her, and the connections that bind them.

As Young As This

DESCRIPTION An irresistible and achingly relatable debut novel for anyone who has ever had to let go of what they thought their life would look like and open themselves up to the dizzying possibilities of chance. Elliot. Joe. Tommy. Nathanael. Wren. Oliver. Malik. Zach. Frank. Patrick. Noah. These are the men Margot has loved, liked, lusted over. Since she was seventeen, she's pictured them like stepping stones - each one bringing her closer to finding someone to share her life with and, eventually, father the children she's always imagined in her future. From her first encounter, to her first love, from grown-up dilemmas to spontaneous thrills, she's soaked up every experience available to her, discovering friendship, joy and despair. Through all of this she's refined her search until she believes she's arrived at 'the ending' to her story. So how did she find herself here, single at thirty-four, and about to make the biggest decision of her life? Tender, devastating and sharply funny, As Young as This is a beautiful depiction of the ways people shape us, the plans we make for our lives, and what it means to let go of them, from an incredible new talent.

Don’t Let Him In

He’s the perfect man. He says he loves you. You think he might even be made for you. Before long he’s moved into your house – and into your heart. And then he leaves for days at a time. You don’t know where he’s gone or who he’s with. And you realise – if you looked back – you’d say to yourself: DON’T LET HIM IN.

Nesting

On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another. What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control – and what will be the cost?

Atmosphere

epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond; mission specialists John Griffin and Lydia Danes; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant. Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love – this time among the stars.

Shy Creatures

It all started the weekend the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park . . . Croydon, 1964. Art therapist Helen Hansford is working in a psychiatric hospital, where she has been having passionate but precarious affair with her married colleague, the charismatic Dr Gil Rudden. Helen's structured life is upended when William Tapping - a silent, thirty-seven-year-old man with a beard down to his waist - arrives at the hospital. As Helen helps William express himself through art, she becomes increasingly entangled in his mysterious past. Inspired by a true story, Shy Creatures is a life-affirming exploration of loneliness, love and the quiet forces that shape our lives, reminding us that freedom can come in unexpected forms.

Alperton Angels

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL... True-crime author Amanda Bailey knows all about the notorious Alperton Angels cult. There have been dozens of books and films about the Angels, ever since the night nearly two decades ago, when they attempted to sacrifice a baby they believed to be the Antichrist. With all the cultists now dead - apart from their charismatic leader - it seems like there's nothing new to say about the Angels... until now. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen and can finally be interviewed, and if Amanda can track them down, it will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and is also on the baby's trail. As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realise that what everyone thinks they know about the Angels is wrong. The truth is something much darker and stranger. And the devilish story of the Alperton Angels is far from over... From the bestselling author of The Appeal and The Twyford Code comes a stunning new mystery for fans of Richard Osman and S.J. Bennett, that shot straight into the Sunday Times bestseller list in January 2023. The devil is in the detail...

James

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he flees to nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. So begins a dangerous and transcendent journey along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most life-changing odyssey of them all . . .

Fundamentally

Nadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues. Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen. Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.

The Coast Road

It's 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley: the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her family to be with a married man in Dublin. Returning to pick up the pieces of her old life, Colette finds that nothing - and everything - has changed. When the man to whom she is still married denies her access to their children, Colette enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey - one towards a path of self-discovery, and the other towards tragedy.

Deep Cuts

The first time Joe plays Percy one of his songs in his college room in 2000, she instantly realises three things: One, she is watching a star in the making. Two, she can shape his music into something extraordinary. Three, she will always be on the sidelines. She swallows her jealousy and throws herself into collaboration, transforming Joe’s songs into indie hits with her blistering critiques. But there’s an undercurrent to the music they’re making – something undeniably electric, hurtling towards love. And then, almost inevitably, towards heartbreak. As Joe steps into the spotlight, can Percy bear to watch on in silence? And can he exist there without her?

The Eights

They knew they were changing history. They didn’t know they would change each other. Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship. Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed. But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.

Becky

It’s peak 90s London. Scandal dominates the headlines, men dominate the board rooms, and Becky Sharp will stop at nothing to reach the top at the Mercury newspaper. Mingling with tabloid millionaires and trading favours with royalty, Becky lands scoop after scoop, ruthlessly carving a place for herself in a world determined to ignore her. These are the biggest stories of the decade, and Becky has something to do with every one of them. But Becky may have more in common with the people she writes about than she thinks – what takes a lifetime to build takes only a moment to destroy . . .

So Thrilled For You

Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university. Now in their thirties, life is pulling them in different directions - but when Charlotte organises the baby shower of hell for pregnant Nicki, the girls are reunited. Under a sweltering hot summer day, tensions rise - and by the end of the day, nothing will ever be the same. Someone started a fire at the house - and everyone's a suspect... Is it Steffi, happily child-free but feeling judged by her friends? Is it Charlotte, desperate to conceive and jealous of those who have? Is it Lauren, who is finding motherhood far, far harder than she imagined? Or is it Nicki herself, who never wanted a baby shower anyway?

The Wedding People

It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people - but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall Inn who isn't here for the big event. Phoebe has dreamed of coming here for years. She hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband but now she is divorced and depressed, and not sure how to go on. She's not been sure how to do anything, lately, except climb into bed and drink gin and tonics and listen to the sound of the refrigerator making ice. When the bride discovers her elaborate destination wedding could be ruined by this sad stranger, she is furious. She has spent months accounting for every detail and every possible disaster - except for, well, Phoebe . . . Soon, both women find their best-laid plans derailed and an unlikely confidante in one another. Uproariously funny and devastatingly tender, The Wedding People is an irresistible novel about love, friendship, dysfunctional families, and the unexpected paths that lead to happiness.