Michel Faber Livres

Beautiful and deeply moving . . . a story of courage and the persistence of hope even in the darkest times Allan Massie Scotsman

An acclaimed collection of stories from the internationally bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White

Find out what became of Sophie.Michel Faber revisits the world of his bestselling novel The Crimson Petal and the White, conjuring tantalising glimpses of its characters, their lives before we first met them and their intriguing futures. You'll be desperate for more by the time you reluctantly re-emerge into the twenty-first century.

Yearning to escape her life of prostitution in 1870s London, Sugar finds her fate entangled in the complicated family life of patron William, an egotistical perfume magnate.

In the author's first collection of short stories, the lead title is a tale of traumatised children and the internal world of the psychologist enlisted to help them. "Fish" reads almost like science fiction, in its story of a mother protecting her child from a school of terrifying fish.

The novel centres around a female character, Isserly, who seems to be obsessed with picking up male hitch-hikers, as long as they are muscular and fit. As the story unfolds, the reader comes to realise that Isserly's motives are rather unusual.

'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . . .' Peter Leigh is a missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Bea, he boards a flight for a remote and unfamiliar land, a place where the locals are hungry for the teachings of the Bible - his 'book of strange new things'. It is a quest that will challenge Peter's beliefs, his understanding of the limits of the human body and, most of all, his love for Bea.The Book of Strange New Things is a wildly original tale of adventure, faith and the ties that might hold two people together when they are worlds apart. This momentous novel, Faber's first since The Crimson Petal and the White, sees him at his expectation-defying best.AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4

When Theo Griepenkerl happens upon the fifth Gospel in a war-torn Iraqi museum, he can't believe his luck. Driven by greed and a lust for fame, he capitalises on his find by publishing it. His book is a sensation. But he can hardly imagine the incendiary consequences his discovery will have for Christians, Arabs, homicidal maniacs and Amazon customers alike.The Fire Gospel is a brilliant piece of storytelling, dazzlingly outrageous and utterly gripping.

The Courage Consort, possibly the seventh best-known a cappella vocal ensemble in Britain, are given two weeks in a Belgian chateau to rehearse their latest commission, the monstrously complicated Partitum Mutante.

Sian, tired of nightmares in which she meets a grisly end, decides she needs to get out more, so she joins an archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey. What she finds is a mystery involving a long-hidden murder.