I always say how lucky we are in our authors, so forgive me if this seems like repetition. But, oh boy! Our authors are amazing.

This week, I'm over the moon to announce that Eimear McBride has been shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. I'm lost for words, but luckily someone far more eloquent than me has been speaking about the book too. Here's what Nicola Barker* says:

Imagine being repeatedly slapped in the face, only quite lightly to begin with, by a delicate little hand wearing a large and ornate signet ring. You want to turn away, to lash out, to resist, but the little hand is so dogged, so persistent, and the ring has caught your eye, somehow, and you just want to study it, to focus in on it, because you know that it is strange and special and very beautiful. But as the little hand continues to slap it becomes more painful and your cheeks gradually start to sting and to redden. Is it a pleasurable feeling? No. Well, yes. Is it startling? Certainly. And afterwards? When it's all finally over? The devastating bruises, spreading and flowering across your flesh in their terrible palate of blue, green, black, purple…

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is at once the slap and the gasp after the slap. It is, in a single word, breathtaking.

Our week is made more spectacular still by the launch of our next novel, Everlasting Lane by Andrew Lovett on Thursday. We've got high hopes for this one too. Not least because, as I'm now delighted to announce, Melville House are going to publish it in the USA. I've loved Melville House for a very long time. But if you want further proof of the quality of the books they publish look again at that Goldsmiths shortlist. Exodus by Lars Iyer is something else… It's an honour to have a book appearing in the same ring… Do we have to fight now? Or make love? Publishing is so confusing. Anyway. We're happy. We hope our authors are too**. That's the important thing.

* Or "Only Nicola DARKMANS Barker!", as I tend to think of her. She rules.
** Okay. Not too happy. We want them to keep writing amazing books too. They can be content later…