Long-listed for the Wales Book of the Year 2011

This is the second edition of Stevie Davies' novel Into Suez, which was recently chosen as The Guardian's Book of the Year by Margaret Drabble, who writes:

"A novel that moves with ease from Egypt immediately after the Second World War to the 21st Century and back again...telling the story of a whole generation".

1948, Great Britain, victorious but bankrupt after the Second World War, attempts to reassert itself as an imperial power in the Suez Canal zone.

Joe, an RAF sergeant, is the everyday working man. Ailsa, his wife, an independent, free thinking woman yearns to explore her new homeland of Egypt. It's here that she meets the exotic Mona. In a world of terrorism and political struggle, her friendship with Mona and an act of murder pitch the married couple into tragedy. 

"Into Suez is a bold and gripping novel on an important subject...A very satisfying and moving book." The Telegraph

Long-listed for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2011

Fiction Book of the Year, Welsh Icons Awards 2010

Book of the Month, Buzz Magazine, October 2010

Media Wales People’s Choice 2011, Short-listed for Not-the-Booker, Long listed for Welsh Book of the Year

It’s the end of an intensely hot summer in Vancouver, and Razor’s complex and misunderstood best friend Chris has just driven a stolen police car through a road block and over a cliff to his death.

Fireball takes us back to the start of that relentless summer, and unravels the events leading to Chris’s death as we follow four teenagers through the months that will come to define their future. First hailed as heroes for saving a drowning woman, they attract unwanted attention as minor local celebrities, but this respect is quickly replaced with envy and then harrassment.

Tyler, with the assured and confident air of a seasoned author, keeps the pressure building, right up final fiery climax.

Winner of Wales Book of the Year Award 2011

In every atlas there is a country missing from the maps of South America: the Andean nation. For five months John Harrison journeys through this secret country, walking alone into remote villages where he is the first gringo the locals have ever seen, and where life continues as if Columbus had never sailed. He lives at over 10,000 feet for almost the entire trip, following the great road of the Incas: the Camino Real, or Royal Road. Hand-built over 500 years ago, this road crosses the most difficult and dangerous mountains in all the Americas, diving into sweltering canyons and soaring up into the snows. 1500 miles, half of it on foot, take him from the Equator to Cuzco and the most magical city of all: Machu Picchu. He meets locals and discovers some he can trust – and some he can’t. He struggles with dog attacks, floods, losing his way and even a stubborn donkey, but only when he returns home does he lose what he wants most.

Winner of Wales Book of the Year 2009

This is no ordinary random collection of short stories. Here each brief narrative stands on its own yet forms part of a continuous and powerful sequence.

Set in the eastern valleys of south Wales from 1970 to the present day, it relates the history of Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming-of-age and dubious maturity. The book is part novel, part fantasy, part social history. More than anything it tells dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to learn to be human.

Readers who know Deborah Kay Davies’ poetry may be better prepared than most for the shock of her debut collection of stories, Grace Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful, by turns moving, hilarious and terrifying, and often all three at once.