Salt Slow is a beautifully written collection that surprises, shocks and entertains. Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour – S alt Slow marks the arrival of an ambitious and singular new voice. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, S alt Slow considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants.

Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge. Published by Pan Macmillan imprint Picador, Salt Slow is available for purchase through the links here. You’ll find more about the award here on Linda’s Book Bag and on The Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer’s Award website.

It gives me very great pleasure today to feature Salt Slow by Julia Armfield as the second of my reviews as shadow judge for The Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award this year. Netgalley Advocate Netgalley General Data Protection Regulations A Publication Day Extract from The Night She Met the Duke by Sarah Mallory.An Extract from The Nice Guy and the Devil by Tom Trott.