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9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

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Powerful stories that make great gifts

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Summer fiction reading list from VINTAGE

The Snakes

From the bestselling author of The Outcast, The Snakes is a shocking story of family secrets which holds the reader in its grip from start to unforgettable finish

Sadie Jones is such an enjoyable novelist to spend time with. Her books are so easy to read, while each sentence is rich in meaty observation… Elegantly atmospheric… The Snakes left me breathless

The Snakes is superbly written, each sentence punctuated by a drumbeat of menace, each word placed with a master's touch. I keep thinking about the questions it poses: about what it is to be good in these imperfect times; about how we can protect our humanity in the face of narcissism and greed. Yet for all its depth and mystery, The Snakes is also just a thrillingly good read

The Snakes asks serious questions about human nature, avarice and justice, wrapped in the fast-paced rhythms of a thriller. It is written with Jones’s trademark economy and a fierce attention to the nuances of familial cruelty… I finished The Snakes with a juddering heart, strangely close to tears

The Snakes is gripping from the outset, then finally unputdownable. The writing is magnificent. One of the most powerful and uncompromising novels I've read in years.

Ever since her debut, The Outcast, Jones has peopled her propulsive plots with nuanced, dimensional creations imbued with human failings and graces. The Snakes is no exception… Jones crafts a pitiless shock ending; a denouement that refuses closure and resonates long after the book is set aside… [the ending is] bound to become a talking point

I am blowing the trumpet for The Snakes to anyone who'll listen. I devoured the book, awed by its beauty and brilliance. We'll be lucky if 2019 brings us much else of this rank. This is wickedly good writing and something really special. Sadie Jones has talent to burn.

A suspenseful, beautifully written thriller about the corruption of money and abuse within a dysfunctional family

Masterful, terrifying, dangerous, with an ending that is as uncompromising as the build-up is truthful. The Snakes is as beautifully written as it is dark and honest.

A menacing, beautifully written novel

I was absolutely gripped by this original and beautifully-told story of a couple enmeshed in a nest of vipers -- a rich family of criminals. Its evocation of a sinister French house, the corruption of love and the powerlessness of good is both haunting and chilling. Nobody contemporary writes about unhappy families as well as Sadie Jones.

This gripping read drips with a menace that builds of the shocking final pages

[A] menacing new contemporary thriller… a tantalising set-up, after which the plot zigzags unpredictably to a brutally stark finale that steals the breath

The Snakes has all of Jones’s trademark depth and layered storytelling

Sadie Jones… knows how to construct a narrative of great emotional power. Her prose is crisp and precise, studded with spiky observations

An all-encompassing read from the first page to the devastating final paragraph

Unsettling, thought-provoking and beautifully written, you won’t be able to get this out of your head

Jones’s style is immediate and lively and she is particularly good at dialogue, which she uses a great deal, often to advance the fast-paced plot

The Snakes unfolds in clean, functional prose and Jones has a lot to say about the way we live now

Determined to escape the nine-to-five monotony, Bea and Dan head to France to visit Bea’s wayward brother Alex, who runs a hotel where the only guests are snakes in the attic. The peace is shattered when Bea’s parents arrive, bringingconflict and misery. From a sedate start, Jones deftly builds the tension to a horrific and powerful conclusion.

Jones’s fifth novel is a fantastic read as a thriller, but where Jones excels, is in her microscopic yet compassionate scrutiny of relationships: the unconditional doting of a flawed sibling; the sickening toxicity of a vicious but powerful parent; the watchful care and explosions of irritation between spouses

Deliciously wicked... the perfect antidote to a relaxing summer's day... hypnotic -- like staring into the serpent's eyes just before it strikes

Both a cautionary tale and a pitch-black race-to-the-end thriller

Sadie Jones is a talented writer. She is able to burrow down into the heart of feelings and yet does so in a matter of fact way. The ending shocked me… [The Snakes is] the sort of read I could spend ages thinking about what lies beneath the story of greed, wealth, jealousy and flawed family relationships

READ THE TENSE TWIST-FILLED RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE OUTCAST. 
 
Family secrets can be deadly... 
 
Newly-weds Dan and Bea decide to escape London. Driving through France in their beaten-up car they anticipate a long lazy summer, worlds away from their ordinary lives. 
 
But their idyll cannot last. Stopping off to see Bea's brother at his crumbling hotel, the trio are joined unexpectedly by Bea's ultra-wealthy parents. Dan has never understood Bea's deep discomfort around them but living together in such close proximity he begins to sense something is very wrong. 
 
Just as tensions reach breaking point, brutal tragedy strikes, exposing decades of secrets and silence that threaten to destroy them all. 
 
'A suspenseful, beautifully written thriller about the corruption of money and abuse within a dysfunctional family' Guardian 
 
Richard and Judy Book Club Pick, Spring 2020

The Outcast

This bestselling novel of family, love, passion and violence is reissued to coincide with the publication of Sadie's major new novel The Snakes

An elegant, subtle, haunting novel that stayed with me long after I finished it. Sadie Jones has a long literary future ahead of her

The prose is elegant and spare, but the story it reveals is raw and explosive... Devastatingly good'

Jones's story is imbued with brooding atmosphere and drama. Understated and elegantly narrated with attention to period detail, this is a gripping love story with a twist. If you liked Atonement by Ian McEwan, you'll love this

Eminently readable first novel....reads like a thriller, the tension and menace build expertly...a powerful, promising first novel

She writes with simmering intensity... particularly strong on atmosphere... Jones uses small, startling phrases to convey depths of passion and information and she can make seemingly innocuous passages radiate beauty

A dark but beautifully written, heart-wringing suspense tale... The claustrophobic, menacing atmosphere of Sadie Jones's page-turning debut never lets up, and that's admirable enough, but it's more than narrative tension that makes the novel special.  Her writing is deeply affecting... the quality of the writing and the desire to see justice done keep one reading avidly

Controlled, insightful first novel... Comparisons with Ian McEwan are inevitable, but Jones's assured, compassionate writing is satisfyingly original

This hotly-tipped debut certainly delivers. The prose is clean and clear; so disciplined and spare

Sadie Jones proves she's no novice when it comes to poignant prose with this, her debut novel... The sense of mounting suspense coupled with the beautifully drawn characterisation makes this a novel that's guaranteed to get right under your skin

This elegantly written debut novel brings to life both her alienated and damaged protagonist and the small minded community that condemns him

The writing is impressive from the start, both succinct and fluent

Sadie Jones' take on an introverted and self-destructive teen is fresh and believable... An assured and engaging debut ****

My Life in Books: 'It's an incredible, dark, emotional story.

Beautifully crafted, wonderfully filmic, very real and emotional. It keeps you guessing. All you want in a book

‘If you liked Atonement by Ian McEwan, you'll love this’ Harper's Bazaar 
 
The bestselling novel from the author of The Snakes, The Outcast is a powerful portrait of unexpected love and treacherous charades against the backdrop of a sleepy post-war English village 
 
August 1957. Lewis Aldridge, straight out of jail, stands alone at a Surrey railway station. 
 
He’s returned to the village where he grew up: the village where, a decade earlier, tragedy tore his family apart, leaving him to a troubled adolescence without a mother and with a father he barely knew. 
 
Now, the only person who understands him is Kit, daughter of a bullying local businessman. Soon they realise that to forge their own futures, they must first confront the darkest secrets of their past. 
 
As family, love, passion, sex and violence become ever more so intertwined, can Kit and Lewis find their way back to each other amidst the chaos? 
 
------ 
 
‘A tragic account of the devastating effects of parental abuse and the redemptive power of true love’ Guardian 
 
'In the tradition of Remains of the Day...a passionate and deeply suspenseful novel’ Margot Livesey 
 
----- 
WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL PRIZE 
 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION

Fallout

Four young people in 1970s’ London fuelled by love, betrayal and creative ambition

An intoxicating and immersive read... It is a fraught and compelling novel; one that replays itself uncomfortably in the mind long after it is finished

Intense... Ms Jones is unflinching as she plots the course of fallout with no shelter, of wounded lives undone by desperation in love and art

Written with a precision and a level of descriptive subtlety that puts her up there with our foremost novelists. I can't help but feel that if she had been born Samuel Jones she would already be considered on a par with the Barneses and McEwans of this parish... Fallout is crafted with a pared-back delicacy and attention to detail that shows an author determined to do better with every sentence. And at the same time, there is an intensity of focus, a merciless yet empathetic gaze directed towards each of the main characters that ensures we care deeply about each of them

Hugely enjoyable... Fallout is both deliciously gobble-able and carefully constructed... A thoroughly pleasurable read

An intelligent, pacy tale... Every summer needs a One Day-style read; this book is a contender for that crown

Absorbing and romantic... Will drag you in and keep you there until the very last page

An emotionally charged fourth novel from Jones

Cements her reputation as a writer in the style of William Boyd: able to take on a variety of styles and mould them to her own voice

Jones has artfully captured the era and the febrile atmosphere of London theatreland

Anyone who loved Sadie Jones' gripping debut novel The Outcast will be equally hooked by this fraught tale of creative ambition and betrayal in a radical theatre group of 1970s London

Few people combine emotional intelligence with commercial appeal so well… Jones writes so richly it’s like sinking into a luxurious bath

A vivid sense of period is combined with a real satirical edge

Jones gives the appearances of being an effortlessly fluent writer. Her sentences tumble forth, occasionally surprising the reader with their odd perfection… Sadie Jones is that rare novelist who can deliver a satisfying plot without stylistic compromise

The novel captures, better than anything I’ve read, theatre’s febrile, ephemeral intensity

A page-turning read. We can think of no more worthwhile or enjoyable companion on holiday

Sadie Jones depicts the dark undercurrents of middle-class life with unerring skill, telling a powerful and disturbing story with insight and depth

The intoxicating new novel from the number one bestselling author of The Outcast 
 
London 1972. Luke is dazzled by the city. It seems a world away from the provincial town he has fled along with his own troubled past, and his new life is unrecognisable – one of friendships forged in pubs, candlelit power cuts, and smoky late-night parties. 
 
 
When Nina, a fragile and damaged actress, strays into his path, Luke is immediately drawn to her and the delicate balance of his new life is threatened. Unable to stay away from her, Luke is torn between loyalty, desire and his own painful past, until everything he values, even the promise of the future, is in danger… 
 
Longlisted for the IMPAC Prize

The Uninvited Guests

The prizewinning and No 1 bestselling author Sadie Jones moves to a gorgeous and bewitching historical setting in a blissful new novel full of spooky surprises - 'promises to fill a large, Downton Abbey-shaped hole in one's cultural life' - Charlotte Sinclair, Vogue

Dazzlingly well-written. The style is exuberant and extremely funny. This is a midsummer's night dream of a book, mythic and unforgettable

What a delicious literary cocktail Sadie Jones's latest novel is: part suspense, part Edwardian romcom, richly evocative of time and place... It's a spiffing tale and, even though it is at bottom a metaphysical love story, it is far more believable than Downton Abbey

Highly entertaining… An elegant comedy of manners with the usual undercurrents of jealousy, desire and conflicting loyalties… Jones shows that she can turn her talent for storytelling to a more stylised form with a light and playful touch, and without compromising her sharp insights into the human heart

Fans of The Outcast and Small Wars won't be disappointed. Wonderfully spooky and atmospheric

With its Mitfordesque dialogue and pacy plot, this is a deliciously fun read

The Uninvited Guests is a bizarre and exuberant comedy of manners, combining elements of romance with those of the carnival....it is a great deal of fun, and a welcome alternative to more traditional country-house dramas

Beautifully written with real popular appeal, this cannot fail to be another winner

This creepy and entertaining tale unfolds around a fascinating cast of charactesr, and Jones's loving eye for period detail misses nothing

The prose is visceral, rich with “the smell of many wounds”, and thick with painterly detail

A creepy tale….set in a country house awash with secrets and strange happenings

She takes relish in recreating a familiar Edwardian landscape, peopled by eligible cads and imperious dowagers... Jones’s highly combustible period piece makes the dramas at Downton look like a stroll in the park

Darkly humorous, quirky and engrossing, this is a ghostly tale full of twists and turns

What a delicious read! Like something written by a wicked Jane Austen, here is love and error in a ramshackle manor house complete with railway survivors, a birthday party and a pony. I was completely captivated by its madcap nature and then, utterly unprepared for the strange fruit that the story became. Passing like a spring fever, here is a fairy tale that stays with you long after it is gone. I couldn't put it down

The Uninvited Guests is at once a shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class. It is so well-written, so intricately plotted, that every page delivers some new astonishment. It is a brilliant novel

What opens as an amusing Edwardian country house tale soon becomes a sinister tragi-comedy of errors, in which the dark underbelly of human nature is revealed in true Shakespearean fashion. Sadie Jones is a most talented and imaginative storyteller, and The Uninvited Guests is a very clever novel

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR, author of Elegy for Eddie

I will be surprised if I read anything stranger this year but I can’t help admiring Jones’s whimsical invention and the quality of her writing

Award-winning Sadie Jones' third novel is her best yet. Hugely enjoyable with a superb, supernatural twist

Cooly playful...the luscious prose is precisely steered

An intelligent and poignant reflection on death and loss… a fabulous read

Sadie Jones…enters new literary territory with a whimsical Edwardian farce that takes its lead from the darker offerings of Saki and JB Priestley...The novel's denouement is satisfyingly outlandish

With elegant ease, Jones spins a good old-fashioned comedy of manners

A sinister tale of haunting beauty, from The Outcast author Sadie Jones. 
 
It is the eve of Emerald Torrington’s twentieth birthday and the family has assembled at Sterne, the once grand, now crumbling, family seat. The cake is iced, the wine decanted, the house gleams invitingly. 
 
But before the first dish can be served, a mysterious group of strangers arrives at the door. Victims of a local train accident they are seeking shelter at the house. 
 
The Torringtons welcome them in but there is something unsettling about the group and, as night falls and a storm rages outside, the family begins to wonder if something more malevolent than stranded travellers is in their home...

Small Wars

The devastating follow-up to the massive bestseller The Outcast. What happens when everything a man believes in - the army, his country, his marriage - begins to crumble...

Jones is fabulous at this, offering titbits of danger and discord while keeping a cool, matter of fact tone for the big horrors... This is, at heart, a moving love story

Jones's first novel, The Outcast, winner if the Costa First Novel Award, was a very hard act to follow. Her second, however, is even better... Jones's research is impeccable, and her emotional intelligence outstanding

In this exciting novel that resonates with contemporary parallels, Jones is unusual among women writers in focusing as much on the thrills and terrors of frontline action as its psychological fall out...it's a movie waiting to happen

Ambitious...uncannily good at the evocation of charged moments

Here Jones's talent really shows... In an excellent encounter with a military psychiatrist, the dialogue breaks like dry twigs

Heavy with menace and a dark streak of violence, it's as unforgiving as it is gripping

An absorbing story about emotional constraint and its dangers

Poignant and compelling, Sadie Jones's latest novel captures the claustrophobia of a passionate marriage that is overwhelmed by circumstance

Small Wars is a gripping account of emotional disintegration against a backdrop of emotional repression... A well-paced novel possessing both literary and moral integrity

Elegant, powerful with a huge emotional punch

This is an unforgiving, far from comfortable read, but a very compelling one

Meticulously researched and emotionally powerful, this is a second novel to be proud of.

Her prose is direct, undecorated, irresistibly dynamic and immensely powerful... Small Wars is at least as good as The Outcast. In fact, it is probably better, and praise doesn't come much higher

Jones writes brilliantly; you quickly inhabit Hal and Clara's world; from the dank, metallic smell of the interrogation room to the taste of White Ladies at the Limassol Club that linger long after you've reached the end

Sadie Jones pulls no punches in her description of the savagely unsophisticated island war. An exceptional book that shudders with the weight of human responsibility

With her second novel, Sadie Jones...confirms her brilliance

A novel that resonates with contemporary parallels

Sadie Jones again pulls no punches in this strong story.

Jones is fabulous...offering titbits of danger and discord, yet keeping a cool matter-of-fact tone for the big horrors

Her second novel is a must-read; a devastating, brilliant account of what happens when everything a man believes in...begins to crumble

Hal Treherne is a soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. Impatient to see action, his other commitment in life is to his beloved wife, Clara, and when Hal is transferred to Cyprus she and their twin daughters join him. But the island is in the heat of the emergency; the British are defending the colony against Cypriots - schoolboys and armed guerillas alike - battling for union with Greece. 
 
Clara shares Hal's sense of duty and honour; she knows she must settle down, make the best of things, smile. But action changes Hal, and the atrocities he is drawn into take him not only further from Clara but himself, too; a betrayal that is only the first step down a dark path. 
 
Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Sadie Jones

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds

Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the pure sugar-rush of childhood; the sense of a life so exhilarating and ecstatic that it is almost too much to bear

I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and hope

Esther Freud, author of I COULDN'T LOVE YOU MORE

Achingly poignant... This is a novel of quiet beauty, vividly evoking the magnitude of childhood loss and the capacity for hope

I loved Amy and Lan: the way parents mess up their children's lives is heartbreaking yet beautifully conveyed. I've long been a Sadie Jones fan but this may be her best yet. Poignant, compelling and brilliant

Mary Lawson, author of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE

Alive with the wonders of seasonal changes and the thrum of farm life, Amy and Lan will make you cry. Complex, beautifully written and true. I loved this book

Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH

Compelling... [Jones] doesn't disappoint with this intermittently joyous but affecting portrait of childhood

Jones brilliantly ventriloquises Amy and her best friend Lan... She conveys their passionate attachment to the freedom of their unconventional upbringing and deep connection to nature

Sadie Jones is a consummate novelist of the modern family, in all its mess, cruelties, loyalties, treacheries and tragedies. This child's eye perspective on the 21st century attempt at the Good Life is topical, comical and horrifying. I read it heart in mouth

An enthralling, original novel: utterly convincing

A send-up of rural nostalgia and a comedy of manners combined with a thoughtful, genuine desire to understand the motives behind this 'better' way of life... By capturing specific moments in each season as the years pass, Jones beautifully conveys the sensual, almost bacchanalian glory of hay-making; the excitement of deep snow drifts in winter

A gentle but engaging read, Jones captures the beautiful simplicity and enduring hardships of farm life, painting a timely portrait of agriculture in a capitalist society... Beautifully written

The novel unfolds over five years as a series of evocative vignettes, with a pulse of jeopardy in the pair's uneasy sense of adult tensions

Enchanting, funny and layered in pathos... Sadie Jones' unusual take on the rural dream is a gift of a book

Sarah Langford, author of IN YOUR DEFENCE

HOW DID THE GOOD LIFE GO SO WRONG? 
 
Amy Connell and Lan Honey are having the best childhood. When their families make the leap from city living to a farm in the West Country they have untold freedom. The adults are far too busy to keep an eye on them, and Amy and Lan would never tell them about climbing on the high barn roof, or what happened with the axe that time, any more than their parents would tell them the things they get up to. Adult things, like betrayal, that threaten to bring the whole fragile idyll tumbling down... 
 
'Funny and moving' Elizabeth Day 
 
'A fabulous thing: vivid and funny, sometimes heart-rendingly sad' Guardian 
 
'I couldn't put it down' Esther Freud

Sadie Jones

Praise for Amy and Lan

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds

Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the ...

I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and h ...

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds

Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the ...

I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and h ...

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds

Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the ...

I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and h ...

Books by Sadie Jones

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9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

Powerful stories that make great gifts

Summer fiction reading list from VINTAGE

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