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Complex heroines you can’t help but root for

Mothersick

Mothersick is a gorgeous, capacious novel, a narrative as intricate and rich as the familial bonds therein. Hazell's sentences sing, and her compassion for her characters is a thing of beauty.

Claire Lombardo, NYT bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had and Same As It Ever Was

Hazell trains a sharp eye on female relationships and the promises we make to each other as sisters, daughters and mothers – both those we can keep and those we cannot. I haven't stopped thinking about Nell and Mara and Jean and Andy since I put it down.

Austin Taylor, author of Notes on Infinity

Mothersick is full of revelatory insights into the process of making art, and making relationships, and forging a family life. Hazell's characters are witty and defiant and horny and impetuous: I loved them. This novel is a rich portrait of sisterhood, as well as of mothering in its kaleidoscopic forms.

A beautifully messy portrait of family and motherhood, and the choices and limitations inherent in being a woman. Hazell's writing absolutely dazzles.

Marisa Kashino, author of Best Offer Wins

Mothersick is a sophisticated yet tender interrogation of female relationships, not only with one another but with creative freedom itself. The prose is delectable, the characters expertly layered, and the reverberations of wounded love are precise and compelling. Hazell has crafted a chef d’oeuvre, and I’m in awe.

Sarah Damoff, bestselling author of The Bright Years

Lottie Hazell is a writer, contemporary literature scholar and board-game designer living in Warwickshire. Piglet, her debut novel, was a NYT notable book, was shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and is under option for a feature adaptation.

The stunning new novel from the critically-acclaimed author of Piglet, a rich intergenerational family drama about the impossible choices women face around family, identity and motherhood. Perfect for readers of Ann Patchett and Claire Lombardo. 
 
‘A thing of beauty’ CLAIRE LOMBARDO, bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had 
 
‘A beautifully messy portrait of family and motherhood... Hazell's writing absolutely dazzles’ MARISA KASHINO, bestselling author of Best Offer Wins 
 
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‘If I had to choose, I’d rather have a sister over parents. I’d rather you over anyone.’ 
 
Mara and Nell will never be able to forget the day that their parents’ marriage fell apart. 
 
They declare their family of origin wrecked, and the traditional structure to be a complete farce. From now on, all they have is each other. So, in their twenties, they make a pact: no marriage, no babies, and no repeating their parents’ mistakes. 
 
But a few years later, Mara does the unthinkable – she falls in love and becomes a mother, leaving Nell behind. Mara wishes that Nell could relate to her new life – its terrifying claustrophobia and unexpected joys – but Nell hardly recognizes her sister or the path she has chosen. 
 
Their pact now irrevocably broken, Nell throws herself into a relationship with an undeniable catch of a man without asking whether they want the same things, or if she’s willing to compromise her hard-won independence. A cosmic fork in the road has changed everything between the sisters, and just when they need their mother the most, they’re confronted by the shadow of her absence and the secrets they’ve all been keeping from each other. 
 
Can they find their way back to each other – and themselves? 
 
From the acclaimed author of Piglet comes a profound intergenerational family story that addresses the life-altering question of whether to embrace, reject, or redefine motherhood. Mothersick explores the enduring and infuriating spell of sisterhood, and the beauty, captivity, and optimism of family in its many forms. 
 
Praise for Lottie Hazell: 
 
‘Very wise, and so wonderful…a must-read story’ Daily Mail 
 
‘Unforgettable’ Sunday Times 
 
‘Darkly compelling' Sophie Mackintosh, Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Water Cure 
 
'Searingly good' Joanne Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat 
 
'Intriguing, propulsive, delicious and ultimately satisfying ' Claire Daverley, bestselling author of Talking at Night 
 
‘Prose Nora Ephron would be proud of’ Marlowe Granados, author of Happy House 
 
‘I completely devoured it’ Catherine Newman, bestselling author of We All Want Impossible Things

Lottie Hazell

Very wise, and so wonderful on food and cooking it should probably come with a hunger trigger-warning. I loved it.

A cunning critique of the expectations that society continues to heap on young women.

Some novels just get food right ... Hazell understands just how connected culinary and literary pleasures are ... [There is] much to devour in Piglet: set scenes of stomach-churning awkwardness, razor-sharp analysis of class, even an unforgettable description of food on the verge of rot.

Dark, witty and very well-written (the descriptions of food are reminiscent of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn), Piglet is a satire that explores everything from class to body image

Brilliant on appetite, ambition, secrecy and shame. Engrossing.

Daily Mail, '60 of the best holiday reads for adults and children'

An insightful, stomach-churning debut novel about the corrosive power of secrets.

If I owned a bookstore, I&rsquo;d hand-sell Piglet to everyone ... Hazell&rsquo;s prose is as tart and icy as lemon sorbet; her sentences are whipcord taut, drum tight ... the &ldquo;will she or won&rsquo;t she&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t just about the man and the wedding. It&rsquo;s about whether Piglet ends up embracing a big life, full of richness and variety and good things to eat, or if she lets herself be crammed into that too-small dress.

Jennifer Weiner, The New York Times Book Review

Sublime descriptions of food... a quirky story of class, appetite and body image

A fresh take on hunger, class and the weight of expectations.

A debut that needs to be on your radar... A rich, vibrant, visceral book, that is brimming with acerbic wit and mouth-watering food, this is dark, witty and explores societal pressure and body image in an unforgettable way.

A dark, weird, satisfying tale about greed and desire.

Lottie Hazell has managed to create a style, and a character, instantly relatable and readable—while being stunningly original and fully-formed

Piglet is a darkly compelling exploration of what makes a delicious life, and the vitality of hungering for more.

Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

Piglet is a sumptuously told novel about being a woman moving through the world, carrying the weight of expectation of how exactly that should look. Brimming with tension, food, desire and shame, Piglet will confront you, surprise you and make you complicit in this expectation.

Terrific first novel about a woman's emotional relationship with food. Searingly good.

This book! Visceral, brilliantly dark, and so smart. An object lesson in how our relentless pursuit of a tickbox life will never make us happy. Characters that pop, writing you could eat.

Fran Littlewood, author of Amazing Grace Adams

Intriguing, propulsive, delicious and ultimately satisfying: I devoured it in two days, and suffice to say, it’s a book you’ll want on your 2024 reading list.

Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night

Piglet is luscious and disturbing and propulsive, and I completely devoured it. It's a book about hunger and secrecy and women made small by convention. And it's a book that tears at the surface of things to reveal the vast, messy truth of a body with a beating heart.

Catherine Newman, author of We All Want Impossible Things

It takes audacity and all kinds of courage to produce a novel as ferocious and weird as Piglet. The narrative accelerates like nothing else I've read, opening onto dead-end domestic conformity and then driving us all the way out into the wildernesses, where the possibility for liberation, the fulfilment of desires might be discovered. It made me so hungry.

Piglet is a compelling, entertaining novel about wanting - and deserving, and learning to deserve - more. I was particularly taken with the way in which Hazell writes about food, which is described in luxurious and dynamic detail throughout the novel, as central to the story as Piglet herself, and its place in shaping women's inner lives and identities.

Appropriately, I inhaled it. Piglet is an engrossing novel about who and what we crave in life. Rich and tender, moving and rousing, hunger-inducing and inspired. A high-wire exploration of control, pleasure and desire that left me feeling well and truly satisfied.

I read this book in a single gulp, thrilling and horrifying at once. Lottie Hazell takes a butcher’s knife to the pleasure principle, and serves up a deliriously amusing, wanton portrait of self-destruction. A visceral insight into the damage a patriarchal class society can wreak on the stomach. A tale without redemption, but with many troubled pleasures.

Ambitious prose Nora Ephron would be proud of. Hazell captures the subtle class divide in contemporary British life with precision—all while serving the reader a bacchanal of delicious food writing that will have you craving more

[A] sharp, dark, must-read story about appetite, ambition, secrecy and shame

A food-filled debut of class and ambition

Compulsively readable... Delicious, in every sense of the word.

Satirical and funny… Hazell has much to say about our food-obsessed snobbery and she plates up a deliciously-written narrative, generously peppered with lethal ground glass.

Hazell’s deft characterisation has enough light and shade to bring Piglet into high definition. The same is true for the side characters, which are commendably vivid for a debut

This smart, unique debut about class and the hunger we all feel for a perfect life is so good.

One of the most hotly anticipated books of 2024... Delicious, dark and thought-provoking.

This a doozy of a debut. It oozes dark humour, appetites, anger and read-it-through-your-fingers self destruction.

A dark story of insecurity and control

Hazell’s debut novel is an irresistible confection of fabulous food and curdled relationships

A dark, weird tale about greed and desire.

I might be the last person on earth to pick up Lottie Hazell’s debut novel Piglet, but if I’m not, and you are, you’re in for a wild ride . . . It’s a compellingly stressful read, full of great food and terrible life choices. Don’t read it in the run-up to your own wedding; do devour it at any other time…

Discover a deliciously dark and piercing story of food and secrets, a Stylist Best Debut Novel. 
 
‘A sharp, dark, must-read story about appetite, ambition, secrecy and shame’ Daily Mail 
‘If I owned a bookstore, I’d hand-sell Piglet to everyone’ New York Times Book Review 
‘A dark, weird, satisfying tale about greed and desire’ i News 
 
Her life is so full, so why is she hungry? 
 
For Piglet – an unshakable childhood nickname – getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss – effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding... 
 
But if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is. 
 
Thirteen days before they are due to be married, Kit reveals an awful truth, cracking the façade Piglet has created. It has the power to strip her of the life she has so carefully built, so smugly shared. 
 
To do something about it would be to self-destruct. 
 
But what will it cost her to do nothing? 
 
As the hours count down to their wedding, Piglet is torn between a growing appetite and the desire to follow the recipe, follow the rules. Surely, with her husband, she could be herself again. Wouldn’t it be a waste for everything to curdle now? 
 
Piglet is a searing, unforgettable and original debut which is taking readers by storm. 
 
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‘Compulsively readable... Delicious, in every sense of the word.’ Elle US 
 
‘An insightful, stomach-churning debut novel about the corrosive power of secrets’ Mail on Sunday 
 
‘A cunning critique of the expectations that society continues to heap on young women.’ Financial Times 
 
‘A debut that needs to be on your radar… A rich, vibrant, visceral book, that is brimming with acerbic wit and mouth-watering food, this is dark, witty and explores societal pressure and body image in an unforgettable way’ - Glamour 
 
‘Delicious, dark and thought-provoking’ Hello! 
 
‘Satirical and funny… Hazell has much to say about our food-obsessed snobbery and she plates up a deliciously-written narrative, generously peppered with lethal ground glass’ Irish Independent 
 
‘A food-filled debut of class and ambition’ Guardian

Lottie Hazell

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