Showing results by author "Kit de Waal" in All Categories

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal, read by Fiona Shaw. Mona is a young Irish girl in the big city, with the thrill of a new job and a room of her own in a busy boarding house. On her first night out in 1970s Birmingham, she meets William, a charming Irish...

**A 2025 Highlight in the Guardian, I-Paper, Prima, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Sunday Independent** **A Bookseller '10 Titles Not to Miss' selection for April** 'A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power' Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-Winning author of Girl, Woman, Other...

“Taut, emotionally intense, and wholly believable, this beautiful and uplifting debut” (Kirkus Reviews) about a young black boy’s quest to reunite with his beloved white half-brother after they are separated in foster care is a sparkling novel perfect for fans of The Language of Flowers...

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

Brought to you by Penguin. A TIMES and INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE IRISH NOVEL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD & THE DESMOND ELLIOT PRIZE Soon to be a major BBC film starring Sir Lenny Henry, Malachi Kirby, Monica Dolan, Olivia Williams and Christopher Eccleston...

Brought to you by Penguin. As she walks out of her marriage, a woman remembers the day her husband rescued a boy from drowning. A blind man on his wedding day celebrates the pursuit of love. And a young man leaves prison with only one desire - to see his son again. Kit de Waal's characters light...

Dinah's whole world is upside down, dead things and angry men and cuts all over her head that are beginning to sting.... Seventeen-year-old Dinah needs to leave her home, the weird commune where she grew up. She needs a whole new identity, starting with how she looks, starting with shaving off her hair, her 'crowning glory'. She has to do it quickly, because she has to go now. 

They say that the best thing to do with a debut novel is to write about something that you know. This is exactly what Kit de Waal has done. Kit has used her experience with the foster system in the UK to write her debut novel My Name is Leon. The audiobook version of the novel is narrated by none other than Lenny Henry, and Kit joins Robin Morgan at the Audible Studios to tell us all about it. This interview includes a clip of the audiobook.

The unforgettable story of a Black woman who creates her own chosen family after tragedy, in a “warm and wise” tale (Observer UK) of the enduring power of a mother’s love. When Paulette arrived on English shores as a young girl, she left behind a grandmother in St. Kitts who called her...