Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.

But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom. With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts – and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.

Until she meets Arthur. He works with her, he is older than her, he is also married. But in her soulless office – the large cold room she feels destined to spend her life in – he is a source of much-needed sustenance.

And though Hera has previously dated women, she soon falls headlong into a workplace romance that will quickly consume her life. Laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving and whip smart, Green Dot is a story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing and the winding, torturous, often hilarious journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.

Hera ha circa venticinque anni, un’età che sembra giovane a tutti tranne che a chi ha vent’anni. Da quando ha lasciato la scuola, ha cercato di dare il massimo per vivere una vita che le piaccia, ma finora con scarso successo.

Finché non incontra Arthur. Lavora con lei, è più grande di lei, ed è anche sposato. Ma nel suo ufficio senza anima – la grande stanza fredda in cui sente di essere destinata a trascorrere la sua vita – lui è una fonte di sostentamento indispensabile.

E sebbene Hera abbia già avuto relazioni con altre donne, presto si lascia travolgere da una storia d’amore sul posto di lavoro che le consumerà rapidamente la vita. Esilarante, profondamente commovente e brillante, Green Dot è una storia sul terribile fascino di desiderare qualcosa che non promette nulla e sul tortuoso, spesso esilarante viaggio che intraprendiamo per decidere chi siamo e chi vogliamo essere.

A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha – on the edge of 40 – friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe – as she has long believed – there is something wrong with her.

Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain. Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix – or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.

THE GROUP FROM WHICH EACH VICTIM WILL BE CHOSEN. Because beneath the university’s ancient traditions and beauty is a web of secrets, jealousy and lies. And when the killer threatens the person she loves most, Mariana will give anything to stop them – even her own life…

But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.