Don’t miss your chance to meet Costa First Novel Award shortlisted Rebecca F. John, who will be launching not one, but TWO books in Waterstones Swansea!

The event is free, but tickets must be booked in advance via waterstones.com/events.

Fannie

A feminist reimagining of the story of Fantine from Les Miserables. Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1815. Life is hard for Fannie, working at the factory, with only sweet memories of her ‘gentleman’ and daughter to sustain her. But when she is revealed as an unmarried mother and dismissed, she is forced to take greater and greater risks to earn money for her child. What can she sell? Who can she trust? Has she any escape? A story of desperation, but also of love and the soaring power of hope.

The Empty Greatcoat

When Francis House enlists in the British Army in 1907 at the tender age of fifteen years and three months, he is not thinking about war. He imagines he simply wants to earn his stripes – to ease his traumatised father’s Boer War memories, or perhaps to please his favourite sister, Lily, with whom he has always dreamt of adventure.