Win the Women’s Prize For Fiction Shortlist…

 The Woman’s Prize For Fiction Prize ceremony takes place in June. 

We have one set of the shortlisted titles up for grabs. That’s all SIX books. 

Fourth Estate.

Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Hamish Hamilton.

Granta Books.

DoubleDay.

Faber & Faber.

To enter: 

Comment on this post with YOUR NAME & TOWN. Also tell us which of the six books you’re looking forward to reading. The closing date is Wednesday 12th June 2013 at 23.59. The winner will be picked at random from the entries and announced on the blog on Thursday 13th June 2013. 

Open to UK and Ireland residents. 

About the books: 

Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. 

The year is 1535 and Thomas Cromwell, Chief Minister to Henry VIII, must work both to please the king and keep the nation safe. Anne Boleyn, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church, has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. As Henry develops a dangerous attraction to Wolf Hall’s Jane Seymour, Thomas must negotiate a ‘truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Where’s You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. 

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle – and people in general – has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence–creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

N-W by Zadie Smith. 

This is the story of a city. The north-west corner of a city. Here you’ll find guests and hosts, those with power and those without it, people who live somewhere special and others who live nowhere at all. And many people in between. Every city is like this. Cheek-by-jowl living. Separate worlds.

And then there are the visitations: the rare times a stranger crosses a threshold without permission or warning, causing a disruption in the whole system. Like the April afternoon a woman came to Leah Hanwell’s door, seeking help, disturbing the peace, forcing Leah out of her isolation.

NW follows four Londoners – Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan – as they try to make adult lives outside Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys, and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.

May We Be Forgiven by A.M Homes.

Harry has spent a lifetime watching his younger brother, George – a taller, smarter and more successful high-flying TV executive – acquire a covetable wife, two kids and a beautiful home. But Harry, a historian and Nixon scholar, also knows George has a murderous temper, and when George loses control the result is an act so shocking that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives, in which they both must seek absolution.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. 

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances?

In fact, an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. 

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidently became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. She hikes up a mountain road behind towards a secret tryst, but instead encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town and a larger world, in a flight towards truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

by

Laura

I'm Laura. I started Novel Kicks back in 2009 as I wanted a place to discuss books and writing - two loves of my life. As someone who has anxiety, these two things give me, and I am sure countless others, a much needed escape.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.