Only Here, Only Now

(Paperback)

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'Only Here, Only Now heralds the arrival of an urgent and unique new voice, as engaging and as startling as Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Morvern Callar or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and will surely be hailed as one of the great British debut novels' DAVID PEACE

It is the blazing hot summer of 1994 in a forgotten corner of Fife, and there is nothing for Cora Mowat to do but hang around the wee scrap of tarmac where the swing-park used to be. She's stuck in her seaside council estate and tired of her own restless mind; desperate to break free but unsure of what the future holds - if it holds anything at all for a girl like her.

When her Mam brings a new man to live with them, tensions rise in their tiny house. Gunner is kind but strange, too - a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few secrets hidden under the bed. As their attempts to forge a makeshift family are suddenly overturned, Cora rails against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance and a path to something good. But sometimes you can't move forward until you find your way back . . .

In this extraordinary debut, drawn from experience but written with riotous imagination, Tom Newlands explores coming-of-age in post-industrial Scotland and what it means to yearn for a life that feels out of reach. Vibrant, lyrical and fiercely funny, Only Here, Only Now is a story of poverty, identity and family, shining with hope and resilience.

Reviews

Only Here, Only Now heralds the arrival of an urgent and unique new voice, as engaging and as startling as Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Morvern Callar or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and will surely be hailed as one of the great British debut novels * David Peace *
Tom Newlands is the real thing. His story will change you * Michael Sheen *
In a tremendous act of empathy, in his debut novel Tom Newlands describes both an abandoned, neglected landscape - the small Scottish seaside town of Muircross after the collapse of the mining industry - and what it is like to be inside the mind of a young girl, Cora Mowat, who has undiagnosed ADHD. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, this is a story of survival against grim odds, superbly spun by a narrator grappling to get to grips with both herself and the incomprehensible world around her. Cora Mowat is my kind of weirdo * Cathi Unsworth, author of Weirdo, Bad Penny Blues *

Author Bio

Tom Newlands is a multiply neurodivergent Scottish writer. He is a recipient of the London Writer's Award for Literary Fiction, a Creative Future Writer's Award and a Creative Future/TLC Next Up Award. He was one of eleven writers selected for New Writing North's 'A Writing Chance,' and in 2022 was a featured writer at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. He now lives in London.