Saltwater: Winner of the Portico Prize

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORTICO PRIZE

'A distinctive new voice for fans of 'Fleabag' or Sally Rooney' Independent

'Raw, intimate and authentic' The Sunday Times

'Luminous' Observer

'Lyrically poetic' Evening Standard

'Disarmingly honest . . . I wish I had read this when I was 19.' Guardian

When Lucy wins a place at university, she thinks London will unlock her future. It is a city alive with pop up bars, cool girls and neon lights illuminating the Thames at night. At least this is what Lucy expects, having grown up seemingly a world away in working-class Sunderland, amid legendary family stories of Irish immigrants and boarding houses, now defunct ice rinks and an engagement ring at a fish market.

Yet Lucy's transition to a new life is more overwhelming than she ever expected. As she works long shifts to make ends meet and navigates chaotic parties from East London warehouses to South Kensington mansions, she still feels like an outsider among her fellow students. When things come to a head at her graduation, Lucy takes off for Ireland, seeking solace in her late grandfather's cottage and the wild landscape that surrounds it, wondering if she can piece together who she really is.

Lyrical and boundary-breaking, SALTWATER explores the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, the challenges of shifting class identity and the way that the strongest feelings of love can be the hardest to define.

Reviews

A stunning new voice in British literary fiction. - Independent

Luminous - Observer New Review

Gorgeous . . . Andrews's writing is transportingly voluptuous, conjuring tastes and smells and sounds like her literary godmother, Edna O'Brien. - New York Times

Raw, intimate and authentic . . . Andrews obviously has talent. - The Sunday Times

Lyrically poetic - Evening Standard

A sharply observed and poignant first outing. - Daily Mail

Disarmingly honest . . . I found parts of this novel intensely moving. - Guardian

This book is sublime. It dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone's shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch. - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under

Author Bio

Jessica Andrews writes fiction. Her debut novel, Saltwater, was published in 2019 and won the Portico Prize in 2020 and her second novel, Milk Teeth, was published in 2022. She is a Contributing Editor for ELLE magazine and she writes for the Guardian, the Independent, BBC Radio 4 and Stylist, among others. She was nominated for the ELLE List in 2020 and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction Futures in 2022. She co-runs literary and arts magazine, The Grapevine, and co-presents literary podcast, Tender Buttons. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at City University, London.