From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Burnt Sugar <\/i>comes a gripping psychodrama of unravelling and rebirth – for readers of Katie Kitamura, Deborah Levy, Gwendoline Riley and Elena Ferrante<\/b><\/p>\n
‘I married my husband to live in a fairy tale. I imagined us like planets orbiting the sun or gods enacting their myths. Marriage was a solution and I wanted to be dissolved.’<\/p>\n
A woman’s husband walks into their bedroom one evening and tells her that he wants a divorce. She is stunned. They have always had a happy marriage, an almost perfect marriage. In the following days, marooned with two young daughters in a hostile suburb, the woman starts coming apart.<\/p>\n
As she sifts through the ruins of their shared life, she begins to notice the warning signs which she chose not to see the first time around. She wanders deep into the forest of her own mind, where marital memories intermingle with myths of headless women and vengeful goddesses, messages hidden in the constellations, glimpses of a natural world seething and alive with portents. Over the course of a single summer, as the cicadas that have been buried in the ground for seventeen years prepare to emerge and fill the air with a plague of ecstatic transformation, the woman too is splitting, liquifying and reforming, stretching her new antennae toward the light.<\/p>\n
This is a novel about unhappy families – about poison seeping through the domestic space, the bloody battlefield of the home, the enduring threat posed by those closest to us. Stiletto-sharp and darkly hypnotic, it is a gripping psychodrama of unravelling and rebirth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Signed Hardback | The First House<\/em> by Avni Doshi<\/p>\n Secure your signed copy of The First House<\/em>, the powerful new novel from Booker Prize shortlisted author Avni Doshi.<\/p>\n Following the success of Burnt Sugar<\/em>, Doshi returns with a striking and intimate story that explores identity, memory and the complexities of human relationships. Written with her signature sharpness and emotional depth, this is a compelling work of modern literary fiction that lingers long after reading.<\/p>\n Publishing 16 July 2026<\/strong>, this signed edition is expected to attract strong demand from literary fiction readers and collectors alike.<\/p>\n Pre-order now to guarantee your copy. Carefully packaged and shipped from an independent UK bookshop.<\/p>\n A woman’s husband walks into their bedroom one evening and tells her that he wants a divorce. She is stunned. They have always had a happy marriage, an almost perfect marriage. In the following days, marooned with two young daughters in a hostile suburb, the woman starts coming apart. As she sifts through the ruins of their shared life, she begins to notice the warning signs which she chose not to see the first time around. She wanders deep into the forest of her own mind, where marital memories intermingle with myths of headless women and vengeful goddesses, messages hidden in the constellations, glimpses of a natural world seething and alive with portents. Over the course of a single summer, as the cicadas that have been buried in the ground for seventeen years prepare to emerge and fill the air with a plague of ecstatic transformation, the woman too is splitting, liquifying and reforming, stretching her new antennae toward the light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[216,16428,26102],"product_tag":[26844,26830,26843],"class_list":["post-119002","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-fiction-hardback","product_cat-pre-order-carousel","product_cat-signed-and-special-editions","product_tag-family-life-fiction","product_tag-modern-contemporary-fiction","product_tag-narrative-theme-interior-life","pa_book_author-doshi-avni","pa_cover-hardback","pa_dewey-813-6-edition23","pa_edition-hardback-original","pa_imprint-hamish-hamilton","pa_language-english","pa_pages-8757","pa_publisher-hamish-hamilton","pa_readership-general-trade-code-k","first","instock","sold-individually","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n