This week sees the release of Hot Stew, the much anticipated second novel from Fiona Mozley. In 2017 Mozley’s debut novel Elmet made an overnight sensation of its author, scooping up prizes, rave reviews, and a place on the Booker shortlist.
Elmet’s depiction of a secluded family on the Yorkshire moors swiftly became an exemplar of modern rural noir. Mozley’s latest book Hot Stew leaves behind the rugged dales and districts for the grit and grime of London’s inner district of Soho. Through brothels and pubs, back alleys and tunnels, the novel tracks a city in motion and the individuals who make its community.
Fans of Elmet will recognise its themes of power and property, and Mozley’s careful attention to the psychic geography created by people and places. But there the similarities end, as Hot Stew plunges the reader into a metropolis in flux, a gordian knot of lives interlinked, with themes of nostalgia and adulthood.
Hot Stew is served up to the public on Thursday 18th of March, with critics already salivating. The Guardian’s Lara Feigal described it as a “dazzling Dickensian tale“, the FT praised it as a “fantastical novel about the city’s messy, mutable nature.” The Observer’s Alex Preston hails it as “a rich, ribald tale of old Soho under siege.” It is currently The Bookseller’s Book of the Week. With this superlative second novel Fiona Mozley confirms herself as ‘a writer of extraordinary empathic gifts.’
Hot Stew is published by John Murray on Thursday 18th of March. An online book launch hosted by Portobello Books marks the occasion. It’s been an honour to work with Fiona on this book, and we can’t wait for this fantastic novel to be gobbled up by literature fans across the world.
Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley is published in the UK by John Murray Press on 18th of March 2021. For agent enquiries contact Leslie Gardner, Artellus Ltd.