I’m delighted to reveal the US cover of Hunger and Thirst which will be published by Tin House, an imprint of Zando, on 2nd June 2026. I love it so much: the boldness of the yellow font, the sculpture (the main character in the book is a sculptor), and the flies… I won’t tell you how the flies come into it; you’ll have to read it find out.
Yesterday, CrimeReads revealed the cover on their website, together with a piece I wrote about why this is the perfect cover – designed by Beth Steidle – for Hunger and Thirst.
They also published an excerpt from the beginning of the book, so if you’d like a taster before you pre-order, you can read it here.
And if you’re in the US here’s a list of places that you can pre-order it from, or of course you local independent bookstore.
For those in the UK and Canada, you’ll have to wait a little longer to see these covers. But let me know what you think of this one!
About the book
1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job delivering mail at a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and—delightfully— some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist this hodgepodge family. But as Sue’s behavior and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry—for food—and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. And, for this, Ursula finds herself literally haunted.
Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker, Emma Zahini who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.
