Manchester Gliterary Lunch, October 2025

The Best of Everything
Kit de Waal

The Author

Multi award-winning Kit de Waal has worked in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels.  My Name is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was adapted as a film for Radio 2.  Without Warning and Only Sometimes, a memoir, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.   Kit is editor of the Common People anthology and co-founder of the Big Book Weekend Festival.  

The Book

Paulette had the future all mapped out: the wedding to Denton, the Caribbean honeymoon, the gingham quilt on the baby’s crib. Until one morning Denton’s friend Garfield tells her Denton won’t be coming around anymore, and there won’t be time to say goodbye.

Somehow Garfield finds his way into her bed, and sooner than anyone can believe there’s a baby. Suddenly giving her son, the best of everything is what gives Paulette’s life meaning.  So why is it another little boy, Nellie, who’s being raised a few streets away, with no sign of a mum, keeps Paulette awake at night? 

The Best of Everything is a novel about the love that can steal into our lives – in spite of the best laid plans.

Praise for Kit de Waal

A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power  Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-Winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

This Bright Life
Karen Campbell

The Author

Karen Campbell is the author of nine novels.  A former police officer, then Glasgow City Council press officer, she won the Best New Scottish Writer Award in 2009.  She also teaches creative writing and was recently Writer in Residence at Dumfries and Galloway Council.  She regularly chairs Gliterary Lunches in Edinburgh and Glasgow.  Originally from Glasgow, she now lives in Galloway.

The Book

Gerard is twelve.  He hates his name, but loves flying round the streets of Glasgow on his bike, or mucking about with his gang, the Broncos.  He’s a bright kid,  but trouble seems to follow him.  No one really knows what it’s like at home for Gerard; he’s used to carrying a lot on his small shoulders.

Gerard doesn’t always make good decisions.  And on one April morning, in the blink of an eye, he makes a very bad one–one that will up end his whole world.  Now, he faces a bewildering stream of concerned adults clutching files, unfamiliar streets to navigate, a strange bed to  sleep in, and the very real chance he won’t see his wee brother and sister again.  Heartbreaking and yet brimful of humour, compassion and hope, This Bright Life is a story about messy lives, second chances and the many hands it takes to build a boy.

Praise for Karen Campbell

“Karen Campbell finds lives that can fall between the cracks and hold them up to the light of her clear, compassionate writing” Kirstin Innes

“Her words paint pictures with the touch of an old master.” Janice Hallett