Melissa

By Jonathan Taylor

Shortlisted for the 2016 East Midland Book Awards

Melissa is set in 1999-2000. At roughly 2pm on 9th June 1999, on a small street in Hanford, Stoke-on-Trent, a young girl dies of leukaemia; at almost the same moment, everyone on the street experiences the same musical hallucination. The novel is about this death and accompanying phenomenon – and about their after-effects, as the girl's family gradually disintegrates over the following year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Salt
• Release date: Jan 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781784630584

Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor's new novel is Melissa, which was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award 2016. His previous books include the novel Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012) and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta, 2007). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. He is editor of Overheard, an anthology of short stories for reading aloud.