Flamethrowers, The

This is shortlisted for the Folio Prize 2014. It is longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Reno mounts her motorcycle and sets a collision course for New York. In 1977 the city is alive with art, sensuality and danger. She falls in with a bohemian clique colonising downtown and the lines between reality and performance begin to bleed. A passionate affair with the scion of an Italian tyre empire carries Reno to Milan, where she is swept along by the radical left and drawn into a spiral of violence and betrayal. The Flamethrowers is an audacious novel that explores the perplexing allure of femininity, fakery and fear. In Reno we encounter a heroine like no other. Best Books of the Year: Guardian; New York Times; The Times; Observer; Financial Times; New Yorker; Telegraph; Slate; Oprah; Vogue; Time; Scotsman; and Evening Standard. It is shortlisted for the National Book Awards 2013.