Soft Core
Format:Hardback
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
Published:13th Mar '25
Should be back in stock very soon
The hot new 2025 debut novel for fans of Anora
‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN
'A beautiful fever dream' KRISTEN ARNETT
'Highly seductive … and fun as hell!' TONY TULATHIMUTTE
'A ghostly, feverish love story’ANOTHER MAGAZINE
'Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic'THE TIMES
'Incredible … romantic, dangerous and sexy' KATIE BUCKLEY
A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style, Dazed, AnOther and Stylist
A blazing novel following a young woman on a wild, hallucinogenic quest for love and selfhood in San Francisco’s seedy underground.
Baby is a dancer at a strip club and at the age of 27, she’s feeling lost. It seems that only Dino, her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend can keep her afloat. So, when Dino disappears without so much as a kiss goodbye, she plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady erotic underground to find him.
Baby searches through dive bars and old haunts, at the club and at the sex dungeon where she has a part-time dominatrix gig. She encounters clients like Simon, a recluse paying her for increasingly bizarre 'favours' and a philosophizing suicide fetishist named ‘Nobody’, as well as co-workers like Emeline, the balletic new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear.
It’s not long before she starts to find cryptic notes hidden in her belongings and realises her search is attracting the wrong kind of attention. With her grip on reality loosening and the clock ticking, will Baby manage to put together the pieces and find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first?
Manically smart, brutally funny and deeply sexy, Soft Core is a book about desire, fantasy and true love – like no other.
'For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates' Sunday Times Style
‘A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire’ The Times
'A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived'Dazed
‘The more you learn about Baby, the more you like her … Great fun’ Daily Mail
‘Moving… beautifully frank… a wonderful portrait of San Francisco… filled with fantastic imagery’ Observer
'Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year – romantic, dangerous and sexy. It made...
Praise for Soft Core:
‘A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire … sensory and evocative’ The Times
‘Uncanny, almost ghostly … For a story about desire and longing, it is surprisingly spooky, full of stalkers, creeps and doubles … beautifully frank' Observer
‘A ghostly, feverish love story that unfolds in the city’s sex dungeons and strip clubs … As a writer, Newell may be one of the finest contemporary purveyors of “vibes”… a prodigal talent’ AnOther Magazine
‘Brilliant on power, perception and identity. Great fun’ Daily Mail
'A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived, and how they can be just as banal as the “normal ones”’ Dazed
‘Vivid … Exhilarating … Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail’ The New York Times Book Review
‘Drew me in like a whirlpool – a wild spin into loneliness and desire’ Nicola Dinan, author of Disappoint Me
‘Funny, sexy and surprising, I loved it’ Pip Finkemeyer, author of Sad Girl Novel
'Newell’s prose is too elegant to be called raw, but the oomph, the heart, makes everything feel so real. I love this world and this narrator, the risks she takes, the story she tells, simple yet so seductive' Michelle Tea, author of Black Wave
'A beautiful fever dream, a slippery, captivating pleasure, a love story stuffed inside a wadded nylon stocking' Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth
'A crackerjack novel … a stellar entry in the literature of unhinged women, up there with Mona Awad's Bunny’ Publishers Weekly
ISBN: 9780008670382
Dimensions: 222mm x 141mm x 35mm
Weight: 460g
352 pages