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‘Jessica Andrews’s first novel, Saltwater, was wonderful. The follow-up, Milk Teeth, is even better’ Alex Preston, Observer

‘Unusually raw . . . so honest and hopeful’ Financial Times

A lush and intimate love story from the award-winning author of Saltwater

A girl grows up in the north-east of England amid scarcity, precarity and a toxic culture of bodily shame,certain that she must make herself ever smaller to be loved.

Years later, living in tiny rented rooms and working in noisy bars across London and Paris, she fights to create her own life. She meets someone who cracks her open and offers her a new way to experience the world. But when he invites her to join him in Barcelona, the promise of pleasure and care makes her uneasy. In the shimmering heat of the Mediterranean, she faces the possibility of a different existence, and must choose what to hold on to from her past.

How do we learn to take up space? Why might we deny ourselves good things? Milk Teeth is a story of desire and the body, shame and joy. In vivid and lyrical prose, and with deep compassion, Jessica Andrews examines what it means to allow ourselves to live.

‘Addictive, immediate, brilliant’ Helen Mort

‘Milk Teeth spills over with care, truth and desire’ Yara Rodrigues Fowler

‘A sharp and beguiling love story . . . Milk Teeth is a transporting, gorgeous novel’ Independent

Publisher Review

Jessica Andrews's first novel, Saltwater, was wonderful. The follow-up, Milk Teeth, is even better. A story of young love and desire that's full of the most gorgeous writing. -- Alex Preston * Fiction To Look Out For In 2022, The Observer * Addictive, immediate, brilliant. Jessica Andrews offers a profound take on the ways our bodies are policed, on class, escapism and losing yourself in others -- Helen Mort Milk Teeth spills over with care, truth and desire. Andrews makes the case for a life lived abundantly and ardently, full of sensation and pleasure, risk and safety." -- Yara Rodrigues Fowler Heady, sweaty, sexy, salient. I devoured it -- Abigail Tarttelin Like many girls from my generation, raised on a diet of Arturo Bandini's oranges and shiny tinned dreams of post-feminism, I have wasted too many years trying to fit into small, muted spaces. I would rather sit down to eat and think with Jessica Andrews any day: Milk Teeth is a novel about holding space, and the hard work that it takes. It is true and I am so grateful it exists. What a relief it is, finally, to step off the ledge: to choose to adventure, to give and take care. -- Livia Franchini Select Praise for Saltwater Raw, intimate and authentic . . . Andrews obviously has talent. * The Sunday Times * Luminous * Observer New Review * A stunning new voice in British literary fiction. * Independent * Andrews writes about life as we experience it in memory, melding trauma, joy and sensory half-recollections. Saltwater is a moving debut which portrays an ordinary young life in an original and refreshing way. * TLS * Saltwater revels in the possibilities of its form, using fragments to shift tone and texture, reminding us of those pivotal moments that can upend a life . . . This book holds disparate elements in a finely wrought balance that is difficult to achieve at any stage of a writing life let alone in a debut. * Kayo Chingonyi, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize * This book is sublime. It dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone's shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch. * Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under * In lyric dispatches, with the condensed cadences of poetry, Andrews' novel brilliantly explores the ways we grow into and beyond the limits of ourselves, and what happens in the gaps in between who we are and who we're expected to be. -- Andrew McMillan Milk Teeth is electrifying. It's an exothermic novel that breathes, seethes and writhes. An intimate exploration of class, precarity, sex, power and, above all, of the fragility and exuberance of love. The prose is vivid, gorgeous and supple. It's immediate and ultra-sensual and has the emotional pitch and intensity of the best gig you've ever been to. A thunderbolt of a book. -- Francesca Reece As for a new book that I'm excited about, Jessica Andrews' Milk Teeth - her follow-up to award-winning debut novel Saltwater - would have to be it. Lyrical prose, sticky Mediterranean heat and vivid descriptions make this coming-of-age story transporting, sensual and completely addictive. Themes of loneliness, belonging, identity and love - and how we're ultimately deserving of it - will both break and warm your heart. A must for fans of Sally Rooney. * Best Holiday Reads by Roxy Kavousi-Walker, Net-a-Porter *