Brilliant Blue

A remarkable debut, as rich, complex, dark and ambitious as any you will find in fiction. For readers of The Rabbit Hutch.

"Bold, beautiful and ebullient, it fizzes with life and dazzles with sheer power and intelligence. I don't think I've ever read a writer whose eye is more acute." – Alison MacLeod

"Moving and powerful. This is such an important book." – Ed Hogan

Karen Stevens' stunning debut reveals the intimate struggles of families on the margins of contemporary Britain.

Set primarily on the fictional Duncock Estate, a housing project on the south coast of England, these interconnected stories expose the human cost of economic precarity, following characters navigating mental illness, housing instability, immigration tensions, and generational trauma. Stevens writes with unflinching honesty and deep compassion, illuminating lives often rendered invisible in contemporary literature.

From a Polish immigrant attacked while helping a neighbor, to a teenage mother keeping vigil over a dying stranger, to a university student struggling to reconcile education with working-class roots, Stevens' characters resist easy categorization. They are flawed, fierce, funny, and utterly human.