'Highly seductive ... and fun as hell!' TONY TULATHIMUTTE

'A noirish thriller, a sex-work satire, a romance' OBSERVER

'Drew me in like a whirlpool' NICOLA DINAN

'For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates' SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style, Dazed, AnOther and Stylist.

Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whatever, or whoever, her clients want her to be.

When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco's shady erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. In this mirror world, she encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise's balletic new hire who seems to want to steal Baby's whole identity, starting with her underwear.

With her grip on reality loosening, and the clock ticking, will Baby manage to find the only man she's ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first?

'Vivid ... Exhilarating ... Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire' THE TIMES

'Incredible ... the best book I've read this year - romantic, dangerous and sexy. It made me cry' STYLIST

'A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived' DAZED

a blazing new debut novel about desire, fantasy and true love

About the Author

Brittany Newell is a writer and performer whose work has been published in Granta, n+1, the New York Times, Joyland, Dazed and Playgirl. She published her debut novel, Oola, at the age of twenty-one. She lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

Praise for Soft Core:

'A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire ... Newell's writing is 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' Observer

'Vivid ... Exhilarating ... Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail' New York Times Book Review

'A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived, and how they can be just as banal as the "normal ones"' Dazed

'As a writer, Newell may be one of the finest contemporary purveyors of "vibes" and in Soft Core, this sensory poeticism transports us to the depths of San Francisco's erotic underground ... a prodigal talent' AnOther Magazine

'Incredible ... the best book I've read this year - romantic, dangerous and sexy. It made me cry' Katie Buckley, author of Hero in Stylist

'A wild ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly, full of sex workers and drug dealers ... brilliant on power, perception and identity. Great fun' Daily Mail

'Newell's gifts for sensory details ... and for tracing the wavy contours of human connection make her work feel like that of a glitter-bomb David Lynch ... a trippy excursion down the rabbit hole into a particular substratum of culture' The Atlantic

'Drew me in like a whirlpool - a wild spin into loneliness and desire' Nicola Dinan, author of Disappoint Me

'Soft Core is not just a book but a fully realised and highly seductive way of life - louche, fleshy and freestyle ... Deeply impressive and fun as hell!' Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection

'I was consumed by Soft Core ... Newell portrays a San Francisco of dark beauty with an endless revolving door of characters sketched out with great wit ... Funny, sexy and surprising, I loved it' Pip Finkemeyer, author of Sad Girl Novel

'A beautiful fever dream, a slippery, captivating pleasure, a love story stuffed inside a wadded nylon stocking' Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth

Book Information
ISBN 9780008670429
Author Brittany Newell
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Fourth Estate Ltd
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 230g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 22mm