SAM MILLS

It is June 2009. On a ferry bound for Dover, Amal and her daughter huddle together on the last leg of a harrowing illegal journey from Iraq to Britain. In Finchley, Ahmed and Akila Shakir wait to take them in. Also Iraqi by birth, they are bringing up their sons as British Muslims. Just a few miles away in Hampstead, journalist Henry Freeman and his American wife Ava raise their children in a different world, a middle-class world of privilege and easy assumptions. And in America, Sean Oke trains with the Marines, ready to join the latest stage of the War on Terror in Syria. Then everything changes. Britain''s newly elected government declares that they will no longer follow America''s lead in the Middle East. After a series of terror attacks and political clashes an explosive tension grows and eventually, the unthinkable becomes reality. America, intent on bringing ''New Democracy'' to the world, declares they will invade, overturn the government and ''liberate'' the British people. The Last Days of England realises this epic alternative reality, as the lives of two families and one US marine become entangled in ways that none of them could have imagined.

A beautifully written cultural history of nine pioneering bisexual artists writers and musicians that will change our understanding of the world s largest sexual minority

Given bisexualitys all too frequent erasure, there is a need to represent [these] specific historiesTimes Literary SupplementUneven tells the stories of nine pioneering bisexual artists, writers and musicians that will change our understanding of the worlds largest sexual minority.Bisexuality is often seen as something temporary, in spite of increasing openness around it: a sign of immaturity or a waystation on the road to a different sexuality altogether, rather than its own distinct entity.In this beautifully written cultural history, Sam Mills reclaims bisexuality as its own identity, interweaving her experience of being bisexual with illuminating portraits of a clutch of artists, writers and musicians, including Colette, Bessie Smith, Marlene Dietrich, Anais Nin, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna.Celebrating the resilience, diversity and spirit of the bisexual community through the ages, Uneven explores how each of these trailblazing figures have been misunderstood; how social attitudes affected their sexuality, their relationships and their work; how LGBTQ+ identities have been portrayed from the Victorian era to the present day; and how attitudes have progressed.Illuminating, personal and entertaining, Uneven paints a nuanced portrait of a sidelined community.