Juniper Catalogue 2026
2 4 6 8 10
Five by Ilona Bannister
Mother, Ghost, Mango Seed by Natalie Gregory
Mr Sidhu’s Post Office by Amman Brar
Between Yesterday and Tomorrow by Luan Goldie
The Strangling Fig by Fauzia Musa
Fiction
Juniper strives to reimagine what literary fiction can achieve. Our novels will resonate across generations, transcend genres, and break convention. Like the juniper tree and its berries, every story we publish embodies a spirit of wisdom, strength, resilience and hope, and will stand the test of time. Every Juniper author brings an undefinable spark of fearless creativity to their writing, which will surprise and inspire readers around the world.
5th May 2026
9780008770563
£16.99
Ilona Bannister
Five passengers. Five minutes until the next train . five minutes until someone dies.
It’s 7:01. Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives.
On a train platform, five strangers unknowingly face a chilling countdown: one of them will die in five minutes. In this gripping tale narrated with a sharp tongue, the five main characters — a child, a mother, a businessman, an old woman, and a gambler — will draw you in with their stories as the clock ticks down. As the train gets closer and closer, we fall in love with the beautiful Sonny who is on the verge of gambling his life away. We pity the furious old Mrs Worth who grew up in a macabre household and so failed at being a mother. We look away from the demonic child Gideon. We judge his mother Emma who must surely be to blame. And we are curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman Liam. Five stories. Five minutes until a life ends. In this tense, intriguing drama that explores fate, sacrifice, and the real meaning of life, you will frantically turn the page to see who will survive, and who will be lost . . .
Talking Points
Ilona Bannister is a New Yorker who now makes her home in Brighton with her husband and sons. She is a dual qualified US lawyer and UK solicitor and practiced immigration law in the UK before she started writing fiction. Her family's history of migration to the US, her experience as an American mother raising children in the UK, and her work as a lawyer have led her to write stories about otherness, belonging, and what it means to be on the outside of a place looking in. Her first book When I Ran Away was longlisted for the First Novel Prize in 2021.
• How we react in a crisis. Five asks the reader what they would do, and who they would be when a crisis is happening in front of them.
On 9/11, Ilona worked a few blocks away from the World Trade Centre, and was among the crowds of people who ran down to the Staten Island Ferry terminal to escape by boat. Since then, Ilona has been interested in our human responses to tragedy and crisis, and the moments before and after.
• Judgement of outsiders. Five features a number of characters who represent marginalised groups, whose contributions to society are often devalued. But in Five, they all overcome extraordinary obstacles to do the work to advance the very society that dismisses them. Ilona worked as an immigration lawyer, and was raised in an immigrant community as her parents were Ukrainian refugees, so she has great compassion for people who are pushed to the margins and can speak to how society’s perception of them says something about them and something about us.
• Neurodiversity. Every story in the book has some kind of neurodiverse element, and it has a lot to do with why each character is misunderstood. As a parent of neurodiverse children, Ilona can speak to how difficult the world can be to navigate for people who think and behave differently.
• Motherhood. Every story in the book is about a mother and son, and the dynamics of those relationships. We will all form opinions about the mothers in this book, and whether we like it or not, we will judge them. Why do we feel entitled to judge mothers and their children, especially when the children are challenging? Ilona can also speak about the difficulties of raising sons in particular.
Juniper
4th June 2026
9780008680930
£16.99
Mother, Ghost, Mango Seed
Gregory
A single thread can unravel a web of secrets . . .
Lin returns from England to Bangkok to care for her dying mother. In the city, pro-democracy protestors clash with the military government and ambitious new king. And among all this, Lin’s mother dies.
Numbed at the wake and feeling like a stranger in her home country, Lin tries to cook her mother’s favourite dish, but her mother’s recipes are all missing, and in their place is an old political leaflet which everyone refuses to translate. Lonely and intrigued, Lin sets off with her baby to the Thai countryside in search of answers.
As she discovers herself and her culture, Lin quickly finds that tugging at a single thread can unravel a web of secrets held for decades, driving away loved ones, breaking cultural taboos, and uncovering dreadful truths behind a devastating political past.
Talking Points
Natalie Gregory, like her protagonist, had a Thai mother. It was the accidental disposal of Natalie’s mother’s recipes, shortly after her mother passed away, which eventually inspired the novel’s inciting incident. With a BA in English and History and an MSc in International Politics, Natalie has made a career out of writing for others, including as a speechwriter, but her passion has always been fiction. Her short story, ‘A Bowl of Soup’, was published in Together in the UK’s anthology, Hear our Stories by Victorina Press in August 2023. This story also won the Creative Writing NZ flash fiction competition and was shortlisted for the Exeter Short Story Prize. Natalie lives in Buckinghamshire.
• Much like her protagonist, Natalie lost her mother while in the early stages of motherhood herself. Her struggles with early motherhood, especially while navigating her own grief, are reflected in the character of Lin. Mothers are often held to impossible standards, least of all their own internalised feelings of shame and guilt. Conversations are starting to be had about the struggles of motherhood, but more needs to also be said about the rebalancing of caring responsibilities and gender roles in parenting
• The mixed-race identity, and the feeling of losing part of your culture when one parent dies. Natalie is Thai-German and grew up in Southeast Asia before moving to the UK for university. In the book, Lin feels as though she falls into a gap between two cultures, being mixed-race rather than fully able to belong to either. Natalie can speak about her experiences as a third culture adult and the complicated feelings she has about visiting Thailand since her mother’s passing.
• Thai history and politics. In Mother, Ghost, Mango Seed Lin embarks on a journey to discover more about herself and her culture and, in so doing, uncovers a number of truths about Thailand’s devastating political past. Natalie can speak about the Thammasat University Massacre and Thailand’s complex relationship with democracy.
• Thai food and culture. Natalie started writing Mother, Ghost, Mango Seed after her mother passed away, and her father unwittingly threw away her recipes. Natalie loves cooking Thai food, and it is central to the book. Natalie can also speak about Thai culture and its similarities and differences with the Western perception of it.