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Light Boxes
Light Boxes
Mar 11, 2026 5:51 AM

Author:Shane Jones

Light Boxes

February is persecuting the townspeople. It has been winter for more than three hundred days. All forms of flight are banned and the children have started to disappear, taken from their beds in the middle of the night. The priests hang ominous sheets of parchment on the trees, signed 'February'. And somewhere on the outskirts of the town lives February himself, with the girl who smells of honey and smoke...

In short bursts of intensely poetic language, this beautifully strange and otherworldly first novel tells the story of the people in the town and their efforts to combat the mysterious spectre of February. Steeped in visual imagery, this is a hauntingly enigmatic modern fairy tale - in which nothing is as it seems.

Reviews

[Kevin Brooks'] pacey plots, masterly style and philosophical ideas in novels such as Martyn Pig, Killing God and Black Rabbit Summer have made him a cult among teens. This, though, is the big one. Its power as literature draws on a reality that few adult novelists have the stomach to address. It should be read by everyone.

—— Amanda Craig , The Times

Children's Book of the Month: Gripping, streetwise and profound.

—— Geraldine Brennan , The Observer

iBoy is a hugely readable revenge fantasy....confoundedly gripping.

—— Nick Tucker , Independent on Sunday

Tender and perceptive

—— Good Housekeeping

This tender and vivid novel of an exiled Arab woman's life in Britain, and memories of trauma at home, connects desert to Devon with warmth and wit

—— Independent

Urgent and enquiring

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

There are some moving passages, notably his father's arresting deathbed monologue about the racism and brutality he endured in an unfairly hard life

—— Daniel Bolger , The Irish Times

Phillips subtly conveys a changing sense of attitude and perspective... It is a bleak message, brilliantly delivered

—— Herald

Praise for Liane Moriarty

—— -

Every single one of her books is a great read

—— E! Online

Staggeringly brilliant, literally unputdownable

—— Sophie Hannah

Keeps you guessing until the very end - perfect summer read

—— Reese Witherspoon

Moriarty writes vividly, wittily and wickedly

—— Sunday Express

The writing is beautiful: sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always compelling

—— Good Housekeeping

Like drinking a pink cosmo laced with arsenic . . . a fun, engaging and sometimes disturbing read

—— USA Today

Riveting drama packed with suspense and secrets

—— Woman & Home

Wise, honest, beautifully observed. One of the few writers I'll drop anything for

—— Jojo Moyes

Straight-from-life characters, knife-sharp insight and almost unbearable suspense will have you racing through it

—— Good Housekeeping

Perfect

—— Hello!

A hell of a good book. Funny and scary

—— Stephen King

A cracking story cleverly told

—— Fabulous

Fascinating and compassionate

—— Daily Telegraph
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