We’re excited to announce the forthcoming publication of Winegarden, a debut novella, by Anthony Ferner.

Winegarden recounts episodes in the life of Jacob Winegarden, an agnostic Jewish professor of theoretical physics whose speciality is ‘thought experimentation’. Jacob is still forlornly infatuated with his enigmatic wife, Miriam. She brings him back to reality: he is in a world of his own, she says, but there are things that need doing in this one.

Moving backwards and forwards in time, the book touches on different parts of Winegarden’s life and thoughts, and tells a larger personal story of grief and survival, the ambivalence and persistence of love, and the meaning of being Jewish.

Anthony Ferner was professor of international human resource management at De Montfort University and he retired in 2014. His short story ‘The Cat It Is That Dies’ was published in The Sea In Birmingham, Tindal Street Fiction Group, 2013. Another of his short stories was shortlisted for the Irish Times summer short story competition in 2014.

Bernadette Jansen op de Haar, publisher, said: ‘It’s wonderful to receive and be able to publish an unsolicited manuscript as good as Winegarden. The fact that its hero is a theoretical physicist adds an intriguing personal resonance for me, a lapsed theoretical chemist.’

Winegarden will be published in October 2015.

If you would like a review copy, press information, or pre-order any copies, please contact the publisher by email bernadette@hollandparkpress.co.uk or phone + 44 (0) 77 92611929