Fiction-adult

'It's a long time since I have enjoyed a novel so much. Fresh, witty and smart it also has a heart.' KATE ATKINSON

'Sizzles with uproarious fun, from its snout to the sting in its tale.' INDEPENDENT

'The perfect tonic for testing times.' GUARDIAN

We all know politics is absurd. But could a Republican be brought down by a stuffed aardvark?
Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is determined that nothing will stop him in his campaign for re-election. Not the fact that he is a bachelor, not the fact that his main adversary Nancy Beavers - married, with children - is rising in the polls. Nothing. That is, until one hot day in August, he receives a large parcel via FedEx. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark.

This aardvark has a surprising history - from the Victorian naturalist who discovered it to the taxidermist who deemed it his finest creation. But for Wilson, the entrance of the aardvark sets off a chain of events that threaten to ruin his entire career.

Constantly surprising, brilliantly comic and piquantly provocative, Enter the Aardvark is a tale for our times, a biting satire with a tender underbelly.
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'Sometimes, a paragraph near the start of a novel is so perfect and funny that you read it over and over, laugh every time, and know you're in for a treat...I'm loving this. Completely insane but utterly hilarious'. JOHN BOYNE

'Spry, slim, clever...the inventiveness is impressive and the story has heart' THE SUNDAY TIMES

'What begins as a topical takedown of the American political system deepens into a hugely enjoyable romp through history.' OBSERVER

'Fresh, astute and mouthwateringly sharp, this is a rare thing; a political satire that tugs on the heartstrings in unconventional ways.' IRISH TIMES

'Sharp, inventive and very funny, it's an entertainingly bizarre political satire.' TATLER

'Part 21st-century political satire, part unexpectedly affecting 19th-century love story...It's every bit as strange as it sounds, and yet somehow it works' DAILY MAIL

'Old, dead creature brings down flash, vain senator... Out in front as the most fizzing and amusing novel of the year.' STRONG WORDS magazine

'A blisteringly innovative and outrageous novel.' NY OBSERVER

'Weird, wonderful, and very much of the moment, Enter the Aardvark is a landmark political novel of the Trump era...With heart and humor, Anthony expertly skewers our current political climate.' ESQUIRE

'Inventive and darkly funny...as Anthony connects characters from today with those from 19th-century England, she offers an original and unsettling lens through which to view male power as it has evolved over time.' TIME

'Mischievously zoological and darkly satirical - a brilliant novel' JOHN IRONMONGER, author of NOT FORGETTING THE WHALE

'A feverish, rollicking beast of a book. Totally assured, completely unpredictable, Jessica Anthony has created a true original.' SIMON WROE, author of CHOP CHOP and HERE COMES TROUBLE

'Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library...'

Deep in the bowels of a New York Public Library lies a dragon: the monstrous coal furnace that Sharon's father, the live-in custodian, must feed every night.

A moving examination of family secrets, forgiveness, and the power of language, Feeding the Dragon explores Sharon's life growing up in the library and the fire she never allowed to fade.

The seed for this book was planted in 2011 when the author gave a talk at a veterans' home on his first book―Shot Down Over Italy―about a B-25 crew. One of the veterans, John Cooney, sought him out to tell him that he too went down in a plane over Italy during World War II, but with a B-24 crew. Over the next three years, they kept in touch and when John passed away in 2014 someone in his family called the author his biographer.

While this book began with war stories about John, the crew he served with, and other crews of their bomb group, it grew to encompass much more when the author learned that John's father served in World War I. His father served with the medical support forces which cared for casualties of war while John served with the fighting air forces many of whom became casualties of war.

The book analyzes two world wars-how they were started, mobilized, fought, supported, ended, and more. It explains the role of the United States in both wars with a focus on its medical support in World War I, which cared for the sick and wounded, and its airpower in World War II, which bombed factories that made weapons, oil fields that fueled them, facilities that stored them, and the transportation networks that brought them to the battlefront.

The book shows that powerful leaders start wars, but citizens fight them and experience the horror. It describes the process of changing from a peacetime economy producing goods and services that help people to a wartime economy producing goods and services that harm people. War is hell and this book pays tribute to those who experienced this hell while doing their duty as citizens.

Because countries now have nuclear weapons which could elevate horror to an unfathomable level, this book also shows why we need to keep powerful leaders in check by giving the citizens who fight wars the freedom to govern themselves and wield more power than a powerful few who could start another world war.