Blue Ticket

From the author longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction and selected as one of the Best Young British Novelists of the Decade:

An unsettling and addictive feminist fable for fans of Hot Milk, Unsettled Ground and Klara and the Sun

Recommended by Stylist, Evening Standard, Esquire, Red, Daily Mail, Oprah Magazine, LitHub, and Belletrist Book Club

'Be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes' Deborah Levy

'Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh' Stylist

Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the lottery station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you children. A blue ticket grants you freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. Or, to put it another way, you have no choice. And once you've taken your ticket, there is no going back.

But what if the life you're given is the wrong one?

Blue Ticket is a devastating enquiry into free will and the fraught space of motherhood. Bold and chilling, it pushes beneath the skin of female identity and patriarchal violence, to the point where human longing meets our animal bodies.

'Dreamlike, tense, compelling, [with] a pitch-perfect ending' The New York Times

'Gripping, ethereal, atmospheric' Sunday Times

'Thoughtful and haunting' Observer

'Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure' LitHub

'Blue Ticket will worms its way under your skin and haunt your dreams' Red

Reviews

Mackintosh poses urgent questions about social expectations and free will that are relevant to all realities