Soft Core

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘A feverish love story’ ANOTHER ‘Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic’ THE TIMES ‘Romantic, dangerous and sexy’ STYLIST Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE A rollercoaster of a cult love story following a dancer in San Francisco’s erotic underground. Baby spends her days with her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, Dino, and every night dancing at Paradise Lost, a strip club where she transforms into whoever her clients want her to be. When Dino disappears suddenly, Baby plunges headfirst into San Francisco’s shady, erotic underground of dive bars and sex dungeons to find him. She encounters a surreal cast of characters: Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favours; a suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, Paradise’s new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. Will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style , Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. ‘A beautiful fever dream’ KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth ‘Exhilarating … full of verve, drama and detail’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year’ STYLIST ‘A wide ride through San Francisco's dark underbelly’ DAILY MAIL ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED

"Vivid . . . Exhilarating . . . Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail." -- The New York Times Book Review A young woman's madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell's savage, tender Soft Core . Ruth is lost. She's living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master's degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers' secrets, Baby's grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it--until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace. Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves--through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . . A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell's Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.

"Vivid . . . Exhilarating . . . Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail." -- The New York Times Book Review A young woman's madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell's savage, tender Soft Core . Ruth is lost. She's living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master's degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers' secrets, Baby's grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it--until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace. Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves--through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . . A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell's Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.