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High Tide
  • Published: 5 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781473569201
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272

High Tide

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Written in the key of Elif Batuman's The Idiot and Melissa Broder's Milk Fed, His Assistant is an astute, funny tale of about leaving someone else's shadow...only to cast your own.

Everything points at a destiny unfulfilled: what is she going to do now? A magician's assistant without the magician. Does she get to keep the magic?

Meet Stella. She's been Henry's partner - marital and magical - for a few good years now, and they share everything. Except for a bed. So when Stella wakes one morning to discover that the maestro is dead, she finds herself suddenly thrown into a world of unknowns. Sure, there's the secrets Henry left behind - the ones that it seems everyone in their small town but Stella knew - but there's also the gnaw of anger. As the summer unfolds, Stella discovers the excitement of possibility, the thrill of re-awakened lust and the pull of power. Just how messy can it be to forge a self?
  • Published: 5 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781473569201
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272
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About the author

Livia Franchini

Livia Franchini is a writer and translator from Tuscany, Italy. Her recent publications include the novel Shelf Life, her English-language translation of Lorenza Mazzetti’s The Sky Is Falling, and the anthology Too Little / Too Hard: Writers on the Intersections of Work, Time and Value, co-edited with Lucy Mercer. Livia is Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, where she also coordinates the Goldsmiths Prize. She lives in south east London.
portrait photo of Livia Franchini

Also by Livia Franchini

Shelf Life
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Praise for High Tide

Whip-smart, slyly heartbreaking, and I felt the truth of it in my bones. Franchini dissects ideas of love, dating and identity in a way that feels both ruthless and humane. I loved it.

Sophie Mackintosh, on SHELF LIFE

This is a book that should not be missed: a beautifully executed contribution to the discussion of toxic masculine behaviour and the patterns of socialisation that enable it.

Guardian, on SHELF LIFE

Franchini's voice is sharp and clever and her debut novel tells us truths about how and why we love.

Jessica Andrews, on SHELF LIFE

Quirky, awkward and fresh... There’s a confidence to the wilful eccentricities of her writing.

Observer, on SHELF LIFE

A quirky, funny, poignant book which shimmers with originality. I loved it.

Sarah Langford, on SHELF LIFE

Franchini has so perfectly captured the light and taste and colour of an Italian summer in this vivid novel about youth, love, art, debauchery and consequences.

Sara Baume, multi-award-winning author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither

A dark, tense, and compulsive novel. The Shelleys and their seedy entourage are uncannily reincarnated as palazzo-parasite, would-be YBAs on a grungy Grand Tour: the result is unputdownable.

Francesa Reese, author of Voyeur

An intoxicating, sweltering and engrossing novel. It is truly one of the best books you will read this year.

Misha Honcharenko, author of Trap Unfolds Me Greedily

A beautiful, intelligent and transportive novel about love, co-dependency, grief and the redemption of finding your own voice. Livia writes the hot claustrophobia of first love – and the wounds it leaves behind – forensically, tenderly.

Lara Williams, author of Supper Club

Brilliant. I was completely beguiled by its woozy, boozy atmosphere; it’s as thrilling and seductive as a beach read, with a corpse washed up in it. High Tide is a complicated, disturbing and intelligent book with all the propulsion of a page-turner.

Amy Sackville author of Painter to the King

Art, hedonism and the nineties sweating under a menacing Italian sun: I feel intoxicated just thinking of about High Tide. Fans of Ferrante’s darker works will not be disappointed.

Charlotte Tierney, author of The Cat Bride