A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style, Dazed, AnOther and StylistA blazing novel following a young woman on a wild, hallucinogenic quest for love and selfhood in San Francisco's seedy underground.
Baby is a dancer at a strip club and at the age of 27, she's feeling lost. It seems that only Dino, her sweet, cross-dressing, drug-dealing ex-boyfriend can keep her afloat. So, when Dino disappears without so much as a kiss goodbye, she plunges headfirst into San Francisco's shady erotic underground to find him.
Baby searches through dive bars and old haunts, at the club and at the sex dungeon where she has a part-time dominatrix gig. She encounters clients like Simon, a recluse paying her for increasingly bizarre 'favours' and a philosophizing suicide fetishist named 'Nobody', as well as co-workers like Emeline, the balletic new hire who seems to want to steal Baby's whole identity, starting with her underwear.
It's not long before she starts to find cryptic notes hidden in her belongings and realises her search is attracting the wrong kind of attention. With her grip on reality loosening and the clock ticking, will Baby manage to put together the pieces and find the only man she's ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first?
Manically smart, brutally funny and deeply sexy, Soft Core is a book about desire, fantasy and true love - like no other.
About the Author
Brittany Newell's debut novel Oola was published when she was 21 years old. Her work has been published in Granta, N+1, The New York Times; the first chapter of Soft Core was published as a short story called 'Baby' in N_1. In 2021, she was awarded a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission that enabled her to write Soft Core.
Industry Reviews
‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ - NICOLA DINAN
'A beautiful fever dream' - KRISTEN ARNETT
'Highly seductive … and fun as hell!' - TONY TULATHIMUTTE
'A ghostly, feverish love story’ - ANOTHER MAGAZINE
'Hugely enjoyable … dreamlike and erotic' - THE TIMES
'Incredible … romantic, dangerous and sexy' - KATIE BUCKLEY
'For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates' - Sunday Times Style
‘A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire’ - The Times
'A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived' - Dazed
‘The more you learn about Baby, the more you like her … Great fun’ - Daily Mail
‘Moving… beautifully frank… a wonderful portrait of San Francisco… filled with fantastic imagery’ - Observer
'Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year – romantic, dangerous and sexy. It made me cry' - Katie Buckley, author of Hero in Stylist
'Soft Core is not just a book but a fully realized and highly seductive way of life – louche, fleshy, and freestyle … Deeply impressive and fun as hell!' - Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection
