Mr Gorzug and the Matter of Family

Gorzug has faced down the Thorn Court, the qualifications framework, and the full weight of an academy trust. None of it has prepared him for this. With the relationship finally out in the open, Saira Khan’s family are coming to take a proper look at him — her mother and a paternal uncle chief among them — and a green, nine-foot war-chief is about to learn that approval cannot be won by valour, only earned over tea.

Caught between the warm chaos of a family that has half-adopted him already and his own deeply literal ideas of courtship (which traditionally require livestock), Gorzug must navigate the most delicate campaign of his career.

Funny, tender, and brimming with heart — and, somewhere at the edges, an old seam that has not gone entirely quiet.