Old rustic wooden door painted green

Books open doors and cross borders

Church door in Semlac © Iris Wolff

MOTH BOOKS publishes outstanding fiction and non fiction with a strong emphasis on women’s voices. Founded in London in 2023, we cross borders and make connections, particularly with Europe.

The imprint's first book is Monique Charlesworth’s candid and witty memoir Mother Country: a story of love and lies, which was shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024.

Moth Books has also published a paperback edition of Monique’s acclaimed novel, The Children’s War, with a new ending.

In 2025 Moth Books will publish two magnificent novels of family and conflict in the heart of Europe: Blurred by Iris Wolff and Worlds Apart by Julia Franck.

We shall also be publishing the outstanding new novel Clearings by Iris Wolff, a best-seller in Germany. This remarkable book has been shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2024


Out Now

  • Black and white photography showing a mother with two children walking down the street hand in hand

    Mother Country


    This true story of the passionate and tragicomic relationship between a mother running from her past in Hitler’s Germany and a daughter running towards it has been shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024.

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  • Black and white photograph showing a young girl looking away from the camera into the distance in a park. The scene is misty and atmospheric

    The Children's War


    A moving and powerful coming-of-age novel set in war-torn Europe, this is fiction at its most gripping. Now available as a Moth Books paperback, ebook and audio book, updated with a new ending.

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Authors

  • An image of the author Monique Charlesworth

    Monique Charlesworth

    Born in Birkenhead, Monique Charlesworth is half German and her work has a European bias. A graduate of the National Film and Television School, she spent a decade writing scripts for film and television. Fluent in French and German she started her working life as a journalist and has also written four acclaimed novels. She is currently working on a novel that completes her German trilogy.

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    Image: © Alex Lifschutz

  • An image of the author Iris Wolff

    Iris Wolff

    Iris Wolff, born behind the iron curtain in the medieval town of Sibiu, Transylvania in 1977, is an award-winning writer whose work carries the reader deep into her former homeland. The fate of those who stay and those who choose to migrate is the constant and powerful theme weaving through her novels.

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    Image: © Max Goedecke

  • An image of the author Julia Franck

    Julia Franck

    Julia Franck is a celebrated author and journalist living in Berlin whose work has been translated into more than forty languages. The recipient of numerous awards, she has written five novels, short stories and has edited essays. Two of her novels have been made into feature films. Her work is deeply preoccupied with recent German history, family and motherhood.

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    Image: © Mathias Bothor