Author: Brittany NewellModern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)Published on 23 April 2026 by HarperCollins Publishers (Fourth Estate Ltd) in the United Kingdom.Paperback | 352 pages198 x 129 | 230g ‘Highly seductive … and fun as hell!’ TONY TULATHIMUTTE ‘A noirish thriller, a sex-work satire, a romance’ OBSERVER ‘Drew me in like a whirlpool’ NICOLA DINAN ‘For the generation whose life is an endless stream of dead-end Hinge dates’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE A hottest book of 2025 in Sunday Times Style, Dazed, AnOther and Stylist. 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 whatever, or 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. In this mirror world, 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 balletic new hire who seems to want to steal Baby’s whole identity, starting with her underwear. With her grip on reality loosening, and the clock ticking, will Baby manage to find the only man she’s ever loved? Or might her past catch up with her first? ‘Vivid … Exhilarating … Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail’NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW ‘A hugely enjoyable exploration of all the strange things people desire’THE TIMES ‘Incredible … the best book I’ve read this year – romantic, dangerous and sexy. It made me cry’ STYLIST ‘A profound look at sex work and lives unusually lived’ DAZED
