Bonnie Garmus with Rachel Joyce for Peck & Peck

The number one bestselling author of global sensation, Lessons in Chemistry, returns with a story about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world.

'Charming, uplifting, soulful, and original, Peck & Peck is the perfect successor to Lessons In Chemistry. If you loved Elizabeth Zott, you will adore Batter Gray' Kristin Hannah

It's 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, recent college graduate with a skill that no one wants – an ear for poetry – is worried about his future. While all his friends have real jobs, he's folding T-shirts at the Gap. As for love? No. Not unless you count Sallie Mae, the student loan tyrant. He hears from Sallie all the time.

But when Batter gets a dream job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, his life moves into the literary fast lane. Soon Batter is knee-deep in the secret war between the two Editors in Chief, the famous Peck brothers – twins and enemies – as well as being privy to the private affairs of their thirty-nine editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest. And by burn, they mean incinerate.

Because at Peck & Peck, 'good' isn't good enough, 'interesting' doesn't cut it, plagiarists aren't tolerated, and parolees run the mailroom. Still want to submit your poem? Go with God.

Bonnie Garmus will be having a conversation with Rachel Joyce.

Bonnie Garmus's debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a number one global bestseller and spent almost ninety weeks in the Sunday Times top 10. It was named by New York Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st Century. Translated into over forty languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honoured with sixteen international literary awards. It was selected by Queen Camilla for the Queen's Reading Room and made into an Apple TV series.

Rachel Joyce is the author of the international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, and Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North. Joyce's books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. She has written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4.