Showing titles in City Life

All This Could be Different introduces us to Sneha. A recent college graduate freshly arrived in Milwaukee, she occupies her days with rote, stressful work as a young consultant for a battery production corporation. She is, as her boss reminds her, a 'contractor, no benefits'. Her nights are spent ordering furniture off the internet, trying out the newfangled invention of dating apps and avoiding confrontation with the terrifying property manager who lives below her. But the rewards are bountiful.

It's just another Tuesday with Mercury in retrograde. Cue Nikolai Volkov. A devil in Armani with a body built for sin. Protective. Ruthless. Magnetic. Oh, and did I mention he's hot enough to melt Siberia? I should despise him for stealing my freedom. Instead, I'm playing house with the beast and melting every time he growls 'mine’. But as it turns out, this good girl has a knack for taming monsters.

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE BOOKER-SHORTLISTED, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR 'It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us' In March 2020 Lucy Barton's ex-husband William pleads with her to leave New York and escape to a coastal house he has rented in Maine. Lucy...

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an abortion,' she announces. She is...

London, 1969: The Kray twins, the nemeses of Charles Holborne, barrister, are finally convicted of multiple murders and sent away for the longest prison terms ever imposed by a British court. But with London in the grip of a housing crisis and unscrupulous landlords hiking rents, there are new ruthless enforcers terrorizing destitute East Enders. When a tenant dies during a violent altercation with bailiffs, Charles is instructed to represent the businessmen charged with conspiracy to murder.

When Another Country appeared in 1962, it caused a literary sensation. James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.

When Rosie inherits No.13 Arundel Crescent from the birth parents she never knew, the large house in London’s upmarket Notting Hill feels like a dream come true, at first... But dreams can become nightmares. The house is crumbling around her and has conditions attached. She can’t sell it on, and before long, she’s forced to take in lodgers, just to pay the bills.

New Delhi, three a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the kerb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It's a rich man's car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she's never known her Chinese father, and is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva's hopes are dashed, and so she plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please.

'Snort-out-loud funny, warm and moving' Lizzie Damilola Blackburn 'You're going to laugh, you're going to get angry, you're going to gasp, you're going to probably cry a lil too' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  'An impossible-to-put-down romance for our times' Frances Mensah Williams In this...

Brought to you by Penguin. The uplifting and escapist new romcom and perfect holiday read for summer from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Island in the Sun and One Enchanted Evening. In a city full of dreams, will she find her own…? It’s 1968 and it’s cold when Felicity arrives in...

In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together, with tragic consequences. There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on an unexpected mission to rectify injustice and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. 

1884 - When Betsan Morgan’s mother succumbs to a devastating illness, she doesn't think her life could get much worse. But then her father moves in his new beau, an unserious flitty woman and coincidentally also the bargirl in the pub he works in, and she soon learns her house is no longer a home. All she can do is sit in the attic and stare at the portrait of her mother. Her new stepmother, Elinor, couldn’t even let them have the grace of keeping it in the hallway.

Brought to you by Penguin. London, 1939 When tragedy strikes, Libby Andrews is left homeless and destitute, fending for herself on the capital's most dangerous streets. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Libby is on the cusp of making a decision that could jeopardise her future...

Liverpool 1931. In a Liverpool torn by the Depression, Daisy Gallagher grows to womanhood the hard way. She is the mainstay of her poverty-stricken family and the devoted friend of Nellie O’Brian, who is dying for lack of medical attention. Daisy’s desperation for money leads her into the darkened streets and into the arms of drunken sailors willing to pay for their relief. Through her own strength and suffering, Daisy earns enough to pay for her friend’s much needed medical attention.

The big-hearted, hilariously relatable romantic comedy from the Sunday Times bestseller and author of Kindle sensation The Woman Who Ran Away from Everything. “Midlife crisis? WHAT midlife crisis?!” Charlotte Bristow is worried about her husband Will. With her 16-year-old daughter Rosie...

Rudy Sharpe is the irrepressible owner of a tiny, ramshackle record store, stacked from floor to ceiling with piles of vinyl. It’s a place with real soul, where the slogan is ‘If we don't have it – them don't mek it’. Helping out behind the counter is Tasha, Handsworth’s only Black goth girl, while Rudy’s best friend Clifton regularly drops in to talk music, women and rum.

"Utterly charming . . . I would read a hundred of these stories" Shelby Van Pelt, bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures Is three days with a cat enough to change your life? The troubled and anxious of Tokyo are desperate to find out. They all have their problems - and they all want...

Amjad cradles his baby daughter in the middle of the night. He has no time to mourn his wife’s death. Saahil and Zahra, his two small children, are relying on him. Amjad vows to love and protect them always. Years later, Saahil and his best friend, Ehsan, have finished university and are celebrating with friends. But when the night turns dangerous, its devastating effects will ripple through the years to come. Zahra’s world is alight with politics and activism. But she is now her father’s only source of comfort, and worries she’ll never have time for her own aspirations.