Showing titles in Coming of Age

On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time - and sold to the circus sideshow.

In Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, a determined young woman makes her way in the world against the looming backdrop of World War I. High Wages is more than a tale of savvy entrepreneurship: Jane’s thoughts, feelings, adventures and disappointments in love and friendship are all laid bare. Jane...

Brought to you by Penguin. With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two sisters - born to the same father but different mothers - struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age. Asako, the younger, has become...

Ania hears the explosion of gunshots before she sees the Nazi soldiers approach her beloved home. Her family don’t have time to run, but she does. Hiding nearby, she listens to her sister’s screams and – stroking the red ribbon she keeps tied around her wrist – she begins to plot her revenge… Taunted her whole life for being smarter than anyone else in the village, now living in war-torn Poland, being governed by Nazis who think Poles are subhuman and women only good for one thing… Ania now only has her wits to rely on, if she's going to survive.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER College dropout Hai doesn’t know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life. One late summer evening in the town of East Gladness, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge...

A debut novel to charm all readers, that shows beyond all doubt that it's books, along with love, that make the world go round. It all began with a correspondence between two quite different women: 28-year-old Sara from Haninge, Sweden, and 65-year-old Amy from the small town of Broken Wheel...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught.” –The New York Times Book Review "Fantastic… a book that feels alive on the page." –The Washington Post From the New York-Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half, the beloved novel about young love and a big...

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday. But when her birthday finally comes around, instead of the idyllic life she was hoping for with her true love, she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured, and sold every day. Forced to become the mistress of the brutal man who owns the jail, Pheby faces the ultimate sacrifice to protect her heart.

When troubled teen Connor moves to Exeter from the US after a horrific school shooting, he finds himself embroiled in a world of popular kids and easy girls. Everyone wants to be his friend, but they don’t know about what he did...and they don’t know about his father. As Connor’s life in England begins to unravel, DS Adrian Miles and his partner, Imogen Grey, are working up against the clock to catch a serial killer who dates his victims before he kills them. Determined to uncover the truth, Imogen is forced to act as bait - but will she take it too far and risk her own life?

Brought to you by Penguin. **LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE** A powerful, heart-breaking story about tempting fate and living with the consequences Arthur and Jake are brothers yet worlds apart. Arthur is older, shy, dutiful and set to inherit his father's farm. Jake is younger, handsome and...

'Vivid, moving, immersive' Marian Keyes 'Moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart' - Ann Patchett 'Masterful, surprising, and satisfying' - Madeline Miller Writers & Lovers established Lily King as one of our most beloved authors of contemporary fiction. Now...

Apprenticed to a venerable wizard when his hunter and trapper parents disappear into the forest never to be seen again, Darian is difficult and strong willed - much to the dismay of his kindly master. But a sudden twist of fate will change his life forever when the ransacking of his village forces him to flee into the great mystical forest. It is here in the dark forest that he meets his destiny, as the terrifying and mysterious Hawkpeople lead him on the path to maturity.

Mercia, 788 AD. In the grand Saxon halls of Mercia, King Offa rules with cold ambition. His youngest daughter, Eadburh, is destined for an arranged marriage, but with reckless spirit, her heart is taken by a Welsh prince, a man she can never be matched with and who is quickly and cruelly taken from her. Offa’s Dyke, 2021. In a cottage hidden amongst the misty Welsh hills of Offa’s Dyke, Bea Dalloway is called to help Simon Armstrong, who is searching for peace. Instead he finds himself disturbed by unsettling noises and visions.

The statues disappeared in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. They also contributed to the untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into their path, naming them the Carls and gaining viral fame in an avalanche of conspiracy theories. When April's friends try to carry on with their lives, a series of clues arrive - mysterious books that seem to predict the future - and which also seem to suggest April may be very much alive...But there's a bigger mystery to solve.

Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered. Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls.

This Christmas, love is top of Florence Fairfax’s wish list 'Like eating a box of chocolates where every one is a violet cream' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'My only complaint is I can't put Sophia Money-Coutts' books down!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Hugely enjoyable novel from a mistress of the genre'...

Contains books one and two of the Richard Jackson Saga, a coming-of-age adventure series: The Beginning, book 1, and The School Days, book 2. Follow our young hero as he goes through life in the late 1950s, adventure after adventure, large and small. Starting in the summer before his freshman year, the story follows him through his high school life. He finds fame and fortune as an inventor, and wealth in Hollywood as he searches for a girlfriend (...wealth and fame prove far easier to obtain than girls).

It is London, 1970. Carmel McBain, in her first term at university, has cut free of her childhood roots in the north. Among the gossiping, flirtatious girls of Tonbridge Hall, she begins her experiments in life and love. But the year turns. The mini-skirt falls out of style and an era of concealment begins. Carmel's world darkens, and tragedy waits in the wings.

1946: World War II is over, and Emma Clarkson is poised to take flight. With dreams of attending university, she’s ready to leave behind the wild beauty of Sable Island, the only home she’s ever known. But when a handsome British sea captain is rescued from a nearby shipwreck, her destiny is forever changed. Emma falls deeply in love with Oliver Harris, but their romance is not meant to be. Oliver returns to the sea, while Emma vows to forget him and pursue her own ambitions.

The million-copy international bestseller 'A masterly work. Read this and read it again' - Observer 'A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of German conscience' - Independent 'Examines the nature of understanding and tests the limits of forgiveness' - Times For 15-year-old...