Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

"Sackville imbues this character-driven historical drama with warmth, comfort, and a sense of optimism, especially during the story's darkest moments." —AudioFile Magazine William di Canzio’s Alec, inspired by Maurice, E. M. Forster’s secret novel of a happy same-sex love affair, tells the...

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio's father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, now a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train upends Sami's visit and changes his life forever. Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic. Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the nuances of emotion that are the substance of passion.

Brought to you by Penguin. Dive into the fourth novel in the gripping Will Trent series, from the Sunday Times bestselling crime and thriller author. Now a major TV Series on Disney+ When the body of a young woman is discovered at the bottom of Lake Grant, a note left under a rock suggests...

Iron Druid Atticus O'Sullivan, hero of Kevin Hearne's epic New York Times best-selling urban fantasy series, has a point to make - and then drive into a vampire's heart. When a druid has lived for 2,000 years like Atticus, he's bound to run afoul of a few vampires. Make that legions of them. Even his former friend and legal counsel turned out to be a bloodsucking backstabber. Now the toothy troublemakers - led by power-mad Theophilus - have become a huge problem requiring a solution.

Coventry Dakin's tale begins with her accidental killing of her neighbour. Forced to flee the law, she deserts her council estate, her boring husband and two demanding children for the anonymity of London's cardboard city. Originally published in 1988, Rebuilding Coventry is a brilliantly observed satire of Eighties Britain and the hypocrisy of the middle and upper classes.

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret - a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder. Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe...

Amanda's old school friends can't believe it when the social-climbing queen of preen, Satan's very own PR girl, pulls off the ultimate publicity stunt in getting herself engaged to a Scottish laird. Who cares that Fraser McConnald has worn the same pair of Converse trainers for the last three years and that his castle is a pile of rubble with one calor gas heater - she'll be titled!

‘A gutsy, heartfelt novel’ Sunday Times ‘[Shriver’s] best novel yet’ Independent on Sunday ‘A surprising sledgehammer of a novel’ The Times ‘Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger… glorious, fearless, almost fanatically hard-working prose’ Guardian ‘Lionel...

Gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts machen sich zwei junge Deutsche an die Vermessung der Welt. Der eine, Alexander von Humboldt, kämpft sich durch Urwald und Steppe, befährt den Orinoko, kostet Gifte, zählt Kopfläuse, kriecht in Erdlöcher, besteigt Vulkane und begegnet Seeungeheuern und Menschenfressern. Der andere, der Mathematiker und Astronom Carl Friedrich Gauß, der sein Leben nicht ohne Frauen verbringen kann und doch in der Hochzeitsnacht aus dem Bett springt, um eine Formel zu notieren.

The Group follows eight graduates from exclusive Vassar College as they find love and heartbreak, and choose careers and husbands against the backdrop of 1930s New York.

A powerful, compressed masterwork for fans of Shirley Jackson and Claire-Louise Bennett. A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. The youngest child of many siblings - more than she cares to remember - from earliest childhood she has attended to their every desire, smoothed away the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree of devotion. The country, it transpires, is the country of their family's ancestors, an obscure though reviled people.

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

Could modernity be an illness? Umbrella follows the story of Audrey Dearth, who fell victim to the encephalitis lethargic sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of the First World War and has been in a coma ever since. Arriving at the asylum she still lingers in, maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner becomes involved in an attempt to bring her back to life - with wholly unforeseen consequences.

When a man and a woman get married, things can get complicated. When they have children from previous marriages, "complicated" can become the understatement of the year.

Brought to you by Penguin Meet the Londons, a family in need of a friend ... Gerry and Bernie London are proud parents of Tony, Sean and Ned, three wayward lads whose lives have suddenly reached crisis points: Newly divorced Tony is fantasizing about someone he really shouldn't; prize-winning...

Das Dorf Staufenberg liegt auf einer Felskuppe. Hoch oben die alte Burg. Wenn der böhmische Flüchtlingsjunge Peter vom Turm ins Tal blickt...

Cartes Postales from Greece is an extraordinary new book from Victoria Hislop, the Sunday Times Number One bestselling author of The Island, The Return, The Thread, and The Sunrise. It is fiction in full colour - magical and unique. 'Victoria Hislop writes so vividly about the Med, you can...

Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband, Guy, move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them; despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them.

C’est un endroit à l’abri du temps. Ce minuscule hameau, qu’on appelle Les Montées, est un pays à lui seul pour les jumelles Ambre et Aelis, et la vieille Rose. Ici, l’existence n’a jamais été douce. Les familles travaillent une terre avare qui appartient à d’autres, endurent en serrant les dents l’injustice. Mais c’est ainsi depuis toujours. Jusqu’au jour où surgit Madelaine. Une fillette affamée et sauvage, sortie des forêts. Adoptée par Les Montées, Madelaine les ravit, passionnée, courageuse, si vivante. Pourtant, il reste dans ses yeux cette petite flamme pas tout à fait droite.

Glorious short stories from international bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, in a collection written especially for World Book Day. There are times when ladies must use all their wisdom and good sense to face life's problems and mysteries. Mma Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, keeps her wits about her as she looks into why the country's star goalkeeper isn't saving goals.