Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Government minister Patrick Macready has been found dead in his flat. The coroner rules it an accident, a sex game gone wrong. Jon Swift is from the old stock of journos - cynical, cantankerous and overweight - and something about his friend's death doesn't seem right. Then, days after Macready's flat is apparently burgled, Swift discovers that his friend had been researching a string of Russian government figures who had met similarly 'accidental' fates.

Adam and Rachel are getting married at last. Childhood sweethearts whose lives and families have been intertwined for years; theirs is set to be the wedding of the year. But then Rachel's cousin Ellie makes an unexpected return to the family fold. As the long-awaited wedding approaches, Adam is torn between duty and temptation, security and freedom, and must make a choice that will break either one heart, or many.

J’ai voulu y croire, j’ai voulu rêver que le royaume de la littérature m’accueillerait comme n’importe lequel des orphelins qui y trouvent refuge, mais même à travers l’art, on ne peut pas sortir vainqueur de l’abjection. La littérature ne m’a pas sauvée. Je ne suis pas sauvée. Neige Sinno lit elle-même son texte, insufflant une force supplémentaire à son bouleversant récit autobiographique.

"There's a secret to mastery that you may have never heard, a single little thing that only the very best in the world know how to do. In fact, I believe it is the only thing anyone can do to gain true mastery at anything, and it's an equal opportunity principle. It can be applied to fulfill your potential in business, in sports, in your relationships, as well as your overall life. Do you want to know what it is?"

Ben is, at last, leaving home. At 22, he’s the youngest of the family. His mother, Edie, is distraught. He husband, on the other hand, is rather hoping to get his wife back, after decades of family life. Ben’s brother is struggling in a relationship in which he achieves and earns less than his girlfriend. His sister is wrestling with debts and the end of a turbulent love affair. As the children’s lives become more complicated, they retreat to the simplicities of their childhood. But can you ever go home?

There is a mystery surrounding the invitation by Craddock Fitch to the Big House. It is billed as a celebration of his business, but as everyone in the village has been invited, it is obviously more exciting than that. When everyone is assembled, they find that it is a lavish wedding reception for two very surprising people.

In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.

When a teenage girl leaves the workhouse and abducts a child placed in her care, the local priest is called upon to retrieve them. Chased through the Cumbrian mountains of a distant past, the girl fights starvation and the elements, encountering the hermits, farmers and hunters who occupy the remote hillside communities. An American Southern Gothic tale set against the violent beauty of Northern England, Beastings is a sparse and poetic novel about morality, motherhood and corruption.

A wonderful warm festive treat from Sunday Times bestseller Trisha Ashley. The perfect gift isn't always under the tree... Single mum Cally's life is all about her little girl Stella. She's resigned to the fact that the only romance she's going to get is from the rom-coms she watches, and with her busy job and her daughter, she doesn't have time to even think about love. But life gets very tough when Stella gets sick.

Richard's grandfather had a childhood of almost unimaginable betrayal and sadness. His family abandoned him as a child to older relatives and emigrated without telling him. He grew up in a miserable situation and without any positive parenting role models yet managed to marry and have a son of his own. Richard's father was aware of his own father's discomfort and occasional frustration and anger, and grew to understand that this was due to his upbringing.

Hidden by London’s wealth, energy and need for cheap labour, the city’s immigrant population is powerless, despised and often illegal. So when a young woman’s body is discovered on Hampstead Heath one cold morning, she could be anyone...Rich or poor, outsider or insider, five strangers are connected in undreamed-of ways as greed, courage, murder and kindness link their lives.

Jessie Sullivan has been married half her life, and has become accustomed to her role. But when she returns to the isolated island where she grew up to establish why her mother has been behaving oddly, she is to find a lot more than she came looking for. A loving, exuberant character, who believes herself to be happy, she has forgotten a hidden part of her spirit - the part represented by the beautiful, vibrant and legendary mermaid carved on a chair in the island's monastery.

From fat girl to thin, from red hair to mud brown, from London to Toronto, from Polish count to radical husband - Joan Foster is utterly confused by her life of multiple identities. She decides to escape to an Italian hill town to take stock of her life. But first, she must organise her own death.

A novel from the director of the film Country Life. A young actor struggles to make his way in the theatre, experiencing the quick, intense relationships that flare within the closed world of the theatre as he acts out small, solid roles with a famous classical company outside of London.

Late one summer evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn. He stumbles across a derelict Edwardian house, and compelled by curiosity, approaches the door. Standing before the entrance, he feels the unmistakable sensation of a small cold hand creeping into his own, ‘as if a child had taken hold of it’. At first he is merely puzzled by the odd incident but then begins to suffer attacks of fear and panic, and is visited by nightmares.

For philosophically-minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And whilst juggling the arrival of baby Charlie, a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable housekeeper Grace, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of Jura.

From the author of the worldwide best seller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a new novel about learning how to listen and how to feel and about second chances and choosing to be brave despite the odds. Because in the end, music can save us all.... It's 1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk - as long as it's vinyl, he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need. Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann.

Casey Han's years at Princeton have given her a refined diction, an enviable golf handicap, a popular white boyfriend and a degree in economics. But no job, and a number of bad habits. As Casey, the daughter of working-class Korean immigrants, navigates an uneven course of small triumphs and spectacular failures, a clash of values, ideals and ambitions plays out against the colourful backdrop of New York society.

Miss Olivia Foley ha bisogno di un lavoro e il dottor Vincent Ballard è alla ricerca di un’infermiera. Miss Foley non è un’infermiera, tuttavia il dottor Ballard è troppo disperato per far caso a un dettaglio del genere. Comincia così un proficuo sodalizio professionale che sfocia in breve tempo in un piccolo scandalo, costringendo Miss Foley e il dottor Ballard a convolare a nozze.

L’epica storia d’amore tra la giovane Alma Belasco e il giardiniere giapponese Ichimei: una vicenda che trascende il tempo e che spazia dalla Polonia della Seconda guerra mondiale alla San Francisco dei nostri giorni. “Ci sono passioni che divampano come incendi fino a quando il destino non le soffoca con una zampata, ma anche in questi casi rimangono braci calde pronte ad ardere nuovamente non appena ritrovano l’ossigeno.”