Happiness for Humans

People aren't sure what to make of Susan Green - family and colleagues find her prickly and hard to understand, but Susan makes perfect sense to herself, and that's all she needs. At 45, she thinks her life is perfect, as long as she avoids her feckless brother, Edward - a safe distance away in Birmingham. Yet suddenly faced with the loss of her mother and, implausibly, with the possibility of becoming a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is being realised: she is losing control.

A romantic comedy from Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project, and his wife, Anne Buist. Two misfits walk 2000 km along the pilgrims' way in Spain to find themselves and, perhaps, each other. Zoe, a sometime artist, is from California. Martin, an engineer, is from Yorkshire. Both have ended up in picturesque Cluny, in central France. Both are struggling to come to terms with their recent past - for Zoe, the death of her husband; for Martin, a messy divorce.

Maud Drennan - underpaid carer and unintentional psychic - is the latest in a long line of dogsbodies for the ancient, belligerent Cathal Flood. Yet despite her best efforts, Maud is drawn into the mysteries concealed in his filthy, once-grand home. She realises that Cathal, and the junk-filled rooms, are opening up to her. With only her landlady and a troop of sarcastic ghostly saints to help, Maud must uncover what lies beneath Cathal's decades-old hostility and the strange activities of the house itself.

As Edie Jones lies in a bed on the 14th floor of a Cambridge hospital, her adult daughter, Dido, tells their story, starting with the day that changed everything. That was the day when Dido - aged exactly six years and 27 days old - met the handsome Tom Trevelyan, his precocious sister, Harry, and their parents, Angela and David.

Elvira Carr is 27 and neuro-atypical. Her father - whom she suspects was in the secret service - has passed away and, after several Unfortunate Incidents growing up, she now spends most of her time at home with her overbearing mother. But when her mother has a stroke, Elvira is suddenly forced to look after herself or risk ending up in sheltered accommodation. Armed with her Seven Rules, which she puts together after online research, Elvira hopes to learn how to navigate a world that's full of people she doesn't understand.

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake and her best friend, Bunty, are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent, and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she seizes her chance - but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt of Woman's Friend magazine.

Jess, a 29-year-old Londoner with a Kate Beckett fringe and a tendency for dramatics, gets taken on a surprise trip by her long-term boyfriend, Pete, to attend her best friend’s last-minute wedding in South Africa. Jess imagines sun, sand, wine and safaris. And returning to London with an ethically mined diamond on her left hand... But this holiday isn’t set to be quite the fairy tale Jess has planned. Suddenly she finds her world tilting on its axis, and things are only set to get worse when Jess returns home.... 

Becky Sharp has big dreams and no connections. Determined to swap the gutters of Soho for the glamorous, exclusive world behind the velvet rope, Becky will do anything to achieve fame, riches and status. Whether it’s seducing society’s most eligible bachelors, or befriending silly debutantes and rich old ladies, Becky Sharp is destined for great things. Because it might be tough at the top but it’s worse at the bottom.

Masha's life has stopped. Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, her life has been forever changed by a tragic event 12 years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds solace in the silent company of the souls of her local Victorian cemetery and at the town's lido, where she seeks refuge underwater - safe from the noise and the pain. But a chance encounter with two extraordinary women - the fabulous and wise Kitty Muriel, a convent girl-turned-magician's wife-turned-70-something-roller-disco-fanatic, and the mysterious Sally Red Shoes, a bag lady with a prodigious voice - opens up a new world of possibilities, and the chance to start living again.

When Kate was 22, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she'd never get over it. Seventeen years later, life has moved on - Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife, Belinda, are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all....

From the attic of a dilapidated English country house, she sees them - Cara first: dark and beautiful, clinging to a marble fountain of Cupid, and Peter, an Apollo. It is 1969, and they are spending the summer in the rooms below hers while Frances writes a report on the follies in the garden for the absent American owner. But she is distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she discovers a peephole which gives her access to her neighbours' private lives. 

Rhiannon Lewis has successfully fooled the world and framed her cheating fiancé, Craig, for the depraved and bloody killing spree she committed. She should be ecstatic that she’s free. Except for one small problem. She’s pregnant with her ex-lover’s child. The ex-lover she only recently chopped up and buried in her in-laws' garden. And as much as Rhiannon wants to continue making her way through her kill lists, a small voice inside is trying to make her stop.

If you've ever found yourself waiting for a call that didn't come, The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh is the audiobook for you. Imagine you meet a man, spend six glorious days together, and fall in love. And it's mutual: you've never been so certain of anything. So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call.

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is...don't make any afternoon plans.  

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way.   

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of 40. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.  

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?  

Juliet Ashton weaves a story of love, friendship and community that will move you to laughter and to tears. Think Cold Feet meets David Nicholls, with a dash of the joy of Jill Mansell added for good measure.

When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, a speck of a place on Ireland's west coast, he brings only his handsome face, a photograph of his long-lost mother and a determination to do battle with the village's lies. Mahony also somehow wakes the dead from their graves, with their foggy memories and hidden stories floating greyly amongst the unseeing living. No one, though - living or dead - will be able to guess what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby.