Showing titles in Coming of Age

As an empire burns, he will rise from the ashes. Sparrow, the Sunday Times bestselling historical epic by James Hynes, is the incredibly moving story of one boy’s journey to freedom in the harsh world of the Roman Empire. Raised in a brothel at the edge of a dying empire, a boy of no known...

The International Bestseller Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize 'Hilarious and gut-wrenching' - Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller 'Think Dolly Alderton, but with the sharp edges of Eliza Clark' - Independent Belfast: three girls are living for the weekend, their wild friendship...

Truly compelling and rich with emotional insight , Patrick Gale's Cornish novel, ROUGH MUSIC is a beautiful story of a marriage and the secrets a family holds. 'Sparkling with emotional intelligence. A gripping portrait of a marriage and the quiet, devastating fall-out of family life'...

One afternoon, a mother opens her front door to find the length of her son's body stretched out on the veranda, swaddled in akwete material, his head on her welcome mat. The Death of Vivek Oji transports us to the day of Vivek's birth, the day his grandmother Ahunna died. It is the story of an over protective mother and a distant father and the heart-wrenching tale of one family's struggle to understand their child, just as Vivek learns to recognise himself.

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK “Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story of identity, what it means to belong, and the courage to claim your own truth.” —Oprah Winfrey “One of 2026's literary triumphs.” —Boston Globe From the Booker-winning...

GEORGE FALLS THROUGH TIME IS. . . "Incredibly entertaining and intelligent." —GARRARD CONLEY "Big-hearted and inspired." —STEVEN ROWLEY "Funny, surprising, profound." —GRANT GINDER "Unputdownable." —LUNA MCNAMARA Less meets the year 1300 in this exhilarating and thoughtfully...

When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure and like a stranger to his family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship. But Julian is as volatile and cruel as he is charismatic, and Paul begins to suspect that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him.

Fern's mother is a social climber and a former ballet dancer who lives a plush life in a London townhouse. Fern's father only climbs if there's a bottle at the top, has an IQ of 133 and lives hand-to-mouth in Californian motels. Aged 14, Fern has spent equal time with each of her parents. That is, until an unexpected visitor triggers a life-changing dilemma – whether she should get on a plane to London to be with her mother, or stay in California with her father. Here, Fern's narrative splices in two.

A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The audiobook's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality.

The Bestselling Richard & Judy Summer Book Club Pick 2021 The Bestselling Radio 2 Book Club Selection ‘Tight, clever and riddled with wit. Like discovering Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones for the first time.’ Joanna Nadin, author of The Queen of Bloody Everything ‘A sweet, fizzy sherbet...

Welcome back to Pride High, where the delicious drama continues! Ricky tries to sort through his feelings for Diego—the hot guy who has been bullying him—and ends up in the middle of a feud. Anthony and Cameron, now a couple, must navigate first times and coming out. Silvia finds herself questioning her feelings for Omar when someone else catches her eye…and it’s a girl.

Brought to you by Penguin. Mona is the eccentric Lady of Easley House, running a bed and breakfast to keep her inherited English manor afloat. Wilfred is Mona's 26-year-old adopted son who spends his weekends in London, looking for love in the gay bars of Soho while pining after his pen pal...

In the Black Country in the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has moved to Britain with his wife to secure a brighter future for themselves and their children. At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London - escaping from a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and the desolate, disempowered Black Country - but finds himself at a loss for a new centre of gravity and turns to sex work to create new notions of love, fatherhood and spirituality.

Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure.

There is Iapetus, a lonely soul haunted by the memory of his father; his son Atlas, dreaming of a life far removed from his reality; Atlas’s daughter Calypso, struggling to find her place in an unforgiving society; and her son Nautilus, grappling with various parts of a complex identity. Each of them longs to escape—to go beyond the borders and circumstances that have contained them for so long—but each finds that they are trapped by a history found only in whispers and half-remembered fragments; and that it is dictating a future over which they have little control.

'Original, tender, thoughtful and true. Can't wait for people to read!' Reese Witherspoon 'Part tender coming of age story, part electrifying tale of political awakening, part heartfelt love letter to Deaf culture, True Biz is a wholly a wonder' Celeste Ng A transporting novel that follows a...

Patrick Gale's THE FACTS OF LIFE is a mesmerising, epic yet intimate novel of love, music and the life events that stay with us forever - perfect for any reader of Armistead Maupin, or E M Forster 'Absorbing . . . deftly characterised, deeply involving and relevant' The Times German composer...

After inexperienced seventeen-year-old Isaac loses his virginity through a dating app—a disappointing yet addictive experience—he spends his final months before university escaping into a dizzying new world of casual sex with forgettable men. This all changes when he meets twenty-eight-year-old Harrison at a party. Isaac is immediately infatuated by the handsome, charismatic artist, but while they grow closer, his sense of self becomes increasingly hazy

Brought to you by Penguin. From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected. It’s the tabloid sensation of the year: two well-known footballers standing in the dock...