Showing titles in Coming of Age

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the 'primitive minds' of our ancestors. Teenage Silvie is living in a remote Northumberland camp as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is an abusive man, obsessed with recreating the discomfort, brutality and harshness of Iron Age life. Behind and ahead of Silvie's narrative is the story of a bog girl, a sacrifice, a woman killed by those closest to her, and as the hot summer builds to a terrifying climax, Silvie and the Bog girl are in ever more terrifying proximity.

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...

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 'Spellbinding' THE TIMES 'An exquisite, languorous novel' OBSERVER 'Heartstoppingly vivid' OISÍN MCKENNA A radiant novel of the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer – about family, desire, and what we inherit – from...

Insightful and full of understanding and warmth, Patrick Gale's FRIENDLY FIRE is a richly compelling story of adolescence, sexuality and the lessons we carry forever. 'An intense tale of love, life, intellectualism and passion. Inspirational' Daily Express 'Utterly compelling from first to last'...

Brought to you by Penguin. ***Shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2025*** Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London. But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny...

Charli has finished art school and now has no idea what to do with her life. She’s broke, disillusioned and her flatmates hate her. One night at a bar in Soho, however, everything changes when she first encounters the charismatic musician Alexander Geist. Androgynous, glamorously handsome, mysterious and just a little sinister, he feels something like a soul mate; and so when he heads off to Berlin, Charli follows.

Love is forbidden. Truth is dangerous. Survival is everything. 'An absolute masterpiece' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged into the men society demands – strong, obedient, perfect. Graduate, and the world...

For as long as Lucy can remember, she's been caught between loyalty to her rootless, idealistic mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. From her unsettled childhood to her turbulent teenage years, she's been forced to make a choice. But as the sisters come of age and embark on their own experiments – in love, drugs, work, motherhood – they find their lives, and their relationships, increasingly in turmoil. Can the love they have for each other transcend the damage of the past? Or is the past too dangerous to examine?

Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising - and populated by eloquent queens, butch poseurs, and a fearfully incompetent shrink - The Beautiful Room is Empty conflates the acts of coming out and coming of age.

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.

'Extraordinary. I loved it' - Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist 'Engrossing and moving . . . gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Wonderfully compelling . . . haunting' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea Delving into the lives of...

Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship.

Brought to you by Penguin. Sophisticated, mature and richly atmospheric, a debut novel about three young people navigating the risks and possibilities of intimacy For fans of André Aciman, Deborah Levy and the Penguin European Writers series Thora, August and Hugo come from different worlds -...

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD "Full of verve... Revelatory." —Los Angeles Times A dazzling and darkly comic novel of love, violence, and friendship in the California suburbs Bunny Lampert is the princess of North Shore⁠—beautiful, tall, blond, with a rich real-estate-developer...

A “big-hearted, lively, and expansive portrait of a family” that follows a neurodivergent father, his nonbinary teenager, and the sudden, catastrophic reappearance of the woman who abandoned them (Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author). Morgan Flowers just wants to hide. Raised...

Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch—learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy. When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind.

“Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination.” —NPR From National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother. In a tiny...

Brought to you by Penguin. Seamus, Fyodor, Ivan, Noah and Fatima are running out of time to decide on their futures, in the new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of Real Life. In a university town, a circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection while they try to work...

Vicky has been obsessed with death for as long as she can remember. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlour to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with it - right down to the collection of zhizha paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, that fill her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to form genuine connections and find meaning in her life outside of her best (and only) friend, Jen.

Winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction "A funny and moving debut."—Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post “A love letter to Berlin, to travel, and to saying yes to life.”—Alan Cumming It’s the new millennium and the anxiety of midlife is creeping up on Sam Singer, a...