Showing titles in Coming of Age

Meet Orlando: a young nobleman in Elizabethan England, poet, lover, adventurer—and, after a transformational sleep, a woman. Spanning over 300 years of British history, Orlando bends the rules of time, gender, and narrative as its protagonist navigates shifting societies, identities, and expectations, all while seeking something elusive: the truth of the self. Playful, profound, and radically ahead of its time, Virginia Woolf's groundbreaking novel is part love letter, part satire, and part meditation on the fluid nature of existence.

'Absolutely mesmerising' - Lucy Rose, bestselling author of The Lamb Atonement meets Weyward in this striking historical debut from new talent Laura Evans about queer love, privilege and the intoxicating dangers of embracing the wild . . . Suffolk, 1937. During a sweltering heatwave...

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...

The New Novel from the author of Lie With Me ‘Doomed youth, simmering desire and 100-proof nostalgia is what Besson does - and he does it very well . . . perfect reading for a heatwave . . . this novel made me nostalgic for the sultry summers I never had’ The Times ‘This is a poignant...

Charlie Matthews’ love story begins in a pebble-dashed house in suburban Bolton, at a time when most little boys want to grow up to be Michael Jackson, and girls want to be Princess Di. Remembering the Green Cross Code and getting out of football are the most important things in his life until Auntie Jan gives him a gift that will last a lifetime: a seven-inch single called "Lucky Star"....

Brought to you by Penguin. Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe, a famous writer, chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back to Philippe's teenage years, to a winter morning in 1984, a small French high school, and a carefully...

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back...

Bloomsbury presents Hideous Kinky, written and read by Esther Freud Quirky, charming and suffused the footloose spirit of the sixties, this is the irresistible story of an English woman who decides on a whim to move herself and her two young daughters to Morocco. The ensuing adventure takes them...

Brookhants School for Girls: infamous site of a series of tragic deaths more than a hundred years ago. Soon to be the subject of a controversial horror movie about the rumoured ‘Brookhants curse’: in the early 1900s, Brookhants students Flo and Clara fell madly in love, brought together by their obsession for a scandalous memoir. A few months later they were found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies. Three more grisly deaths followed before the school was forced to close. 

Marguerite Demers is 24 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint-Sulpice, to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier, once one of the most powerful men in the village, and now dying alone in his large and secluded house, surrounded by rambling gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all his previous nurses. 

Bittersweet and startling, A SWEET OBSCURITY is a novel of childhood, love and the consequences of how lives are lived. 'Intriguing and impressive. A memorable study of a child forced cruelly, even tragically, to grow up too soon' Sunday Times Since her mother's death, nine year old Dido has...

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God’s elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles.

'Think One Day written by (and starring) Virginia Woolf . . . lyrical and captivating' -The Observer 'Radiant, absorbing, sensual' - Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre 'Beautiful' - Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn From the author of The End We Start From, now a major...

Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly. Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is 11 when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and the star-crossed pair fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF BBC'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024 'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime' JULIA ARMFIELD 'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic' ALICE SLATER 'Generous and tender' NEW YORK TIMES Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much...

Eighteen years old, pregnant and working as a pizza delivery girl, our dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial about it all. She’s grieving the death of her father, avoiding her loving boyfriend and flagrantly ignoring her future. Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighbourhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickle-covered pizzas for her son’s happiness.

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.

‘WOW, what a book… I don’t remember the last time I stayed up until 4am because I couldn’t put a book down… Absolutely loved… I was on the edge of my seat’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged...

Molly Bolt is a young lady with a big character. Beautiful, funny and bright, Molly figures out at a young age that she will have to be tough to stay true to herself in 1950s America. In her dealings with boyfriends and girlfriends, in the rocky relationship with her mother and in her determination to pursue her career, she will fight for her right to happiness. Charming, proud and inspiring, Molly is the girl who refuses to be put in a box.

On the Sunday of his 18th birthday, in 1975, Colin takes a walk on Box Hill, a biker hang-out. There he accidentally trips over Ray, a biker napping under a tree - and that’s where it all starts. This transgressive, darkly affecting love story between men, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, is a stunning novel of desire and domination by one of Britain’s most accomplished writers.