Showing titles in City Life

Life’s beautiful for seventysomething influencer Gloria Rose, in her Upper West Side loft with rooftop garden and scores of Instagram followers - until she gets word that her old flame has been arrested for art theft and forgery, and, knowing her own involvement in his misdeeds decades earlier, decides to flee. But that plan is complicated when the nieces she raised are thrown into crises of their own.

As war rages and brave soldiers returning home from the frontline need nurses more than ever, fiercely proud redhead Sylvia Roberts is determined to help in any way she can. In spite of her mother’s belief she isn’t good enough, Sylvia believes that becoming a home front nurse is her calling. Together with the two friends she makes on her first day in the job – Freda and Veronica – she knows she can help save lives. And, as the devastation of war shows no signs of ceasing, their work becomes ever more vital.

1812. In Bath and London, Jane Austen's characters are attending balls, and the Bridgerton family are making waves in Regency high society. But these are the grimy streets of Liverpool: a city where the extreme wealth of international commerce meets brothels and brawls, smugglers and secrecy; where both high and low society operate amidst revolutionary rumblings from France and the shadow of the recently abolished slave trade.

Brought to you by Penguin. Over a hot summer in New York a painter falls for a priest, in this captivating modern love story from the Booker-Prize shortlisted Brandon Taylor Wyeth is a newcomer to New York, a young Black painter who is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art...

An unnamed young trans woman grows up in a working-class suburb that has no place for her. She discovers community and kinship in downtown Madrid, amid a dazzling party scene animated by charming junkies, glamorous pop divas, and fallen angels. With each step she takes forward in the city, she finds herself confronted by an antagonism she does not yet know how to counter. In this thrilling and yet often frightening place each decision can have the highest of stakes and yet she knows that only she can forge a path forward to the life she truly wants to live.

Housewife Nancy never dreamed that she’d end up in Vickers steelworks factory, but when husband Bert is called up to serve, she needs to put food on the table for her two young children. Betty’s sweetheart, William, has joined the RAF Reserves, so she can’t sit around and do nothing - even if it means giving up her ambitions to study law at night school. Young Patty is relishing the excitement the war brings. But this shop-girl is going to have to grow up quickly, especially now she’s undertaking such back-breaking and dangerous work in the factory.

Verity Lockwood despises life at Far View House, where her father and mill owner, Jebediah Lockwood, drowns his fortune—and his wits—in drink. With debts mounting, whispers spread—how much longer can Lockwood’s Mill survive? The dark and dirty mills of Yorkshire are no place for a gently bred young woman, but when Verity learns that her father’s ruin threatens not only her home but the livelihoods of the workers who depend on it, she refuses to stand idly by.

Athena and Dexter live a happy but insular life, bound by routine and the care of their young sons. When Elizabeth, an old friend from Dexter’s university days, turns up with her much younger sister, Vicki, and her lover, Philip, she brings an enticing world to their doorstep. And Athena finds herself straining at the confines of her life.

The first novel to articulate the rage and pain of life in "the other America," Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn is a classic of postwar American writing. Selby's searing portrait of the powerless, the homeless, the dispossessed, is as fiercely and frighteningly apposite today as it was when it was first published more than fifty years ago. This explosive, transgressive best-seller created shock waves upon its release in 1964 with its raw, vibrant language and startling revelations of New York City's underbelly.

Joe is 17, a gifted artist and a brilliant older brother to 12-year-old Finn. They live with their Ma and Da in a Dublin tower block called Bojaxhiu, or 'the Jax'. It's not an easy place to be a kid, especially when your father, Frank, is the muscle for the notorious gang leader Dessie 'The Badger' Murphy. But whether it's daytrips to the beach or drawing secret sketches, Joe works hard to show Finn life beyond the battered concrete yard below their flat. Joe is determined not to become like his Da. But when Finn falls ill, Joe finds his convictions harder to cling to.

Loretta Chambers has spent her life working at her father’s boatyard down at the docks. She’s tried hard to keep the business afloat, but with the railways taking trade away every day, Lorrie fears for the worst. The arrival of handsome Italian, Matteo Falcone brings a brief glimmer of hope and a yearning inside Lorrie for another life, away from the filthy grime of the dockside.

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2021 WINNER OF DEBUT OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2022 WINNER OF BAD FORM BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD NO.1 BESTSELLER IN THE TIMES SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE AND THE...

'I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN' SHON FAYE 'A MASTERPIECE. THIS SEARING TALE OF LOVE, SEX AND CLASS WILL RESONATE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME' OWEN JONES 'I WAS DEEPLY MOVED BY ITS BEAUTY AND HUMANITY' COCO MELLORS 'Electric and intimate' Guardian 'Impossibly, ineffably beautiful’ Russell T Davies...

When I discover my boyfriend is cheating on me, I quit my job, and move to take up a role as the PR manager for a hockey team. Only problem? There’s a mix up. Now I’m stuck sharing a flat with the grumpy, hockey captain who's a former marine. Worse? (or is that better?) there’s only one bed! Even worse? My ex too has moved, as the captain of the rival team, ugh! When my enigmatic roomie realizes how much I want revenge he comes up with a plan.

Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, David Nicholls and Nick Hornby, ON WE GO is a funny, moving and powerful story about love, loss and what it truly means to be a family. 'Moving and uplifting' THE SUN 'Told with warmth and charm' WOMAN & HOME 'Has all the feels' HEAT 'Mike is the master of...

All Naya and Jake want is their own home. That's not too much to ask, right? 'Shot with dark humour … an unexpected but highly relatable story that captures the housing crisis in all its messiness' Stylist ‘A wildly original, darkly funny love story about desperation, house prices, and...

Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. 

Brought to you by Penguin. 'Gripping' Curtis Sittenfeld * 'Electrifying' Taylor Jenkins Reid * 'Remarkable' Kevin Kwan * 'Stunning' Sunday Times * 'Brilliant' Pandora Sykes In South Korea, where impossible beauty standards and ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move, four women are...

At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be coasting: she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to home: her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.

A BBC Radio collection of dramatisations and readings of Maeve Binchy’s sparkling stories Irish writer Maeve Binchy was one the best-loved and most successful authors of her time. Her bestselling books sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and were translated into 37 languages. This...