Showing titles in City Life

'Snort-out-loud funny, warm and moving' Lizzie Damilola Blackburn 'You're going to laugh, you're going to get angry, you're going to gasp, you're going to probably cry a lil too' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  'An impossible-to-put-down romance for our times' Frances Mensah Williams In this...

I know I have to get myself out of this funk, but it feels impossible. My childhood best friend is dead and nothing in life is working out as I’d planned. Then Lottie leaves me a ‘jar of joy’ in her will – filled with instructions to visit places where we had our happiest memories. But with every happy memory, I also remember the things that tore us apart. Because Lottie was keeping secrets. And Jay – the man we both loved – keeps turning up at the same places. Even as I feel pieces of myself begin to heal, some wounds run too deep.

When Amelia Spencer finds herself unmarried, pregnant, and cast out by society, she flees to the Bryant & May match factory, searching for her estranged sister, Sadie. Desperate for a fresh start, Amelia takes work at Bryant & May and dares to dream of a better life for herself and her son. When the shadows of Amelia's past return with a vengeance - and a killer begins stalking the women of Whitechapel - Amelia must fight to protect her child and the life she's struggled to claim, before everything she's fought for is destroyed.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Brought to you by Penguin. When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide Lydia imagines her new job running a Senior Citizen's Social Club three afternoons a week will involve drinking tea while playing gentle games of cards, listening to The Beatles and reminiscing about food...

Peggy could lose her beloved pub. Maggie her acclaimed restaurant. Maureen her business and her home. Everyone had something to lose. Whilst old friends try to come to terms with the shocking news, the younger generation continue to forge ahead in the swinging sixties. Relationships flourish and new opportunities blossom; the ever changing world becoming their oyster. But family bonds remain strong, after all, it's people that matter not the buildings.

Elizabeth Gaskell was one of Victorian England's pre-eminent female novelists. Admired by Charles Dickens, who described her as his 'dear Scheherazade', she mingled storytelling and social realism to superb effect in her highly acclaimed fiction. This comprehensive collection comprises dramas and readings of her finest works and some lesser-known pieces.

It's the most anticipated event of the decade – Big Lou and Fat Bob's wedding and everyone is invited! After a wonderful day, Big Lou crashes back down to earth and finds that she is a victim of her own success. The lure of those famous bacon rolls is preventing her from leaving hungry customers without their daily dose of deliciousness – even to go for a long-awaited honeymoon. Will Big Lou find the happiness she so richly deserves? Everyone in Scotland Street hopes so, but, as Burns warned, the best laid plans.

The long-awaited new novel from one of America's most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother, Bon, try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his re-education at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. 

Brought to you by Penguin. To those who think they know her, Eliza Curran has it all: two healthy children, a stunning home and a wealthy, adoring husband. No one would guess the reality of her life: trapped in an unhappy marriage to a controlling man, she longs for a way out. When she takes on...

New York is slipping from Cleo’s grasp. Sure, she’s at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. Her student visa is running out, and she doesn’t even have money for cigarettes. But then she meets Frank. Twenty years older, Frank's life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art - and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking. He is everything she needs right now. 

From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, this is the novel Lionel Shriver wrote directly afterwards. The Post-Birthday World is an unflinching account of the choices that unfold before us and what our decisions really mean. Irina McGovern’s destiny hinges on a...

From the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of First Love, The Palm House is a sharply observed, slyly funny novel of enduring friendships and small mercies. 'This goes straight onto my list of favourite modern novels’ – The Times 'One of our finest novelists of constrained fury: nobody...

There's nothing quite like family. Except family on holiday . . . When Cal loses his beloved wife Nikki, and his teenage step-daughter Zoe moves out to live with her father, his whole world falls apart. But life works in mysterious ways. And when a prestigious university wants to pay tribute to...

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* Random House presents the audiobook edition of Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh, read by Tam Dean Burn. Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless...

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away. Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Too Close by Natalie Daniels, read by Clara Salaman and Sara Stewart. *NOW A MAJOR THREE-PART ITV1 DRAMA, STARRING EMILY WATSON AND DENISE GOUGH* Connie has woken up in a psychiatric hospital. She's been accused of a terrible crime, but she says she...

Sometimes the key is letting go… Melody has vowed never to fall in love again. Al is a hopeless romantic. So, when they quite literally bump into each other, there's no reason sparks should fly. But the world seems a little upside down lately. A few weeks ago, Al ordered the removal of all the...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of White Teeth by Zadie Smith, read by Lenny Henry, Sagar Arya, Pippa Bennett-Warner and Ray Panthaki. From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, On Beauty and Grand Union 'BELIEVE THE HYPE' The Times 'The almost...

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?