Showing titles in Coming of Age

As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, 20-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer - his "Keltjin potatoes" are justifiably famous - has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny. The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own.

He's a troubled young actor, Hollywood's newest heartthrob, struggling with fame as the star of the latest superhero franchise. Through scandal after scandal, addiction on top of addiction, a flurry of paparazzi hunt him as he fights to conquer his demons. She's a single mother, assistant manager at a grocery store, existing in monotony with her five-year-old daughter. Every day when she goes to work, lurid tabloids surround her, the face of a notorious bad boy haunting her from their covers.

Brought to you by Penguin. Louis de Bernières is the master of historical fiction which makes you both laugh and cry. This book follows an unforgettable family after the Second World War. Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now...

Liverpool 1931. In a Liverpool torn by the Depression, Daisy Gallagher grows to womanhood the hard way. She is the mainstay of her poverty-stricken family and the devoted friend of Nellie O’Brian, who is dying for lack of medical attention. Daisy’s desperation for money leads her into the darkened streets and into the arms of drunken sailors willing to pay for their relief. Through her own strength and suffering, Daisy earns enough to pay for her friend’s much needed medical attention.

Long Chao is the son of a hedge mage — a heretic cultivator. He doesn’t cultivate for power, but to satisfy his endless curiosity. One fateful day, Xiao Huifen, a girl aiming to be the youngest Sky Realm cultivator in the Monolith continent’s history, crashes into his life. She’s from the world of top-ranked sects and strict cultivation methodologies. They share nothing in common except for the unquenchable desire to unlock heaven’s every mystery.

Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway.

Mickey Bloom: five-foot tall, dyslexic, and bullied at school. With a mostly absent and hostile father, Mickey feels she's no good at anything. Until she discovers running. Mickey's newfound talent makes her realize she's everything she thought she wasn't—powerful, strong, and special. But her success comes at a cost, and the relentless training and pressure to win leaves Mickey broken; her dream in tatters. Years later, when Mickey is working in a dead-end job, her mother becomes ill. While nursing her, Mickey realizes the only way she can overcome her grief—and find herself—is to run again.

Following her recent marriage to Lucas, Louisa is delighted to discover she is expecting. But after everything she’s lost since the war began, dare she believe that this is a sign of brighter days ahead? Meanwhile, Louisa’s friends Kate and Jeannie struggle to balance factory work alongside their responsibilities at home, with shortages, illness and bad news from the front putting them under ever more pressure. Then unexpected news means that Jeannie can finally get her heart's desire but can she accept her happiness at someone else's expense?

You’re a disappointment to everyone. You’re a far cry from beautiful - and your thoughts are ugly too. You seem bound to fail, bound to break. But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend, to feel the first tentative tingles of attraction, to take exquisite pleasure in the affront of your unruly body. You just need to find your place. From dead pets and crashed cars to family traumas and misguided love affairs, Susannah Dickey's revitalising debut novel plunges us into the private world of one young woman as she navigates her rocky way to adulthood.

Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy. Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her...

One girl’s funny and honest account of losing her mum to a cult. Susan Wokoma performs in this teen-spirited and gangsta-rap-fuelled survival guide to growing up with an actual twat as a mum.

Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, 13-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. A timeless coming-of-age tale and a powerful exploration of cultural imperialism, Nervous Conditions charts Tambu's journey to personhood in a nation that is also emerging.

Beginning in 1950s Liverpool, Violet's Children is a warm and nostalgic story of a young woman who must adopt her sister's children after tragedy strikes.

Even in wartime, East End girl Nancy Evans has reason to hope. She's a rising star in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and she'll be walking down the aisle any day now...but then a brutal night of bombing changes her life forever. Newly pregnant and single, Nancy swaps her blue uniform for a pinny, taking on housekeeping duties for handsome village doctor David Denny. And though Nancy tries to stay cheerful and contribute to the war effort in any way she can, it isn't long before she finds herself leaning on David for comfort....

With Christmas approaching, the Brogan family of London's East End are braving the horrors of the Blitz. With the men away fighting for King and Country and the ever-present dangers of the German Luftwaffe's nightly reign of death and destruction, the family must do all they can to keep a stiff upper lip. For Jo, the youngest of the Brogan sisters, the perils of war also offer a newfound freedom. Jo falls in love with Tommy, a man known for his dangerous reputation as much as his charm.

You probably know a woman like Katherine. You might be a woman like Katherine. She would describe herself as cautious. Other people would describe her as anxious. She is profoundly responsible. She worries about remembering to take her vitamins. She worries about her pension. And she worries about being 32 years old and never truly feeling happy. So, when she's put on leave for three months for making a massive mistake at work, for once, she's happy to take advice from her mother-in-law, Constance, and head to a wellness retreat. But this is no ordinary wellness retreat.

The first time Cassio meets his fiancée, she calls him “sir.” After losing his wife, Cassio is left to take care of two small children while trying to establish his rule over Philadelphia. Now he needs a mother for his children and someone who can warm his bed at night. But in a world as traditional as his, choosing your wife is duty not pleasure. Rules have to be followed, traditions heeded. That’s how he ends up with a woman - a girl - barely of age. She may not be what he and his children need, but she’s lovely and a sweet temptation he can’t resist.

I’ve won over the queen of the school, but now, her brother hates me, and he’s out for my blood. He thinks I’m a spy, he thinks I’ve aligned myself with the sociopath drug addict who walks the halls with murder on his mind. Every choice I make is being watched; there are more eyes on me than the privileged guys who want me gone.

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Regretting You, It Starts with Us, and It Ends with Us held readers spellbound with her novel Hopeless, the story of what happened when a troubled girl named Sky encountered a long-lost childhood friend, Dean. Now, in Losing Hope, we finally learn the...

Anne Brandon has always understood the power of a king’s patronage and, though the court of Henry VIII is a dangerous place for women, as the daughter of the king’s best friend, Anne feels safer than most. But Anne’s husband Lord Powis is tiring of her childlessness and when Henry VIII begins plotting to rid himself of a queen in his quest for an heir, suddenly Anne’s life is in danger. And as whispers of the name of her friend Anne Boleyn’s get ever louder, there is peril in every loose word, every forbidden conversation.