Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori Montagna, who is suffering from an acute identity crisis, wants to know more about her own past, and after doing a DNA test, she discovers that she has a relative she didn't know about. But her newfound family causes a bit of a rift between her and her flatmate, Antonia Collie. Bertie's dream of moving to the promised land – the Dear Green Place – comes crashing down as he learns that he is to move to the far northeast – Peterhead, near Aberdeen, leaving poor Ranald Braveheart Macpherson a little heartbroken and lost.

A rollicking time-hopping fantasy . . . How to Stop Time will provoke wonder and delight - Observer HOW MANY LIFETIMES DOES IT TAKE TO LEARN HOW TO LIVE? Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he’s been alive for centuries. From...

The funny and uplifting No.1 Sunday Times bestselling romantic comedy from the global multi-million-copy bestselling author. Discover the joy that awaits when you set yourself free... Sasha is well and truly over it all: work (all-consuming), friendships (on the back burner), sex-life...

Brought to you by Penguin. NOW THE NO.1 DRAMA IN THE HISTORY OF APPLE TV+ The much anticipated prequel to bestseller Wool that takes us back to the beginnings of the silo. In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is...

Following the death of her bullying husband, Etta Bancroft's selfish children move her to a village in the Cotswolds. One night she discovers a filly, left to die in the snow. With the help of friends they rescue the horse and form a syndicate to pay for her upkeep. As the horse recovers she...

The complete finale of the hit BBC Radio 4 sitcom- 2 episodes. Cabin Pressure is set in the wing and prayer world of a tiny, one-plane airline, staffed by two pilots, one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. In this, the finale of the whole series, we discover that for MJN Air, whether it's choosing an ice-cream flavour, putting a princess in a van or remembering your grandmother's name, no job is too small, but, many, many jobs are too difficult.

Brought to you by Penguin Meet the Londons, a family in need of a friend ... Gerry and Bernie London are proud parents of Tony, Sean and Ned, three wayward lads whose lives have suddenly reached crisis points: Newly divorced Tony is fantasizing about someone he really shouldn't; prize-winning...

Summer has arrived in Barton-in-the-Dale and as a new term begins at the little primary school, it's not just the warm weather that's getting people hot under the collar. Meetings with the teachers from Urebank School to discuss the merger are producing more than a few fireworks, a disruptive new pupil arrives, set to cause trouble, and a surprising staff love affair is exposed.

Two schools - both in leafy Larkshire, but worlds apart. The incomparable Jilly Cooper turns her brilliant pen to the explosive world of education. At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious...

Ashcombe was the most beautiful house Saskia had ever seen as a little girl, providing a perfect sanctuary to hide from the tragedy which shattered her childhood. Now an adult, Saskia is still living at Ashcombe and as a book restorer devotes her days tending to broken, battered books. When she...

Mark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s. Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity...

Effervescent as champagne, Jilly Cooper's novel brings back old favourites like Rupert and Taggie Campbell-Black. Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl in the world. When a...

Nestled in the heart of the Cotswolds, Thrush Green is normally a peaceful place. But as autumn turns to winter, feelings are running high in the village. Miss Fogerty, a respected teacher at the village school for over thirty years, is troubled by the methods of the new young teacher. Dotty Harmer takes up driving, much to the concern of others, and it isn’t long before she is involved in an accident and a threatening court case.

They called him Bane the Bastard - though none said it to his face. Born of treachery, his name a curse, he grew up among the warriors of the Rigante. They valued his skills in war, but they feared the violence in his heart. And when, as a Wolfshead and Outlaw, he left Rigante lands, they breathed sighs of relief. But Bane would return, the destiny of the Rigante in his hands, the fate of the world resting on his skills with a blade.

When Lord Petrefact hires Walden Yapp, Professor of Demotic Historiography at Kloone University, to write a scurrilous family history Yapp finds plenty of material in Buscott village, where Frederick Petrefact is running the Mill and adding new vices to the family collection. If Yapp can lay his hands on the Petrefact Papers in the Buscott Museum he may be able to expose the multi-national capitalism of the Petrefacts to the whole world.

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So...

Celeste Varick has a simple plan: find one of the last wormholes on earth and walk right in. The catch? She has no idea where she'll land, or that she's about to fall for the one stranger chasing the same impossible leap. Everett Ludlow booked the same charter to the same island to find the same wormholes at the same exact moment. A kindhearted skeptic, he doesn't believe in fate but is desperate enough to leap into the future to save someone he loves.

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking.

In the second novel in the Pop Larkin series, the Larkin family descends upon Brittany in France. Like fish out of water, they find that things don't quite turn out their way: The weather is less than ideal, the food is awful, and the hotel is in a bad state of repair. But things slowly improve as Pop manages to sweet-talk Mlle Dupont, Angela Snow and her sister, Iris; and Charley and Mariette celebrate their first wedding anniversary. A Breath of French Air is a delightful book full of nostalgia, fun, and frivolity.

IT MAY BE QUIET IN THE SUBURBS, BUT IT'S FAR FROM PEACEFUL. . . 'A fantastic frothy read about suburbia with all Tom Allen's great style' JACQUELINE WILSON, international #1 bestseller 'A deliciously witty suburban comedy of manners with real bite, shot through with Tom Allen's trademark humour...