Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Im achtzehnten Jahrhundert lebte in Frankreich ein Mann, der zu den genialsten und abscheulichsten Gestalten dieser an genialen und abscheulichen Gestalten nicht armen Epoche gehörte. Seine Geschichte soll hier erzählt werden.

Raimund Gregorious - Mundus, as his students affectionately call him - is a predictable character. A bookish Latin professor, well-respected but perhaps a little boring. One stormy morning, he encounters a beautiful, distraught Portuguese woman in a red leather coat... Later that day Raimund...

The Invisible Man is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man of the title is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it.

Dorothy meets a handsome young man with an eye for her inheritance while she is in her sophomore year. They are to be married and her life will be blissful; but Dorothy is pregnant and her fiancé's plans are ruined, for Dorothy would be disinherited if her father discovered the truth. So the...

A powerful, compressed masterwork for fans of Shirley Jackson and Claire-Louise Bennett. A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. The youngest child of many siblings - more than she cares to remember - from earliest childhood she has attended to their every desire, smoothed away the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree of devotion. The country, it transpires, is the country of their family's ancestors, an obscure though reviled people.

The two-hundred-year-old cottages known as Tyler’s Row, with charming leaded-glass windows and an arched thorn hedge over the gateway, are supposed to provide a haven of peace for their new owners, Peter and Diana Hale.

After 30 years of marriage, Wilson is forced to face a painful truth. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun (originally recounted in The Notebook), and their 50-year love affair, Wilson is unable to express his true feelings. With his daughter about to marry and his wife thinking about leaving him, Wilson knows it is time to act. He will do anything he can to save his marriage. 

Gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts machen sich zwei junge Deutsche an die Vermessung der Welt. Der eine, Alexander von Humboldt, kämpft sich durch Urwald und Steppe, befährt den Orinoko, kostet Gifte, zählt Kopfläuse, kriecht in Erdlöcher, besteigt Vulkane und begegnet Seeungeheuern und Menschenfressern. Der andere, der Mathematiker und Astronom Carl Friedrich Gauß, der sein Leben nicht ohne Frauen verbringen kann und doch in der Hochzeitsnacht aus dem Bett springt, um eine Formel zu notieren.

The Gropes are an old English family based in Northumberland, separated from the rest of society and as eccentric as they come. It is a line dominated by strong-willed and oversexed women, determined to produce more female heirs regardless of whether their desired partners are willing.... At the dawn of the new millennium, timid and gormless teenager Esmond is abducted and lured to Grope Hall by a descendant of the Gropes.

Church minster village - picturesque, quaint, sleepy - OR NOT...A place where women know exactly what they want, and it's not cream tea with the vicar. A place where anything can happen . . . so be careful what you wish for. And a place where the men had better behave . . . because the ladies won't take it lying down (well, not unless they want to!)

Running out on your wedding day never goes down well. When the pressure of her forthcoming marriage becomes too much, Jude bolts from the church, leaving a good man at the altar, her mother in a fury, and the guests with enough gossip to last a year. Guilty and ashamed, Jude flees to Pengarrock, a crumbling cliff-top mansion in Cornwall, where she takes a job cataloguing the Trevillion family's extensive library.

Cartes Postales from Greece is an extraordinary new book from Victoria Hislop, the Sunday Times Number One bestselling author of The Island, The Return, The Thread, and The Sunrise. It is fiction in full colour - magical and unique. 'Victoria Hislop writes so vividly about the Med, you can...

Adapted For The Film Slumdog Millionaire. Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammad Thomas has been arrested after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have accused him of cheating his way to victory. Twelve extraordinary events in street-kid Ram's life - how he was adopted as a foundling orphan by a priest; came to have three names; fooled a professional hit man; even fell in love - give him the crucial answers.

'A thrilling work' TA-NEHISI COATES 'Lovely and lyrical . . . warm and wonderful' KILEY REID 'An absolutely brilliant book' SARA COLLINS A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever. Opal is a fiercely independent young woman...

Dee loves her children very much, but now they are all grown up, shouldn't they leave home? Rosie moved out when she got married, but it didn't work out, so now she is back with her parents. Helen is a teacher, and doesn't earn enough for a place of her own. Anthony writes songs, and is just waiting for the day when someone will pay him for them. Until then, all three are happy at home. It doesn't cost them anything, and surely their parents like having a full house?

Random House presents the audiobook edition of From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan, read by Stephen Hogan, Gerry O'Brien and Ramon Tikaram. Farouk’s country has been torn apart by war. Lampy’s heart has been laid waste by Chloe. John’s past torments him as he nears his end. The refugee...

Isabel Dalhousie thinks often of friends, sometimes of lovers, and on occasion of chocolate. As an Edinburgh philosopher she is certain of where she stands. She can review a book called In Praise of Sin with panache and conviction, but real life is... well, perhaps a bit more challenging...

ONE OF THE EVENING STANDARD'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 Barney Campbell's Rain is a searingly powerful début that reads like a British Matterhorn ******** Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Rain by Barney Campbell, read by Mark Meadows. 'Corporal Thomas (my acting...

Can you ever forget your first love? Liberty Evans hasn’t.She has a beautiful daughter, a successful career as an actress, and she’s married to one of Hollywood’s most powerful directors. But behind the glamour, things are not what they seem. Her daughter Brooke is turning into a spoiled...

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge.