Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Historian Anna Bennett has a book to write. She also has an insomniac toddler, a precocious, death-obsessed seven-year-old, and a frequently-absent ecologist husband who has brought them all to Colsay, a desolate island in the Hebrides, so he can count the puffins. Ferociously sleep-deprived, torn between mothering and her desire for the pleasures of work and solitude, Anna becomes haunted by the discovery of a baby's skeleton in the garden of their house.

Ghost Children is a compassionate and gritty examination of love and loss from one of Britain's most-loved writers, Sue Townsend How can she leave the past behind when he won't let her? Seventeen years ago Angela Carr aborted an unwanted child. The child's father, Christopher Moore, was...

Lucy lives in a Berkshire village with her two friends, Jane and Bella, and works in the marketing department of Widgetex Computers. Her boss – Slave Driver – is a constant bane; her family are lovable eccentrics; her boyfriend, the dishy but fickle Greg, takes shameless advantage of her (Lucy is too good hearted to notice). Throughout two action-packed, fun-filled, disaster-strewn years, Lucy charts an erratic course among this motley crew to her very own happy ending.

This is Judith Earle's story - her solitary childhood spent in the seclusion of her riverside house, her awkward, intense experiences at Cambridge rounded with passion and disillusionment, and her travels abroad with her elegant, socialite mother. Above all, this novel is about Judith's consuming relationship with the Fyfe family, who each fall in love with Judith, transforming her young womanhood.

Honey Santana has a Plan. She's working on a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference and dinner-time telemarketers. She's also taking part-time telephonist Boyd Shreve and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress to Dismal Key for a gentle lesson in civility. What Honey doesn't...

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...

Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one. Emily is a traumatised burns victim, Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape. David Temple is a longterm depressive, while the Rt Hon Ralph Hall MP lives in terror of his drink problem being exposed. Very different...

A hilarious and romantic standalone novel from the bestselling author of the I Heart series, Rachel Summers loves a to-do list: Boyfriend – Flat - Great job. NOT on the list: Being dumped - Best friends Emelie and Matthew ride to her rescue with an entirely new kind of list – The Single Girl’s To-Do List.

Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings...

The revelatory thriller from the much-admired and million copy-selling journalist. Government minister Patrick Macready has been found dead in his flat. The coroner rules it an accident, a sex game gone wrong. Jon Swift is from the old stock of journos - cynical, cantankerous and overweight -...

Glorious short stories from international bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, in a collection written especially for World Book Day There are times when ladies must use all their wisdom and good sense to face life's problems and mysteries. Mma Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies' Detective...

The extraordinary new novel from the Orange Prize winning author of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’. What do you pack for the rest of your life? Shepherd Knacker is bored with his humdrum existence. He's sold his successful handy-man business for a million dollars and is now ready to embark on...

Set in the extreme landscape of Alaska, The Quality of Silence follows the story of Yasmin and her deaf daughter, Ruby. Yasmin arrives in Alaska to be told her husband, Matt, is dead, the victim of a catastrophic accident. Yasmin, unable to accept this as truth, sets out into the frozen winter landscape, taking Ruby with her, in search of answers. But as a storm closes in, Yasmin realises that a very human danger may be keeping pace with them.

The worst has happened. On the eve of their return to Blighty, Brigg and his fellow National Servicemen find themselves sentenced to another six months in Panglin Barracks. Many of the surviving characters from The Virgin Soldiers live again in these pages: dogged Tasker, the odious Sergeant Wellbeloved, the vulnerable Colonel Bromley Pickering and the comically touching Juicy Lucy.

Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all.

The novel is set in Varanasi. Chetan Bhagat initiates the story through the central character of Gopal. It is through Gopal's narration of his life to the author that we are introduced to Raghav and Aarti. The story revolves around these three characters. While Gopal comes from a poor family, Raghav comes from a well-off family. Both set out to achieve success and realise their dreams.

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible...

It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why, before the police do.

God vergewe ons baie, maar God vergewe ons nie die kwaad wat ons ´n kind aandoen nie. Aan die een kant van die berg, in die Lange Kloof, woon Fiela Komoetie, verknog aan haar hanskind - deur die Here aan haar 'toebetrou' een nag toe sy hom as driejarige gekry het waar hy voor haar deur staan en huil, ´n weggooilam. Aan die ander kant van die berg, in die Bos, woon die houtkapper Elias van Rooyen en sy vrou Barta, wie se driejarige kind weggeraak het. Die een kind is Benjamin Komoetie, die ander Lukas van Rooyen.

FROM THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord father has died in a road accident, and his mother is succumbing to the greasy charms of her dead husband's brother, Uncle Alan. The remaining certainties of Philip's life crumble...