Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

It is summer in Edinburgh, and Isabel Dalhousie is once again caught between ‘gossip’ and significant rumour. It is none of her business that Patricia, the mother of her son Charlie’s little friend Basil, is estranged from Basil’s father or that the woman has a somewhat brazen attitude to childcare. And yet, it is curious. Isabel, however, has much else on her mind as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. Along with the work involved for its impending next issue, she really needs to get her house in order and tend to the demands of her niece, Cat.

Anna Cole grew up poor, but her mother's love made her feel rich every day. Then her mother died, and Anna was sent to a care home. As a teenager, Anna vowed that one day she would have children of her own and create the happy, noisy family life she always craved. Then, one day, Anna meets Theo Montgomery in a lift. Theo has kind eyes but a sad past. His family were rich, but his childhood was full of neglect. Theo can't imagine bringing a child into this cruel world, but he does want a soul mate. Someone to love him unconditionally; someone with whom he can share his family's wealth.

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...

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret - a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder. Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe...

The Hypnotist's Love Story is about the mild craziness that lurks behind the facades we present to the world, especially when it comes to love. Ellen O'Farrell is an expert when it comes to human frailties. She's a hypnotherapist who helps her clients deal with everything from addictions to life-long phobias. So when she falls in love with a man who is being stalked by his ex-girlfriend she's more intrigued than frightened.

Les thought that playing minder to Peregrine Normanhurst III sounded like a dead-set snack: Les would keep Peregrine out of trouble. So what if he was on the run from the IRA? They’d never follow him to Australia… But Les quickly finds himself thrust into an adventure that moves at breakneck speed from the corridors of power in Canberra to the grimy tenements of Belfast, to climax in a nerve-shattering, blood-spattered shoot out on a survivalist fortress in the Tweed Valley.

Douglas Petersen’s family is on the brink of dissolution. His marriage of twenty-one years to Connie is almost over. When autumn comes around, their son Albie will leave for college. Connie has decided to leave soon after. But before everything falls apart, there's still the summer holidays to get through - a Grand Tour of Europe's major cities - and over the course of the journey, Douglas devises a plan to win back the love of his wife and repair his troubled relationship with his son.

Den vackra, föräldralösa Millie får en enkel och kärleksfull uppfostran av den barska men godhjärtade lumphandlerskan Agnes "Tras-Aggie" Winkowski. Möjligheten att jobba som barnflicka på en herrgård gör att Millie kan bidra till uppehället, tills en dramatisk och skrämmande händelse förändrar allt. Catherine Cookson föddes 1906 i South Shields och dog 1998 i Newcastle-upon-Tyne. "Kate Hannigan", hennes första roman, utkom 1949.

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says.

Award-winning Japanese author and poet Mieko Kawakami brings Ashes of Spring, a collection of short stories set in everyday life in Japan just before the pandemic lockdown.

Even down to its well-set Georgian townhouses, Edinburgh is a hymn to measure and harmony. But on Scotland Street, domestic accord is in short supply. Matthew and Elspeth welcome three new arrivals, though the joys of multiple parenthood are somewhat lost due to sleep deprivation and the difficulties of telling their brood apart. Angus and Domenica are to marry, and Domenica has ambitious and disturbing plans for their living arrangements, especially when it appears that Antonia, in Italy recuperating from Stendhal Syndrome, may not return.

'BRILLIANT . . . GLORIOUSLY VIVID' GUARDIAN 'DISARMINGLY HILARIOUS' SUNDAY TIMES 'ROLLICKING . . . CAUSTIC, WITHERING AND GENUINELY FUNNY' INDEPENDENT 'FUNNY AND TRAGIC' TLS 'SUCH AN ENTERTAINING READ' DAILY MAIL 'BOISTEROUS' NEW YORK TIMES 'A COMEDY ABOUT TRAGEDY. BRUTAL, PROFOUND AND VERY...

Rumour has it that notorious pirate Anne Bonny hid her treasure somewhere in Charleston in 1720. No-one knows where, but Tory Brennan - great-niece of famous forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan - is certain that the Virals can work out Bonny's cryptic clues. A deadly pathIt isn't long before the Virals are on the right track. But they aren't the only ones searching for the treasure. Someone is following them, and will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.

'A big, bustling novel about love, friendship, money, ambition and the 21st century, packed with humour and intelligent observations ... I finished it tear-stained' Sunday Times 'Will have you hooked ... an ode to the enduring power of male friendship' The Times Best Summer Books For the first...

It’s 2:15 a.m., and you’re in bed alone and you’re woken by the phone.Your eyes are wide and your body tense before it has completed so much as a single ring. And as you wake, in the tiny moment between sleep and consciousness, you know already that something is wrong.Only someone bad would call at such an hour. Or someone good, but with bad news, which would probably be worse.You lie there in the darkness and wait for the answer machine to kick in.

Traumatised by an accident that involves something falling from the sky and leaving him eight-and-a-half million pounds richer, our hero spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting memories and situations from his past. But, when this fails to quench his thirst for authenticity, he starts reconstructing more and more violent events, including hold-ups and shoot-outs.

"Sackville imbues this character-driven historical drama with warmth, comfort, and a sense of optimism, especially during the story's darkest moments." —AudioFile Magazine William di Canzio’s Alec, inspired by Maurice, E. M. Forster’s secret novel of a happy same-sex love affair, tells the...

Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger star in a new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Dodie Smith's enduringly popular coming-of-age novel In the 1930s, seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain lives in a crumbling ruin of a castle in the Suffolk countryside. Her father, an author wrestling with...

A NEW YEAR AT RAGLEY-ON-THE-FOREST SCHOOL... It's 1981, the time of Adam and the Ants, Rubik's Cube, the Sony Walkman and the Falklands War, as head teacher Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley-on-the-Forest School for another rollercoaster year. Vera, the ever-efficient chool secretary, has to...

The irrepressible Russell "Buffy" Buffery has upped sticks from London and moved to Knockton, Powys, to a B&B inherited from an old flame. With his future spread before him, and a string of failed marriages behind him, Buffy decides it's time for a new challenge. Meanwhile: Harold's wife has run off with a younger woman leaving him alone with his as-yet-unwritten novel narrated by Mary Pickford's cat; Amy's weedy boyfriend has turned out to be not so needy after all; and Andy's partner's corset-and-suspender-clad attempts at seduction are having anything but the desired effect.