Showing titles in Literary Fiction

Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself.

Kenneth Trachtenberg, an eccentric and witty native of Paris, travels to the Midwest to spend time with his famous American uncle, a world-renowned botanist and self-described "plant visionary". After numerous affairs and failed relationships, the restless Uncle Benn seeks a settled existence in the form of marriage - but tying the knot again opens the door to a host of new torments.

From 1501 to 1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome 50-year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-20s, desperate to make a name for himself. Michelangelo is a virtual unknown when he returns to Florence and wins the commission to carve what will become one of the most famous sculptures of all time: David.

On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived. The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: Cabin fever sets in, and the mist can be beguiling too. Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: He will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town - soon.

This comprehensive novel consists of three subplots which interlink to form the whole and supply a trio of targets at which Trollope aims his proselytising pen. The first treats on the courtship of a woman by a man whom she does not love and with whom she is not compatible. Mary Lowther will not accept such a marriage of dishonesty. The second deals with the plight of a young woman who has fallen prey to the wiles of an evil seducer and subsequently adopts a life of prostitution.

Oprah's latest book club selection! New York Times Best Seller At 40, Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear: by the schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER This "powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author and a new introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. “A masterwork...

It is 1919 shortly after the termination of the 1st European holocaust. Henry Earlforward, a middle aged North London Bookseller, courts and marries Violet Arb, a widow who has inherited the confectioners shop opposite his own premises in Riceyman Square. Henry and Violet engage the services of Elsie as ‘charwoman’.

After fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment, merchant sailor Edmond Dantès escapes his grim island fortress. With the promises of youth erased and his betrothed now married to someone else, Dantès lives for one purpose: revenge.

Biddy Weir is a quirky girl. Abandoned by her mother as a baby, and with a father who's not quite equipped for the challenges of modern parenting, Biddy lives in her own little world, happy to pass her time painting by the sea and watching the birds go by. That is, until she meets Alison Flemming. Because there are a few things about Biddy that aren't normal, you see. And Alison isn't afraid to point them out to the world. All of a sudden, Biddy's quiet life is thrown into turmoil. If only there was someone to convince her that, actually, everyone's a little bit weird....

"Je m'appelle Renée, j'ai cinquante-quatre ans et je suis la concierge du 7 rue de Grenelle, un immeuble bourgeois. Je suis veuve, petite, laide, grassouillette, j'ai des oignons aux pieds et, à en croire certains matins auto-incommodants, une haleine de mammouth. Mais surtout, je suis si conforme à l'image que l'on se fait des concierges qu'il ne viendrait à l'idée de personne que je suis plus lettrée que tous ces riches suffisants. Je m'appelle Paloma, j'ai douze ans, j'habite au 7 rue de Grenelle dans un appartement de riches."

Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home—and Josie loves it. Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling—with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place.

One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl.

There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins. There is no warning. No chance to prepare. They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed.

The eighth Logan McRae novel in the No.1 bestselling crime series from Stuart MacBride. Every murder tells a story. But not every victim tells the truth. ‘A terrific writer … McRae is a delight’ The Times Sticks and stones may break your bones… The first body is chained to a stake...

Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.

"I am always with you. I will always be here." This was the promise Ella’s mother betrayed thirty years ago when she walked into the sea, leaving her five-year-old daughter alone in the world. Ella’s been angry ever since, building up a wall to protect herself. But that all changes the day she opens a newspaper and finds those ten little words printed in a classified ad. Ella refuses to believe her mother could still be alive - that would mean she did want to live, just not with her daughter. So she throws herself into finding out exactly what happened all those years ago.

After more than two years on the bestseller lists, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel of enormous contemporary relevance. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years—from the Soviet...

A BBC radio collection of full-cast dramatisations, bringing together Edith Wharton’s most popular and best-loved works.

Joseph Conrad's searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever taken. Quite simply the scariest book ever written, this is a searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever undertaken - to the heart of a geographical and psychological wilderness from which no-one returns unscarred. For this isn't simply a journey up an uncharted river into a geographical wilderness; rather, it's a trip deep into our collective subconscious.