Contemporary Fiction

Post-colonial Africa is dissected with pitiless lucidity in this disturbing novel about an outsider, the young Indian trader, Salim, who has moved from the coastal settlement where he grew up to an unnamed country in the African interior (largely based on the Democratic Republic of Congo), settling on that very bend in the river where Conrad had set his Heart of Darkness some seventy years before. Salim enters a ghost town, once a flourishing European outpost, which is fast returning to the bush. A new dictator 'the Big Man' is about to impose his regime with the assistance of Raymond, 'The Big Man's White Man', whose humanitarian concerns have won him international acclaim, but whose plans for the country's future are arrogant and delusional. Salim becomes obsessed by Raymond's wife, Yvette, and begins and affair with her. Personal and political tragedy follow, civil war returns, and Salim, contemplating the disastrous course of his life since leaving home, speaks for the powerlessness of ordinary people everywhere in the face of historical upheaval: 'I couldn't protect anyone [and] no one could protect me... we could only in various ways hide from the truth... One tide of history has brought us here ... Another tide of history was coming to wash us away.'.

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Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, THE WHITE HOTEL is a modern classic of searing eroticism and sensuality set against the broad sweep of twentieth-century history.Now a BBC radio play starring Anne-Marie Duff and Bill Paterson, dramatised by Dennis Potter.'A novel of blazing imaginative and intellectual force' Salman Rushdie It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud. It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a searing vision of the wounds of our century and an attempt to heal them. Interweaving poetry and case history, fantasy and historical truth-telling, THE WHITE HOTEL is a modern classic of enduring emotional power that attempts nothing less than to reconcile the notion of individual destiny with that of historical fate.'A remarkable and original novel . . . there is no novel to my knowledge which resembles this in technique or ideas. It stands alone' Graham Greene'Astonishing . . . A forthright sensuality mixed with a fine historical feeling for the nightmare moments in modern history, a dreamlike fluidity and quickness' John Updike'I quickly came to feel that I had found that book, that mythical book, that would explain us to ourselves' Leslie Epstein, New York Times

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AFTER YOU'D GONE is the groundbreaking debut novel from the Costa-Award winning Maggie O'Farrell, author of HAMNET and I AM, I AM, I AM. It is a stunning, best-selling novel of wrenching love and grief.A distraught young woman boards a train at King's Cross to return to her family in Scotland. Six hours later, she catches sight of something so terrible in a mirror at Waverley Station that she gets on the next train back to London.AFTER YOU'D GONE follows Alice's mental journey through her own past, after a traffic accident has left her in a coma. A love story that is also a story of absence, and of how our choices can reverberate through the generations, it slowly draws us closer to a dark secret at a family's heart.

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How to Blow His Mind in Bed' is written by 'Men's Health' magazine's resident sexpert, Siski Green. In her refreshingly honest new book, she will debunk the myth that a man only cares about his own orgasm, and give the inside knowledge on what they really want in the bedroom. Siski has had unrivalled access to the innermost thoughts of men through her work, and has a unique insight into their worries, desires and needs. But she has also dealt with many women's queries from the 'Men's Health' website, so she understands exactly what they really want to know about how men think. HOW TO BLOW HIS MIND IN BED will offer women inside knowledge on how to make a man excited, what his erogenous zones are, his feelings and concerns, and improving his orgasms and your techniques. It is a must-read for every woman who wants to improve and enhance what they already know, to have even better sex.

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A World ApartKadra is a warrior - a demon slayer from another world. With her highly tuned senses and Amazonian physique she was born to fight, and lives only to protect her people. That is her duty - something she accepts without question, just as she accepts she will always be alone. But when the king of Demons escapes through a mysterious portal, Kadra must follow - and finds herself in modern day New York. This strange and dangerous city is a baffling place, even for a warrior like Kadra. And when she meets Harper Doyle, the handsome and sceptical private investigator destined to help her, things become very complicated. And exciting . . . The Witching HourA kingdom is plagued by tragedy until a wizard-god's spell brings forth a courageous and beautiful young woman who must follow her heart in love and follow her destiny in battle . . .

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The narrator of this novel begins by introducing himself not as a speaker but a listener, spellbound by his friend Caracala's yarns, which blend accounts of youthful mischief with casual references to Cervantes and Laurence Sterne. At first, the spotlight is entirely on Caracala, but the narrator soon begins to distrust his friend, concluding that Caracala is no more than a sham: a performer. Yet the reader will in turn come to doubt the narrator's own pretensions to honesty, until every source of information has become so unreliable as to make the very notion of a "true story" seem like blatant propaganda.

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At some point, maybe twenty minutes after he'd begun refreshing Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Gmail in a continuous cycle - with an ongoing, affectless, humorless realisation that his day 'was over' - he noticed with confusion, having thought it was early morning, that it was 4:46PMTaipei is an ode - or lament - to the way we live now. Following Paul from New York, where he comically navigates Manhattan's art and literary scenes, to Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his family's roots, we see one relationship fail, while another is born on the internet and blooms into an unexpected wedding in Las Vegas.From one of this generation's most talked-about and enigmatic writers comes a deeply personal and uncompromising novel about memory, love, and what it means to be alive.

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Treat yourself to this charming, feel-good story from Sunday Times bestseller Veronica Henry!A new home, a new circle of friends, a new chance at happiness? Suzanna and Barney Blake are swapping city life for the countryside, determined to breathe new life into the Honeycote Arms and a marriage touched by tragedy.Recently separated Ginny Tait is also seeking solace in country living, desperate to rein in her rambunctious twin daughters.They all think that moving to a calm, quiet and beautiful village in the Cotswolds will solve their problems. But in Honeycote, things are never quite as they seem . . .Irresistibly good fun and bursting with heart, A Country Life is the second book in the Honeycote series, which includes A Country Life and A Country Wedding. It can be read on its own or as part of the series.** This book was originally published as 'Making Hay' **Your favourite authors love Veronica Henry!'A blissful escape' SARAH MORGAN'The most uplifting getaway' LUCY DIAMOND'Veronica Henry writes like a dream' JILL MANSELL'Irresistibly romantic. I adored it' PHILLIPA ASHLEY'A delicious, dreamy, joy of a book' LIBBY PAGE'The perfect weekend read' FANNY BLAKE

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Samuel Johnson is not in a happy place. He is dating the wrong girl, demons are occupying his spare room, and the town in which he lives appears to be cursed.But there is some good news on the horizon. After years of neglect, the grand old building that once housed Wreckit & Sons is about to reopen as the greatest toyshop that Biddlecombe has ever seen, and Samuel and his faithful dachshund Boswell are to be guests of honour at the big event. A splendid time will be had by all, as long as they can ignore the sinister statue that keeps moving around the town, the Shadows that are slowly blocking out the stars, the murderous Christmas elves, and the fact that somewhere in Biddlecombe a rotten black heart is beating a rhythm of revenge.A trap has been set. The Earth is doomed. The last hope for humanity lies with one young boy and the girl who's secretly in love with him. Oh, and a dog, two demons, four dwarfs and a very polite monster.

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Mark Chadwick is cycling home, eager to get back to his family, when he sees the police calling at his house. Mark cycles on — he knows why they’re there. The secrets he has buried for twenty years are coming to confront him. Unless he can stay out of sight long enough to persuade his former lover to retract her confession to murder, Mark is going away for a very long time.

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WINNER OF THE 9MOBILE PRIZE FOR LITERATURESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WELLCOME BOOK PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZEYejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me is a story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the power of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves, and those we love, from heartbreak.

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By the bestselling author of Black Narcissus and The Battle of the Villa Fiorita'The River will make you laugh, make you cry and, in its way, change you forever' JULIE MYERSON'Her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty' NEW YORK TIMES'Bold, beautiful . . . everyone's appetites will be satisfied' ELLEThe River is Rumer Godden's beautiful tribute to India and childhood, made into a film by Jean Renoir. And in a preface for this novel she explains how the classic tale came to be written.Harriet is caught between two worlds: her older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal - is about to be shattered by a tragic event.Intense, vivid, and with a dark undertow, The River is a poignant portrait of the loss of a young girl's innocence.Available with Virago Modern Classics.

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From international supermodel and actress Cara Delevingne comes a powerful debut novel about friendship, identity and the fact that appearances can be deceiving...*****'Impressive, with an absolute knockout twist' Cosmopolitan'A riveting page-turner of a thriller...a book with dark passion and heart' The Herald'May well become the most influentialthing Delevingne has ever done' The Edit'With dark twists and turns, this is a great read' Closer'Smart, twisty, poignant and engaging' **** Heat'Bold, brave and fierce...[Delevingne's] ability to empathise with some of the deeper struggles youngsters face is impressive' Independent'A fizzing coming-of-age tale with dark themes' Glamour'Captures the rhythms and textures of teenage lives' Metro'A great read' Bella'Engaging' Daily Telegraph*****FRIEND. LOVER. VICTIM. TRAITOR. WHEN YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR, WHAT DO YOU SEE? Sixteen-year-old friends Red, Leo, Rose, and Naomi are misfits; still figuring out who they are and who they want to be. Life isn't perfect, but music unites them, and they're excited about what the future holds for their band, Mirror, Mirror. That is until Naomi vanishes before being pulled unconscious out of the river.She's left fighting for her life in a coma. The police claim it was a failed suicide attempt, but her friends aren't convinced. Will Naomi ever wake? What -­ or perhaps who - led her to that hospital bed? How did her friends fail to spot the warning signs?While Rose turns to wild partying and Leo is shrouded by black moods, Red sets out to uncover the truth. It's a journey that will cause Red's world to crack, exposing the group's darkest secrets. Nothing will ever be the same again, because once a mirror is shattered, it can't be fixed. Cara Delevingne, the voice of her generation, explores identity, friendship and betrayal in this gripping and powerful coming-of-age story. For fans of WE WERE LIARS, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY and THE GIRLS. * * * * * What readers have to say about Mirror Mirror: 'Super twisty - read this in one night.' Amazon'Loved this - read the whole thing in one day! Amazon'Loved this book - such a gripping read with an amazing twist I did not see coming.' Amazon

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The titles of the first story in this collection – 'Jeeves Takes Charge' – and the last – 'Bertie Changes His Mind' – sum up the relationship of twentieth-century fiction's most famous comic characters. In between them, the various feeble-minded men and lively young women who populate Wooster's world appeal to Jeeves to solve their problems and are never disappointed.

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"Zanna Sloniowska writes beautifully; with empathy, sensitivity, and with real political impact . . . an important new voice in Polish literature" OLGA TOKARCZUK, Nobel Prize-winning author of Flights"Remarkable, a gripping, Lvivian evocation of a city and a family across a long and painful century . . . A novel of life and survival across the ages" PHILIPPE SANDS, author of East West StreetAmid the turbulence of 20th century Lviv, meet four generations of women from the same fractious family, living beneath one roof and each striving to find their way across the decades of upheaval in an ever-shifting city. First there is Great-Granma, tiny and terrifying, shaped by a life of exile, hardship and doomed love, now fighting to keep her iron grip on the lives of her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Then there is Aba, arthritic but devoted; cowed and despised by her mother, her one chance of happiness thwarted and her hopes of studying painting crushed. Thirdly, Marianna, the brilliant opera star: bold, beautiful and a fearless crusader for Ukrainian independence, who is shot during a demonstration and whose life and martyrdom casts a shadow upon the young life of the fourth and final woman, her daughter.More important even than these four women though is the character of the city of Lviv (or Lwów, or Lvov, depending on the point in history). A city of markets and monuments, streets and spires, where history and the present collide, civilisations clash and stories rise up on every corner. Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

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'Though their house was new, the wall had been there a long time.'In these two stories, which have never before been translated into English, Tsushima shows how memories, dreams and fleeting images describe the borders of our lives.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Set against the rolling backdrop of a century of British history from WWI to the 'War on Terror', this is an intimate family portrait captured in snapshots. First there is William, the factory lad who loses his life in Gallipoli, then his son Billy, a champion cyclist who survives the D-Day Landings on a military bicycle, followed by his crippled son Will who becomes an Oxford academic in the 1960s, and finally his daughter Billie, an artist in contemporary London. Just as the names - William, Billy, Will, Billie - echo down through the family, so too the legacy of choices made, chances lost, and secrets kept. Rich in drama and sensuous in detail, The Picture Book is a beautifully crafted story about parents and children, about fate and repetition, and about the possibility of breaking free.

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Amman, Jordan. As an ambitious digitization project gathers pace in a vast building outside Amman, some unpublished writings by Giordano Bruno – flawed genius of the late Renaissance, renegade philosopher, occultist with a prodigious memory – disappear together with the Jesuit priest sent by the Vatican to study them. When the priest is found dead and a series of mysterious threats ensues, it becomes clear that the stakes are high for all the parties openly or covertly involved. What dangerous ideas were contained in the stolen manuscript? What was the ultimate secret that Bruno tried to hide, even as he was persecuted, imprisoned and tortured by the Holy Inquisition? In this riveting, meticulously researched new novel, Alessandro Gallenzi draws on his experience as a publisher in the digital era and casts a light on the darker side of our modern technological world, while revealing how a well-kept secret can change the course of history for ever.

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For Claire Roth, an established psychotherapist with an adoring husband and children, her new patient - Jody Goodman, a witty and attractive young filmmaker - is a welcome diversion from her predictable life. Jody, successful, yet uncertain, is disarmed by Claire's interest and approval. Gradually, the boundaries between friendship and family, between love and compulsion, start to blur - especially when one of them starts to believe fanatically that some things simply cannot be coincidences, and that what they share, in fact, is the deepest bond of all. In a Country of Mothers is a transfixing psychological thriller, and with it A.M. Homes forces us to confront our own judgements about sanity, danger and desire.

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Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going' GILLIAN FLYNN''Delightfully disturbing'' iNEWS''A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare'' FINANCIAL TIMESFrom one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women's asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world.In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, Father of Gyno-Psychiatry, as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the statewomen he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century s

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Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma investigates complex case of a man murdered in a holiday cottage, while Sævar discovers something in a discarded box that could help crack the case. The multi-award-winning, NUMBER ONE bestselling Forbidden Iceland series continues…  ‘She uses complex plots to explore how monsters are made and demonstrate that “evil can lurk behind the most attractive of smiles”. Her many characters are people not puppets and she delights in pulling the rug from under their –and our – feet. If you have never read Aegisdottir, now is the time to start’ Mark Sanderson, The Times   ‘Meticulously plotted, this beautifully written novel has it all: a shocking murder, small-town secrets, a cast of suspicious characters and a compelling female detective … Eva Björg Aegisdóttir at her best’ Lesley Kara  

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''Vividly conjures the excitement of Paris'' RUTH HOGAN, bestselling author of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS''Beguiling'' TimesCan she escape the darkness of her past in the City of Light?It''s 1959 and time for eighteen-year-old Sophie''s real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds diversion and excitement in a love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands. She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will be her chance to discover more about her family background, and, perhaps, to find a place where she can finally belong.When Sophie eventually arrives in the Paris arising from the ashes of the war, it

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Writers talk about literature on the Singapore River. Distinct and displaced pasts meet. Individual encounters with a revolutionary ballet carry a generation’s lost youth and unspoken tragedy. Laureate of innumerable literary prizes, Jiang Yun leaves no reader indifferent. Annelise Finegan teaches at the NYU. Her translations have been nominated for the International Booker Prize and won the Best Translated Book Award. Mingyuan Hu is an historian; she translates French, English and Chinese literatures.

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'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.My name is Kvothe.You may have heard of me'So begins the tale of Kvothe - currently known as Kote, the unassuming innkeepter - from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, through his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe the notorious magician, the accomplished thief, the masterful musician, the dragon-slayer, the legend-hunter, the lover, the thief and the infamous assassin.The Name of the Wind is fantasy at its very best, and an astounding must-read coming-of-age adventure.

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A sweeping novel of families and secrets, for fans of Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Jane Howard and Sorrow and Bliss ''A multi-layered family drama that sings with emotion'' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING''A smart yet tender page-turner'' ERIN KELLYMary has raised a family in this house. She''s watched her daughters play and laugh and bicker in its rooms. And now, on a late summer''s day, she''s getting married here . . . and has summoned her fractured family to celebrate.In the place that''s been a sanctuary for some and a battleground for others, the long-awaited reunion unfolds. But as each guest''s memories, secrets and tensions rise to the surface, can the festivities help mend broken bonds and heal bruised hearts, or are some things impossible to forgive - even when it''s family?''Immersive and beautifully written'' RED''Intriguing, gripping, moving'' MARIAN KEYES''Unfo

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In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of family and the battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great-grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on. Aliss at the Fire, is a visionary masterpiece, a haunting exploration of love and loss that ranks among the greatest meditations on marriage and human fate.

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A stunning new edition of the second novel in the bestselling Bone Season series with gorgeous new cover artwork and updated text, by the bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.Paige Mahoney has escaped the secret prison city of Oxford. Now a fugitive in London, she nurtures a new taste for revolution. Oxford may be behind her, but the Republic of Scion is undefeated. As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on Paige, she is forced to return to Jaxon Hall, her charismatic and brutal employer, to keep her foothold in the underworld. But Paige will bow to only one now, and not even Jaxon will stop her exposing the corruption in the syndicate. As she plots to with the fabled Rose Crown, both sides of an ancient conflict seek her talents for themselves.

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'Unquestionably the most significant Spanish writer of his generation ... Your Face Tomorrow is rich, haunting, intriguing' Observer'This trilogy must be one of the greatest novels of our age' Antony Beevor'Fear is the greatest force that exists, as long as you can adapt to it'Jacques Deza has been recruited into an undercover spy network by the inscrutable Bertram Tupra. But when he is forced to witness an act of horrifying brutality in a night-club, he finds himself falling apart, haunted by his own memories of the bloodshed of the Spanish Civil War. As Deza tries to disentangle himself from an increasingly disturbing world, the second volume in Javier Marias' magnificent trilogy explores violence, corruption and what we are capable of.Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2018'In evocative and elegant prose Cocozza delves deep into the psyche of a strange and troubled woman. The reader is invited to share in her intense connection to a fox and will admire the author’s mordantly witty dissection of contemporary manners.' -Sarah Perry, chair of Judges for Desmond Elliott PrizeYou’ve seen a fox. Come face to face in an unexpected place, or at an unexpected moment.And he has looked at you, as you have looked at him. As if he has something to tell you, or you have something to tell him.But what if it didn’t stop there? When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention and every hair bristling with his power to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts), and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Mary, Mary listens back. She begins to hear herself for the first time in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on the fringes of her life, would be appalled. So would the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor. But inside Mary a wildness is growing that will not be tamed. In this extraordinary debut, the lines between sanity and safety, obsession and delusion blur, in a thrilling exploration of what makes us human.__________________________________'An intriguing and subversive debut, charged with the power of the ignored and the suppressed.' HILARY MANTEL'Enchanting . . . restrained . . . startling.' TLS'A thrilling psychodrama . . . She brilliantly captures a sense of Hitchcockian, curtain-twitching intensity.' Economist‘Sharp, thoughtful . . . exhilarating . . . the plot slips from urban pastoral to tense thriller.’ Newsweek 'Cocozza has a wonderful eye for detail, and her descriptions of the natural world are uncanny.' Guardian'The tricky, shifting substance of relationships is so insightfully drawn and constantly surprises.' Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us'Taut, shimmering.' Richard Beard, author of The Acts of the Assassins

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An epic, spellbinding novel of rebellion, redemption,power and humanity, and of a Black community finding freedom to live an ordinary life of love and pain in America''s darkest days. A beautifully-written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom. Williams crafts an expansive, original world filled with characters who linger long after the final page Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half. In the mid-1800s, Saint, an enigmatic and powerful conjure woman, always flanked by a silent companion, travels the South annihilating plantations and liberating the enslaved by means of purposeful violence and powerful magic. She founds a town for those she has freed - and for them alone. They name the town Ours. Surrounded by an impenetrable magical border raised by Saint''s powers, Ours is invisible to the outer world and sits blissfully away from prying eyes and violent hands. Saint''s mission is to kill slavery - to scourge its damage from the minds of her charges and t

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Join an awe-inspiring journey through a world where death has stopped in the finale of James Smythe’s acclaimed Anomaly Quartet. Decades ago, a vast object called the Anomaly was discovered moving through space. Missions sent to explore it found that anyone entering the Anomaly was unable to die. It kept moving, across our solar system, until finally the Anomaly enveloped Earth. Thirty years later, on the West Coast of the US, Theo hears that his missing wife has been sighted – in London. He’s sick, and getting worse, so he sets off to find her. Theo’s quest will take him across continents, through abandoned cities and new communities, meeting with bandits, artists, and cultists, murderers and heroes and survivors. Because this is a world of humanity at its absolute worst, and at its very best. A world where everything has been irrevocably altered, yet somehow still remains the same.

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Join Dostoevsky on his tumultuous honeymoon in this hypnotic cult classic , introduced by Susan Sontag.''A wonderful work of art.'' Jon McGregor''Extraordinary in its confidence and enchantment.'' Chris Power''Addictive, dreamlike and dazzlingly unique.'' Adam Thirlwell''Luminous, melancholy and enraptured.'' Chloe AridjisWhy was I reading this book now, in a railway-carriage, beneath a wavering, flickering, electric light-bulb . . Summer, 1867: The newlywed Dostoevsky and his young wife Anna - his one-time secretary - are travelling to the German spa resort of Baden-Baden on honeymoon. Their love is ecstatic, yet the author is plagued by demons: haunted by his crimes and punishments, consumed by fevers of jealousy, gambling to avoid mounting debts and shaken by epileptic fits. Winter, 1970s: Our Jewish narrator embarks on a pilgrimage from M

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Each line of this beautifully crafted Christmas story evokes the rugged countryside that the author loves, the heartlands of the Yorkshire Dales. A moving and charming story to warm our hearts at Christmas time. Jos Robertshaw and his wife, Emily, are Yorkshire hill farmers, used to being self-sufficient in a hard and sometimes bleak landscape. On a cold and snowy night when they open the door of their self-contained world to a mysterious visitor nothing will ever be quite the same again.

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Three bears. The first, a diligent memoirist whose unlikely success forces her to flee Soviet Russia. The second, her daughter, a skilled dancer in an East Berlin circus. The third, Knut, a baby bear born and raised in Berlin Zoo at the beginning of the 21st century. Here, then, is the enchanting story of three extraordinary bears, brought to life by one of Japan's most inventive and dazzling novelists.

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The Vorrh is a vast unmapped and very mysterious jungle in Africa. No-one comes out of it in one piece. Survivors report strange, mind-bending phenomena and horrific monsters. It is rumoured that the Garden of Eden still exists somewhere in the middle of it. In The Erstwhile it transpires that some angels have escaped Eden and the Vorrh and are living in hiding in London, some in disguise as lunatics in Bedlam. It's also revealed that William Blake, a character in these novels, is interacting with these angels. Good and evil angels and humans, including William Blake, are heading towards a final, Miltonic apocalyptic battle for the soul of humanity.The Erstwhile is the second book in the Vorrh trilogy.

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'Compulsively readable' New York Times'Utterly original' Alberto ManguelIn the small and the insignificant - that's where life hides, that's where it builds its nest.Our unnamed narrator is not well. He suffers from attacks of 'pathological empathy', which cause him to wander unbidden into other people's memories. He moves from recollection to recollection - from a Bulgarian country fair in 1925, where he meets a Minotaur, to inside the mind of a slug, as it is swallowed by his own Grandfather.Part family history, part coming-of-age story, part meditation on life in Communist Europe, The Physics of Sorrow is a dazzlingly inventive, mind-expanding novel from one of Europe's most important writers.TRANSLATED FROM THE BULGARIAN BY ANGELA RODEL

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THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLERA GUARDIAN SUMMER READIn Barcelona, we meet a cast of characters who live turbulent inner lives. In a Spanish hotel room a marriage unravels as a young wife is haunted by a past love. A father travels to Paris to meet his scientist son and is exposed to his son''s true nature. A woman attends a reading by a famous author and comes to some painful realisations about her own marriage.The stories in Barcelona reveal the underlying disquiet of modern life and the sometimes brutal nature of humanity. Whether on city streets, long car journeys or in suburban rooms, we glimpse characters as they approach those moments of desperation - or revelation - that change or reshape fate.

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Clover Brooks has forgotten how to live. It might be because she spends her time caring for people in their final days, working as a death doula in New York City.Or it might be because she has a regret of her own - one she can''t bring herself to let go of.But then she meets Claudia: a feisty old woman who has one last wish . . .As Clover begins a new adventure, will she remember how to live her own big, beautiful life?A big-hearted story about figuring out what you want from life - and then finding the courage to go after it. Perfect for fans of Sally Page, Ruth Hogan and Clare Pooley.-----Readers are loving The Collected Regrets of Clover ... ''A beautiful, uplifting novel about unexpected friendship, a decades-old love story, and finding the courage to live your best life'' LUCY DIAMOND''I fell in love with Clover, longed for her world to open up and cheered when she

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Sarah and Frank Malloy are back in thislatestgripping installment inthebestselling Gaslight Mysteries.

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Most Anticipated by Parade · Buzzfeed · Harper’s Bazaar · Elle · She Reads · The Seattle Times · BookRiot and more!A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction…literally, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Year Slip and The Dead Romantics.Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel…Bec

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