Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Scatterlings
Book SynopsisA BEST NEW BOOK from *Vanity Fair *The Root *Vulture *People *The Washington Post *Christian Science Monitor *Los Angeles Times *EssenceA New York Times Book Review Editor''s Choice Pick! A New Yorker Best Book of the Year!A lyrical, moving novel in the spirit of Transcendent Kingdom and A Burning—and the most awarded debut title in South Africa—that tells the story of a multiracial family when the Immorality Act is passed, revealing the story of one family’s scattered souls in the wake of history.In 1927, South Africa passes the Immorality Act, prohibiting sexual intercourse between “Europeans” (white people) and “natives” (Black people). Those who break the draconian new law face imprisonment—for men of up to five years; for women, four years.Abram and his wife Alisa have their share of marital problems, but they also have a comfortable life in South Africa with their two young girls. But then the Act is passed. Alisa is black, and their two children are now evidence of their involvement in a union that has been criminalized by the state.At first, Alisa and Abram question how they’ll be affected by the Act, but then officials start asking questions at the girls’ school, and their estate is catalogued for potential disbursement. Abram is at a loss as to how to protect his young family from the grinding machinery of the law, whose worst discriminations have until now been kept at bay by the family’s economic privilege. And with this, his hesitation, the couple’s bond is tattered.Alisa, who is Jamaican and the descendant of slaves, was adopted by a wealthy white British couple, who raised her as their child. But as she grew older and realized that the prejudices of British society made no allowance for her, she journeyed to South Africa where she met Abram. In the aftermath of the Immorality Act, she comes to a heartbreaking conclusion based on her past and collective history - and she commits her own devastating act, one that will reverberate through their entire family’s lives.Intertwining her storytelling with ritual, myth, and the heart-wrenching question of who stays and who leaves, Scatterlings marks the debut of a gifted storyteller who has become a sensation in her native South Africa—and promises to take the Western literary world by storm as well.Trade Review"Rešoketšwe Manenzhe’s writing is exquisite. In SCATTERLINGS, she breathtakingly weaves myth and impossible love with South African politics and history. This is a book to be read and reread." — Ayesha Harruna Attah, author of The Hundred Wells of Salaga and Zainab Takes New York “Elegant, mythical, heart-wrenching, and beautiful, SCATTERLINGS conveys the profound impact of racism on one South African family.” — Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, award-winning author of The Revisioners "Set in South Africa in 1927, this powerful novel chronicles the unravelling of a biracial family in the wake of the Immorality Act, which outlawed sexual relations between white and Black people. . . . Manenzhe situates this tragic tale within the broader context of the displacement and abuse of Africans caused by colonialism and the slave trade, but her achievement is to humanize the victims of that legacy, in a story that feels like an act of restoration.” — The New Yorker "With a raconteur’s rhythm, Manenzhe, a South African villager and storyteller, brings to life a painful piece of history, enriched with myths and lore." — Washington Post "In South Africa, tragedy strikes a young family - the mother Black, the father white - in this family history told on an epic scale." — Vanity Fair “Manenzhe debuts with a poetic and wrenching story of one family’s upheaval… the novel feels both grounded and timeless, as Manenzhe fuses this tragedy of South Africa’s segregationist policies with a long tradition of folklore. There’s great heft to this universal story.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Weaving myths and journal entries with expressive prose, Resoketswe Manenzhe delivers a powerful novel exploring ancestry, belonging, and home." — Christian Science Monitor "South African writer Manenzhe’s debut looks back to an especially cruel moment in history when sexual relations between Blacks and Whites were pronounced unlawful, threatening prison for the adults involved....Manenzhe’s poetic narrative, sometimes dreamy, piercing, and lyrical...is threaded with heartache and suffering as well as ancestral myth and symbolism. An elegiac view of colonial and racial injustice." — Kirkus Reviews
£10.44
HarperCollins Claiming the Princess
£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Improvisers
Book SynopsisFor fans of Nghi Vo, P. Djèlí Clark, and Alix E. Harrow: a new stand-alone set in the world of the critically acclaimed Murder and Magic series during Prohibition. The Improvisers is the tale of Velma, a barnstorming pilot and former magic bootlegger, who pursues dangerous enchanted items and a mystery that crosses the US and cuts through time—right to the heart of her family’s past and present.Velma Frye is many things. A pilot, a former bootlegger, a well-seasoned traveler, a jazz pianist…and a wielder of celestial magic. She’s also a member of the mystical Rhodes family as well as an investigator for arcane oddities for a magic rights organization, dealing with both simple and complicated cases. And when a pocket watch instigates a magical brawl after one of her flight shows, things become very complicated. In 1930s America, enchanted items are highly valuable, especially in the waning days of the magical Prohibition. As Velma digs deeper, she discovers the watch is part of a collection of dangerous artifacts manipulating people across the country—and in some cases, leading to their deaths. Something about all this is tickling Velma’s memories, and the more she discovers, the more these seemingly isolated incidents feel as if they’re building to something apocalyptic.Connecting the dots isn’t easy, though, and further complicating her work is journalist Dillon Harris. He hounds her steps, and while not actively sabotaging her investigation, he also clearly knows more than he lets on. Whether it’s his presence that she finds so vexing or his easygoing charm, that’s a mystery she isn’t interested in solving. Because someone is out there seeding cursed objects with the intent on wreaking havoc, and Velma will have to use every trick in her tool kit, including some well-placed magical improvisation, to win the day.Focusing on a new generation of the Rhodes family, The Improvisers brims with charming magic, intriguing mystery, and high-flying adventure seeking new heights.
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Starseekers
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Excavations
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£13.60
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Love and Hot Chicken
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£9.49
HarperCollins A Fire So Wild
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£13.49
Harpervia After the End
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc No Better Time
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Fourth Princess
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
HarperCollins A Song of War
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Stockholm
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Stone Home
Book Synopsis“Some fiction is both story and testimonial—a bearing witness to lessons that must not be forgotten. Haunting and elegiac, The Stone Home is fearless in its clear-eyed recounting.” — The Washington PostA hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center—a stunning work of great emotional power from the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me.In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife—a knife Eunju hasn’t seen in thirty years, and that connects her to a place she’d desperately hoped to leave behind forever.In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they’re sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation’s citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions—and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter’s love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.
£10.79
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Accomplice
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£15.38
HarperCollins Publishers Inc One Hundred Days
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc America Fantastica
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Fang SiChis First Love Paradise
Book Synopsis?A harrowing portrait of sexual violence and its thunderous reverberations. Through Jenna Tang?s incisive translation, the reader is brought along a heartbreaking and unflinching journey.??Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me?The most influential book of Taiwan?s #MeToo movement?a heartbreaking account of sexual violence and a remarkable reinvention of the trauma plot, turning the traditional Lolita narrative upside down as it explores women?s vulnerability, victimization, and the lengths they will go to survive.Thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi lives with her family in an upscale apartment complex in Taiwan, a tightknit community of strict yet doting parents and privileged children raised to be ambitious, dutiful, and virtuous. She and her neighbor Liu Yi-Ting bond over their love of learning and books, devouring classic works?Proust, Gabriel García Márquez, the very best Chinese writers. Yet, it is their lack of real-world education that makes them true kindred spirits.Si-Chi?s innocence is irresistible to Lee Guo-hua, a revered cram literature teacher and serial predator who lives in her building. When he offers to tutor the academic-minded girls for free, their parents?unaware of Lee?s true nature?happily accept. While Yi-Ting?s studies with Lee are straightforward, Si-Chi learns about things no one teaches them in school?lessons about sex and love that will change the course of her life. Confused and uncertain, Si-Chi turns to her beloved books for guidance. But literature tells her nothing honest about rape or how to cope with the trauma of abuse. For her own salvation, the young girl begins to think of her personal hell as her ?first love paradise,? where the power of love, no matter how twisted, gives her the strength to survive.One of the biggest books to come out of Taiwan in the last decade, Fang Si-Chi?s First Love Paradise is a chilling tale of grooming and its lingering trauma, and the power structures that allow it to flourish. Insightful, unsettling, emotionally raw, it is a staggering work of literature that reverberates across cultures and forces us to confront painful truths about the vulnerability and strength of women and those who use and hurt them.Translated from the Chinese by Jenna TangSponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan)
£15.29
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Fang SiChis First Love Paradise
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Saint Laurent Muse
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Unexpected Diva
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£10.44
HarperCollins April Storm
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Lay Your Body Down
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Paris Gown
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Christmas at Glitter Peak Lodge
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Storybook Ending
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£9.49
HarperCollins The Battle of the Bookshops
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Nightward
Book SynopsisSturgeon, Nebula, Locus, and Ignyte awards finalist R.S.A. Garcia’s scifantasy debut novel—the first in a duology—in which Caribbean mythology meets The Witcher, introduces a world where women warrior-magicians rule, and a child princess and her bodyguard must flee an attempted coup and evade the wave of darkness sent to kill her.For 500 years Gaiea’s Hand has stood as a ward against the Dark. The Age of Chaos is a faded memory. The Goddess has left Gailand and given her Blessing to the Queens to rule in her stead.Princess Viella of the court of Hamber is the Spirit of Gaiea, presumptive heir to the throne and budding wielder of magic. And yet she’s still a child—not yet ten years old—and a day spent evading her teachers and her dutiful bodyguard, Luka, is much more satisfying than learning about telepathy, illusions, and other spells, or obeying even her mother, the Queen.There is time enough…until there isn’t.For the night the Queen hosts the Ceremony to confirm Viella as the next Hand of Gaiea, everything changes for her—in the most horrific way imaginable: the assassination of Viella’s mother.Now Viella is Queen.Luka, despite resenting his position as royal babysitter, does not hesitate. He rushes his charge from the Court and vows to keep her safe. Yet he is unsure how to help a burgeoning Hand of Gaiea, let alone contend with his place as a man in a matriarchal world and the secret that is burning inside him.Together, they are on the run from darkness in a world where the lines between magic and technology are blurring and it’s up to a child and her protector to bring clarity and light back to the Queendom.
£11.69
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson
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£9.89
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Such a Clever Girl
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc This Much Is True
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£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Sunny
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£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Fangirl Down UK
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Tessa Bailey is the queen of rom-coms. Long may she reign!" — Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Merry Little Meet Cute “Nothing makes my heart catch fire like a Tessa Bailey book. She is all things magic and dirty talk.” — Elena Armas, New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception “Bailey writes banter and rom-com scenarios with aplomb, but for those who like their romance on the spicier side, she’s also the Michelangelo of dirty talk. She wields filth like Da Vinci does a paintbrush, and there’s a lot to be said for an author who can fill such exchanges with all the requisite heat, enthusiastic consent, and yes, even humor, of such a scenario without veering into corny territory.” — Entertainment Weekly “The tenderness, vulnerability and heat I am always guaranteed with a Tessa Bailey book are the reasons she is one of my all-time favorite authors.” — Sally Thorne “Tessa Bailey’s writing stands out in all the right sexy ways.” — Buzzfeed “Tessa Bailey writes pure magic.” — Alexis Daria
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HarperCollins Publishers Inc Clickbait
Book SynopsisWith the dark comedy and sharp observations of Monica Heisey and Dolly Alderton, a whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel about a disgraced, newly divorced journalist demoted to a “clickbait” job at a Manhattan tabloid.The first thing they tell you when you begin your training is never to become the news. Natasha has screwed up royally. Her mistake isn’t just embarrassing, it''s a breach of journalistic ethics that makes headlines and costs her a plum job reporting from London. Back in New York at thirty-five and single, divorced from a kind man she loved, she finds herself at the bottom of the media food chain—a junior reporter at a clickbait factory, rewriting sensational tabloid stories to make them just different enough to avoid lawsuits. As if her professional fall from grace weren’t bad enough, she’s taken the money she’d saved for a down payment for a home on a charming Brooklyn block with her husband, and rashly bought a boxy apartment overlooking the gray ocean in Rockaway Beach, Queens. Though seeing friends and family only serves to remind her of what she’s lost, things begin to pick up when her ex-boyfriend Zach moves back to New York and accepts her offer of a spare bedroom. The arrangement is strictly platonic, of course—for him. But Natasha can''t help but wonder whether he might be the solution to all her problems. As Natasha''s obsession with Zach grows and her involvement in increasingly dystopian churnalism deepens, her worlds threaten to collide in the most cataclysmic, extremely public way.
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Mister Hockey
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Mister Hockey gets the hat-trick with his rugged charm, steamy kisses, and one broken rule that leads to love. I’m a Hellions fan-atic, and you will be, too!” — Jennifer Ryan, New York Times bestselling author “Riley launches her Hellions Angel series with this addictively readable sports romance written with a deliciously zesty sense of humor that will have fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips cheering... the chemistry she crafts… is so red-hot that readers will need to don hockey gloves while turning the pages.” — Booklist (starred review) “Sexy, sweet, and so damn funny! Mister Hockey is the perfect beach read.” — Jennifer Blackwood, USA Today bestselling author of The Rule Book “Sexy parts hot enough to melt ice.” — Kirkus Reviews “Mister Hockey is as sexy as he is funny and sweet. And Breezy Angel is a wonderful heroine for my book-loving, fangirling heart. A perfect debut for Lia Riley’s new Hellions Angels series!” — AJ Pine, author of the Kingston Ale House series “With likeable characters who have great chemistry, Mister Hockey is fun and refreshing!” — Kelly Jamieson, USA Today Bestselling Author
£8.54
HarperCollins Witch You Would
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£15.82
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Work in Progress
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc We Came to Welcome You
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HarperCollins Publishers Inc How to Catch a Queen
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Head Coach Virgin Territory
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£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Inc How to Find a Princess
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Sakura
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.29
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Glen Affric
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£11.69
HarperCollins The Best American Short Stories 2025
£11.69
HarperCollins Thats What She Said
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Mafia Kings Sister
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Mrs. Miracle
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£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Spare
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£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Heir
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£9.49
