Contemporary Fiction Books

Book SynopsisFOUR BLONDES charts the romantic intrigues, liaisons, betrayals and victories of four modern women: a beautiful B-list model finagles rent-free summerhouses in the Hamptons from her lovers until she discovers she can get a man but can''t get what she wants; a high-powered magazine columnist''s floundering marriage to a literary journalist is thrown into crisis when her husband''s career fails to live up to her expectations; a ''Cinderella'' records her descent into paranoia in her journal as she realises she wants anybody''s life except her own; an artist and aging ''It girl'' - who fears that her time for finding a man has run out - travels to London in search of the kind of love and devotion she can''t find in Manhattan...Studded with her trademark wit and stiletto-heel-sharp insight, FOUR BLONDES is dark, true, and compulsively readable.Trade ReviewStiletto-sharp wit and dialogue ... A compulsive read. * OK MAGAZINE *Extremely funny, but it's a hard-boiled humour with a cruel edge * OBSERVER *Bushnell is a fabulous writer who captures her world in hard, glittering prose * EVE *

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Book SynopsisJane Austen''s love life- long the subject of speculation- is finally, delightfully dealt with in the title story of this collection. Many of the other stories, like ''The Sidmouth Letters,'' bring together past and present- with sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, often intensely moving results.With quiet elegance and devastating accuracy, Jane Gardam probes many and varied lives. We meet a trio of Kensington widows, mean-spirited and middle-aged, paying improbable tribute to a long exploited nanny; we await- with dread- a stranger to tea in an Engliish home; we witness the mercurial changes that take place in young love, and we watch as a bohemian, passionate past returns to tempt domestic bliss.Trade ReviewA fresh and huge delight... deliciously barbed. * GUARDIAN *The economical exactitude of her observation makes each of these eleven stories a keen pleasure. * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Brilliantly observed... moving. * THE TIMES *... combines an extraordinary vivid imagination with a felicity of expression, a hugely developed sense of the absurd, and the ability to involve a reader's emotions with her characters in a few pages. * EVENING STANDARD *She does fiction as it should be done, with confidence and insight -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie * Observer *

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Book SynopsisTHE GOLDEN AGE is the final, eponymous novel that brings to an end what Gabriel García Márquez has called ''Gore Vidal''s magnificent series of historical novels or novelised histories'', NARRATIVES OF EMPIRE. Like a latter day Anthony Trollope, Vidal masterfully balances the personal with the political, the invented with the historical fact. His heroine from Hollywood, Caroline Sanford, reappears in Washington as President Roosevelt schemes to get the USA into the war by provoking the Japanese. In the novel''s ten year span America is master of the globe, with Japan and Europe as colony and dependency under her empire. Against this backdrop there is a glittering explosion in the arts (we see the likes of Lowell, Bernstein and Tennessee Williams and witness the opening night of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE). But by 1950 and the coming of the Korean War, the Golden Age is over. For the reader who wants to be informed as well as vastly entertained about the last two hundred years of AmTrade ReviewVidal's combination of learning, wit and disdain gets into your blood. He can change the way you think * OBSERVER *This entertaining portrait of an imperial elite may well be, as Vidal intends, the version of US history that survives in the coming decades. * IRISH TIMES *Crackpot theory has seldom been so suavely and entertainingly put across. * NEW STATESMAN *Vidal's satiric thrusts are enormous fun. * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Wonderfully compelling. It is serious and entertaining. It rings diamond-true. It is a novel for grown-ups; and that is something very rare in contemporary fiction * SCOTSMAN *Brilliantly evokes the decade when the US believed it was the undisputed master of the universe ... imperious, well-informed and wickedly accomplished, it brings American politics to life in a way that few other modern novels can match * DAILY MAIL *Our greatest living historical novelist * ANTHONY BURGESS *Iconoclastic, yet never mere satirical caricature, this remarkable novel sequence is a melange of historical demystification ... The bold sweep of Vidal's design continues to enthral, and throughout The Golden Age, as throughout the sequence, he delights in giving the read entree to a heady variety of gatherings ... Vidal's touch in handling these set pieces and portraying the famous remains wonderfully assured * LITERARY REVIEW *There are still few novelists with the ability to so vividly imagine a scene, and even fewer who so completely understand and write about the nature of power. And anyone who wants to learn about the history of the United States will learn as much from this series of novels [Narratives of Empire] as they will from the history books * SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY *

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Book SynopsisMartin is kind, decent and good-looking. And look where it''s got him. His boyfriend of four years has run off with a male prostitute. His friends John and Caroline are no help - John prefers infamy to sympathy and Caroline is too busy trying to work out if her wonderful, sensitive boyfriend is a closet case. And to top it all, Martin''s hippie father turns up to stay, wearing his ''Proud to be an Embarrassing Parent'' badge. To escape, Martin jumps head first into hedonism, throwing himself into the gay club scene, a world of drugs and muscles, hard bodies and harder music. Meanwhile Caroline is learning that being Shameless has its price, and so does she... How long can they keep up with the lifestyle? And can they find the man of their dreams when sex has become a substitute for love, and pleasure is measured in beats per minute...?Trade ReviewA wickedly funny comedy centring around the lives and loves of Martin, a gay man who's just been dumped and his two best friends, eager to help him our but not quite sure how to go about it. * RED *A juicy QUEER AS FOLK- like read. * COMPANY *Wickedly funny. * HEAT *Straddles low and high brow, working as both a colonically challenged BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY and a coruscating expose of the drug-infested urban gay experience, so often mistaked for liberating hedonism. * THE FACE *

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Book SynopsisA man escaping from a hotel fire sees a woman standing beneath a tree. He approaches her and sets in motion a series of events that will change his life forever. Years later, travelling from New England to Florida by train, he reflects back on his obsession with this unknown and ultimately unknowable woman -- his courtship of her, his marriage to her, and the unforgivable act that ripped their family apart.Spanning three decades from 1899 to 1933, ALL HE EVER WANTED gives us a tale of marriage, betrayal and the search for redemption. It has the unmatched attention to details of character, place and emotion that have made Anita Shreve one of the world''s best-loved and bestselling novelists.

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Book Synopsis''A novel written with passion and moral outrage'' Sunday Times''Sympathetic, thought-provoking and often deeply moving'' Daily Telegraph''You can''t put this down'' Independent Rich or poor, five people, seemingly very different, find their lives in the capital connected in undreamed-of ways. Job, the illegal mini-cab driver whose wife in Zimbabwe no longer answers his letters; Ian, the idealistic supply teacher in exile from South Africa; Katie from New York, jilted and miserable as a dogsbody at a political magazine, and fifteen-year-old Anna, trafficked into sexual slavery. Polly Noble, an overworked human rights lawyer, knows better than most how easy it is to fall through the cracks into the abyss. Yet when her au pair, Iryna, disappears, Polly''s own needs and beliefs drag her family into a world of danger, deceit and terror.Riveting, humane, engaging, Hearts and Minds is a novel that is Trade ReviewA novel written with passion and moral outrage. It is a vivid portrait of a city that is at once familiar and disconcertingly strange * The Times *A novel written with passion and moral outrage. It is a vivid portrait of a city that is at once familiar and disconcertingly strange * The Times *Skilfully mixes skilled reportage (once a journalist, always a journalist) with a filmic sensibility...You can't put this novel down, even if babies are yelling and the pots are boiling over * Independent *Skilfully mixes skilled reportage (once a journalist, always a journalist) with a filmic sensibility...You can't put this novel down, even if babies are yelling and the pots are boiling over * Independent *Craig's excellence lies in her ability to underpin everything with hope and the promise of redemption...She has written a sympathetic, thought-provoking and often deeply moving account of the strange, shifting beast that is our capital * Telegraph *Craig's excellence lies in her ability to underpin everything with hope and the promise of redemption...She has written a sympathetic, thought-provoking and often deeply moving account of the strange, shifting beast that is our capital * Telegraph *She is a humane writer as well a waspish one and it is the plight of London's migrant workers and sink-school pupils with which she is primarily concerned here, and her passion and care are affecting * Observer *She is a humane writer as well a waspish one and it is the plight of London's migrant workers and sink-school pupils with which she is primarily concerned here, and her passion and care are affecting * Observer *Acutely observed, purposeful, dynamic...Perfectly conjures the capital's beautiful, broken carousel * Times Literary Supplement *Acutely observed, purposeful, dynamic...Perfectly conjures the capital's beautiful, broken carousel * Times Literary Supplement *A large kindness overarches the novel * Guardian *A large kindness overarches the novel * Guardian *Very special...ambitious, compelling and utterly gripping * Maggie O'Farrell *Very special...ambitious, compelling and utterly gripping * Maggie O'Farrell *** 'This is a novel written with passion and moral outrage. It is a vivid portrait of a city that is at once familiar and disconcertingly strange * THE TIMES Joan Smith *** 'Rich, Dickensian * SUNDAY TIMES Penny Perrick *** 'She is a humane writer as well a waspish one and it is the plight of London's migrant workers and sink-school pupils with which she is primarily concerned here, and her passion and care are affecting * OBSERVER Lisa O’Kelly *** 'There is much in HEARTS AND MINDS to praise . . . The book displays the author's relentless compassion. A large kindness overarches the novel * GUARDIAN Stevie Davies *

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Book SynopsisA visionary, a craftsman, a comedian ... He can do anything with a piece of prose, and it is a humbling experience to see him go to work on what has passed up till now as ''modern fiction''. He''s so modern he''s in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him'' ZADIE SMITHA recognised master of form and a brilliant recorder of human behaviour, David Foster Wallace has been hailed as ''the most significant writer of his generation'' (TLS). Each new book confirms and extends his genius, and this new short story collection is no exception. In the stories that make up OBLIVION, David Foster Wallace conjoins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite convolutions of self-consciousness - a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his.''Wallace''s talent is such that you can''t help wondering: how good can he get?'' TIME OUTTrade ReviewA visionary, a craftsman, a comedian ... He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him * Zadie Smith *The heir apparent to Thomas Pynchon * Douglas Kennedy, THE TIMES *David Foster Wallace comes with a high reputation to live up to, and in these superbly written stories, he does ... there is a strong element of jokiness in these tales, but it is a deadpan, cumulative humour, not satire of the stand aloof, easily mocking variety ... Here he has shown once again that his is a major and entirely distinct talent * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *With the exception of Don DeLillo, no writer better depicts the crushing effect of the information age on the soul. His strangely dignified characters fight desperately to maintain sovereignty over their inner lives against the onslaught of high technolo * Stephen Amidon, SUNDAY TIMES *

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Book SynopsisRob and Jamie are great friends from childhood. They have grown up together and become top climbers, but have since become estranged. Rob is nevertheless amazed and grief-stricken when he hears of Jamie''s death after a fall on a relatively easy Welsh rockface. The past, though, hides the secret clues behind the tragedy. Layer by layer Simon Mawer peels back what happened, going not only into the friends'' childhoods but that of their parents - who were also intimate. And there is no escaping that past - vividly imagined scenes in the London of the Blitz reveal how through two generations Rob and Jamie and their respective parents have been addicted - to desire and the heady dangers of climbing. Brilliantly structured as we move from past to present and back again, this novel will make Simon Mawer''s literary reputation.Trade ReviewWonderful and surprising. An absolute joy to read. Simon Mawer has entered the first rank of British novelists Beryl Bainbridge Simon Mawer's work is rich with a desire to see through to the core of things OBSERVER A haiku in ice ... His narrative surges with an energy that thrusts the story forward to the very last page, from which a startling new light shines on all that has gone before ECONOMIST Simon Mawer has created an exemplary model of a satisfying read NEW YORK TIMES

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Book Synopsis*A fiendishly clever, yet serious tale of middle-class frustration that will touch anyone who has ever wanted to escape their life. The Thriller goes into a new domain - The Real World.Trade ReviewThis astonishingly assured first novel, by an American working in London as a journalist, has a breathless readability that is rare...The book is more than just a compelling read: it also has poignant and moving things to say about lost opportunities and wasted lives in America, the cynical quality of sudden fame, the awfulness of willed separation from deeply loved children * Publishers Weekly, starred review *Palm-tingling sensation ... captivating ... a completely convincing imaginative performance ... enthralling * THE TIMES *THE HORSE WHISPERER recast by Patricia Highsmith ... a compulsive page-turner and a dark moral fable * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Kennedy's skill is to send you racing down the slope of sheer story * ESQUIRE *A ferociously plotted, hip and funny thriller * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *

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Book SynopsisBrilliantly accomplished and critically acclaimed novel of Nazi Germany and the plight of internees in wartime Britain by writer and comedian David Baddiel.Trade ReviewAn intriguing novel about history and truth . . . The intelligence and inquiry of this book will surprise many * THE TIMES *Wonderful . . . brilliantly realised * INDEPENDENT *It is a sombre, clever book, but, being Baddiel, is irradiated by flashes of dark humour * Sally Vickers, SPECTATOR *David Baddiel's excellent new novel . . . Sensitive, intelligent and deeply moving, THE SECRET PURPOSES is both a gripping read and a long overdue indictment of Britain's treatment of Jewish refugees * IMAGE *

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Book SynopsisThe key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain - just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have.Bruised in love by her faithless Irish husband, Isabel Dalhousie is a connoisseur of intimate moral issues: she edits a philosophical journal and spends a great deal of her time considering how to improve the lives of those around her. There is her housekeeper Grace, whose future she must secure; her niece Cat, who is embarking on a new relationship with a dubious workaholic mummy''s boy; and even an American couple newly arrived in Edinburgh on a tour. And then there is Jamie, Cat''s ex-boyfriend, a handsome, gifted musician fourteen years Isabel''s junior, with whom she is slowly and hopelessly falling in love.Intensely thoughtful and consistently entertaining, THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TO RAIN is shot through with compassion and unassuming intelligence.Trade ReviewBrimming with discreet charm * Mail on Sunday *Like [Barbara] Pym, McCall Smith believes that the small stuff in life matters * Scotsman *** 'Delightful ... McCall Smith is a writer who celebrates kindness, in short supply in the world today * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *** 'Isabel is an appealing character, always trying to work out the right thing to do, and McCall Smith presents her with a series of dilemmas. One is personal, the ethics of beginning an affair with a younger man who used to be her niece's boyfriend, and * SUNDAY TIMES *

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Book SynopsisAlexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies'' Detective Agency, has turned his hand to humour. The delightful result is a creation of comic genius. For in the unnaturally tall form of Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, we are invited to meet a memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and of Inspecteur Clouseau''s hapless gaucherie.Von Igelfeld inhabits the rarefied world of the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, a world he shares with his equally tall and equally ridiculous colleagues, Professors Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. Their unlikely adventures are described in three deliciously funny instalments: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.

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Book SynopsisI watched my father run forward in his snowshoes the way one sometimes does in dreams, unable to make the legs move fast enough. I ran to the place where he knelt. I looked down into the sleeping bag. A tiny face gazed up at me, the eyes wide despite their many folds. The baby was wrapped in a bloody towel, and its lips were blue.'' The events of a December afternoon on which a father and his daughter find an abandoned infant in the snow will forever alter eleven-year-old Nicky Dillon''s understanding of the world which she is about to enter and the adults who inhabit it: a father who has taken great pains to remove himself from society in order to put behind him an unthinkable tragedy; a young woman who must live with the consequences of the terrible choices she has made; and a detective whose cleverness is superseded only by his sense of justice. Written from the point of view of thirty-year-old Nicky as she recalls the vivid images of that fateful December, hers is a tale of love and courage, of tragedy and redemption, and of the ways in which the human heart always seeks to heal itself.

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Book SynopsisA thrilling page-turner involving downsizing, blackmail and murder in the Manhattan business world.Trade ReviewA furiously paced, compulsive thriller... there are affinities with John Grisham's The Firm, but a greater compliment is that The Job also reminds me of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's hymn to the salesman * The Times *Slickly plotted, with dialogue crisper than a fresh pretzel, and cynically observant of modern mores. The Job rattles towards its conclusion like a runaway train. Like a good salesman, Kennedy really knows how to close * Esquire *Kennedy has again employed his Big Apple chutzpah, a lot of careful reseach and above all, his ability to tell a story that hardly ever slots down from express train speed to construct another highly entertaining page turner * Irish Times *Intoxicatingly readable * Kirkus Reviews *What begins as an everyday tale of takeover, downsizing and outplacement in the ruthless Manhattan business world rapidly mutates for our ad sales hero Ned Allen into something altogether sinister and cut-throat. Slickly plotted, with dialogue crisper than a fresh pretzel, and cynically observant of modern mores. THE JOB rattles towards its concluison like a runaway train. Like a good salesman, Kennedy really knows how to close. * ESQUIRE *A furiously paced, compulsive thrille... there are affinities with John Grisham's THE FIRM, but a greater compliment is that THE JOB also reminds me of GLNGARRY GLEN ROSS, David Mamet's hymn to the salesman. * THE TIMES *Kennedy has again employed his Big Apple chutzpah, a lot of careful reseach and above all, his ability to tell a story that hardly ever slots down from express train speed to construct another highly entertaining page turner. * IRISH TIMES *Excellent... one of the best reads of the year. * Frances Fyfield *

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Book SynopsisAt the age of twenty-nine, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to find her footing again, she has answered an advertisement to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage.But when the Edwards'' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt is threatened. With the subtle wit, lyrical language, and brilliant insight into real emotion that has led her to be called ''a supremely elegant anatomist of the human heart'' (The Times), Shreve weaves a story about risk, family, and the supreme courage that it takes to love.Trade ReviewAs usual, Shreve's powerful storytelling pulls you in like a rip tide * MARIE CLAIRE *Relationships in all their guises are Shreve's thing; she fascinated by what binds us together and flings us apart . . . Like all Shreve's novels, BODY SURFING examines not only the creation but the breakdown of numerous relationships in their different * GLAMOUR *More heart-wrenching from the queen of the emotional rollercoaster * DAILY MIRROR *Shreve writes about emotional dramas and she writes about them well . . . [she has] a talent for intense and catastrophic moments . . . If you have to brand something as the perfect beach or comfort read, then this would be it * EVENING STANDARD *

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Book SynopsisOne Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over Manhattan''s hippest neighbourhood, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into - one way or another.For the women in Candace Bushnell''s stellar new novel, One Fifth Avenue is at the heart of the lives they''ve carefully established, or hope to establish. There is Schiffer Diamond, a forty-something actress busily proving that women of style are truly ageless. There is spoiled, self-assured Lola, who is determined to launch herself into society and the arms of the right man by clawing a way into the building. Annalisa is the wife of a hedge fund manager and reluctant socialite, while bitter Mindy is married to an under-published writer and has been the family breadwinner for too long. And then there is Enid, the glamorous grande dame and gossip columnist, who has lived at One Fifth Avenue for decades, and sees everything there is to see from her penthouse view . . .

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Book SynopsisOn an autumn day in London, the dark secrets and troubled past of Maryam Mazar surface violently with tragic consequences for her pregnant daughter, Sara, and her newly orphaned nephew, Saeed. Racked with guilt, Maryam is compelled to leave the safe comfort of her suburban home and mild English husband to return to Mazareh, the remote village on Iran''s north-eastern border where her story began. There she must face her past and the memories of a life she was forced to leave behind.In her quest to piece the family back together, Sara follows her mother to Iran, to discover the roots of her unhappiness and to try to bring her home. Far from the terraced streets of London, among the snow-capped mountains and windswept plains that have haunted her mother''s dreams for half a century, Sara finally learns about the terrible price Maryam once had to pay for her freedom, and about the love of the man who still waits for her.Trade ReviewYasmin Crowther tells this cross-cultural drama with skill. The writing is restrained but powerful * FINANCIAL TIMES *This debut novel is a delicate, bittersweet examination of the nature of home and homesickness, and a salient reminder of the way the past can haunt the present with subtle, heart-breaking persistence * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Accomplished...memorable * SUNDAY TIMES *Lyrical... As a guide to the subtle complexities of family life The Saffron Kitchen is inspired; as a study of the flipside of the cultural divide it is intelligent and probing, an impressive debut * SCOTSMAN *

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Book SynopsisA brutal and brilliant novel set in the American Civil War.

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Book SynopsisIn David Sedaris''s world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz and the National Enquirer, Sedaris''s collection of stories and essays is a rollicking tour through the American Zeitgeist: a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tried to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; and in his essays, David Sedaris considers the hazards of rewards of smoking, writing for Giantess magazine, and living with his scrappy brother Paul, aka ''The Rooster''.With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes and reads stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behaviour. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life - and anything can happen.Trade ReviewSo often Sedaris's phrasing is beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism...His life is extraordinary in so many ways - the drug addiction, the eccentric family, the crazy jobs, the fame, the globetrotting - but one of the more unlikely achievements here is in making it all seem quite ordinary. Ultimately, his masterstroke is in acting as a bystander in his own story * Guardian *He makes me laugh so much. In an era when US satire is outpacing our own he's a sharp, humane and hilarious voice that never fails to make you smile - and sometimes weep. Apparently effortless humour is difficult, and precious. He's the real thing -- James Naughtie * Radio Times *A deadpan, darkly comical portrait of the American underbelly . . . Sedaris shares something of [Alan] Bennett's detached curiosity, and they both have a thirst for amusement -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *I don't very often find myself moved by a book to emit loud noises in public, but when I first read David Sedaris's essays and short stories, they made me laugh so hard I had to stop taking them on the tube. All his collections are good but 'Barrel Fever * is the best’ *#NAME? * 'A satirical brazenness that holds up next to Twain and Nathaneal West’ *New YORKER * 'David and Amy Sedaris have a deadpan delivery as ironic as the words they read. The two of them create a nuclear barrage of humour you could never replicate by reading this material on your own’ *BOSTON Globe

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Book SynopsisNew Yorker Danny is running from something. A loner who cannot bear to be apart from his Wi-Fi connection, he is in need of refuge. His cousin Howie is an enigmatic and successful former drug addict who just happens to own a castle. As they turn the castle from crumbling ruin to luxury hotel, Howie and Danny must navigate their uncomfortable relationship. And the castle has some surprises of its own: a sinister baroness, a tragic accident in a fathomless pool, a treacherous labyrinth, and through all of this, a story within a story . . . An unnerving, haunting and unforgiving tale of modern life and modern man, the novel before A Visit from the Goon Squad is filled with Egan''s breathtaking style and remarkable voice.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------***Jennifer Egan''s latest novel THE CANDY HOUSE is coming April 2022, the long-awaited sibling novel to A Visit from the Goon SquadTrade ReviewThis is one of those rare books that reminds you of exactly why you love reading. Full of wry reflections on communication, loneliness and the power of the imagination, it's so entertaining you'll forget to be impressed. DAILY MAIL Prodigiously entertaining and profoundly moving New York Times Egan has conjured a surreal and creepy contemporary horror story which eerily veers between reality and fantasy. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Dizzyingly inventive Washington Post A novel boobytrapped with metafictional tricks and trap doors, it makes traditional gothic tales look positively homely in comparison INDEPENDENT A smart tale that is horror, fantasy and thriller, yet never loses its hold on the reader. A gripping yarn RTE GUIDE

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Book SynopsisPoor put-upon Bertie is still struggling to escape his overbearing mother''s influence, his yoga lessons and his pink bedroom while wondering why new baby brother Ulysses looks uncomfortably like his psychotherapist. The insufferably handsome Bruce has returned from London to land, on his feet and rent-free, in the arms of heiress Julia Donald. But all is not well among the residents of 44 Scotland Street: Angus''s dog and constant companion Cyril is under threat of execution, victim of a miscarriage of justice, while pretty, indecisive Pat and hopeless romantic Matthew are on the verge of making the most terrible mistake of their lives . . . Big Lou finds a new man, Matthew and Pat edge their relationship towards something more permanent - although this development is not without complications, when a glimpse of someone who just might be her handsome, caddish ex-flatmate Bruce sets Pat''s pulse racing - and Domenica''s friendship with Antonia is tested to the limit when an assortment Trade Review** 'McCall Smith's confident brush picks out vivid and entertaining characters . . . A deliciously engaging Edinburgh comedy * FINANCIAL TIMES *

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Book SynopsisIsabel Dalhousie, philosopher and amateur solver of other people''s problems, meets an old foe, Minty Auchterlonie, at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty, now the head of a small investment bank, is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved, and is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment. Minty is not the only high-flier in Isabel''s life; her niece Cat has just become engaged to a tightrope-walking stuntman. Isabel fears his next job - and the engagement - could end in disaster. Meanwhile, her own boyfriend Jamie has marriage in mind too . . .Trade ReviewBrimming with discreet charm * Mail on Sunday *Like [Barbara] Pym, McCall Smith believes that the small stuff in life matters * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisIsabel Dalhousie is a new mother and a connoisseur of philosophy; she''d rather not be a sleuth. But when a chance conversation at a dinner party draws her into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. Because for Isabel ethics are not theoretical at all, but an everyday matter of life and death. As she attempts to unravel the truth behind Dr Thompson''s disgrace, Isabel''s patient intelligence is also required to deal with challenges in her own life. There is her baby son Charlie; Cat''s deli to look after, not to mention her vulnerable assistant Eddie; and a mysterious and unlikeable composer who has latched on to Jamie, making Isabel fear for the future of her new family. Isabel treads a difficult path between trust and gullibility, philanthropy and interference, while keeping in her sights the small but certain comforts of family, philosophy and a fine Saturday morning.

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Book SynopsisMargaret and Patrick, married just a few months, set off on a great adventure - a year living in Kenya. While Patrick practices medicine, Margaret works as a photojournalist, capturing a dizzying and sometimes dangerous city on film.When a British couple invites the newlyweds on a climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Kenya, they eagerly agree. But during their arduous ascent a horrific accident occurs. In its aftermath, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how it has transformed her and her marriage, perhaps for ever. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, A Change in Altitude illuminates the irrevocable impact of tragedy and the elusive nature of forgiveness.

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Book SynopsisNothing interests Maman today, not even Jean, her favorite child ... She acts dumb, bewitched, like a goat that the neighborhood children have fed sorghum beer.''These extraordinary stories centre on African conflicts as seen through the eyes of children and describes their resilience and endurance in heartbreaking detail. From child trafficking to inter-religious conflicts, Uwem Akpan reveals in beautiful prose the resilience and endurance of children faced with the harsh consequences of deprivation and terror.Trade ReviewSay You're One of Them gives voice to its children in beautifully crafted prose and stunning detail. Uwem Akpan is a major new literary talent. * Peter Godwin, author of Mukiwa *Uwem Akpan writes with a politcal fierceness and a humanity so full of compassion it might just change the world. His is a burning talent. * Chris Abani, author of The Virgin of the Flames *

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Book SynopsisTo the casual observer, the great enlightened city of Edinburgh, home of no-nonsense philosophers and cream teas, might appear immune to the rollercoaster of strong emotions. But at 44 Scotland Street, as Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky enterprise of married love, the raffish portrait painter Angus Lordie has a premonition of disaster. And soon enough Irene Pollock is shocked to learn that her small son Bertie harbours a highly unsuitable ambition; the gloriously vain Bruce discovers a wrinkle and confronts rejection; and Angus finds himself facing the grave consequences of unbridled bliss, not to mention a large Glaswegian gangster bearing gifts . . .

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Book SynopsisWiltshire, during the dying days of Oliver Cromwell''s Republic. Robert Vaughan is the son of a Parliamentarian officer who is investigating a series of grisly murders which suggest a link with Satanic rituals at Stonehenge. The return of a notoriously wicked Cavalier, signalling the impending royalist restoration, leads to a terrible tragedy for the Vaughans. Robert''s flight from his violent, terrifying past leads him to Restoration London, where he works as scribe for Milton, and where he survives the Plague and the Great Fire. But Robert is led along a dark path, to vampirism and beyond, as he devotes himself to gaining the powers that will enable him to fight an evil killer of seemingly satanic powers. He will travel the globe, from the ancient ghetto of Prague to the virgin forest of the New World, as he aims to gain revenge on those who betrayed him.Trade ReviewA rare steak of a book, rich with life and awash with lashings of blood * SFX *Anne Rice with added scholarship ... frighteningly realistic * SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY *Thrills and spills * THE TIMES *Not for some time have I read a novel that so richly evokes the hypnotic properties of blood... a wealth of good writing. * EXPRESS ON SUNDAY *What more can you want from literature? * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *

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Book SynopsisThe first glimpse of the sea on Marine Drive filled my heart, if not my head. I turned away from the red shadow. I stopped thinking of that pyramid of killers, and Sanjay''s improvidence. I stopped thinking about my own part in the madness. And I rode, with my friends, into the end of everything.Shantaram introduced millions of readers to a cast of unforgettable characters through Lin, an Australian fugitive, working as a passport forger for a branch of the Bombay mafia. In The Mountain Shadow, the long-awaited sequel, Lin must find his way in a Bombay run by a different generation of mafia dons, playing by a different set of rules. It has been two years since the events in Shantaram, and since Lin lost two people he had come to love: his father figure, Khaderbhai, and his soul mate, Karla, married to a handsome Indian media tycoon. Lin returns from a smuggling trip to a city that seems to have changed too much, too soon. Many of his old friends are long gone, the new mafia leadership has become entangled in increasingly violent and dangerous intrigues, and a fabled holy man challenges everything that Lin thought he''d learned about love and life. But Lin can''t leave the Island City: Karla, and a fatal promise, won''t let him go.

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Book Synopsis** 'The evocation of war-torn England, with its palpable mood of defiance, determination and survival, is beautifully caught' SCOTSMANTrade Review** 'The evocation of war-torn England, with its palpable mood of defiance, determination and survival, is beautifully caught * SCOTSMAN *** 'Alexander McCall Smith writes about the enduring, patient qualities of love . . . the novel pays heed to our natural yearning for a story to chew on * THE TIMES *** 'A gentle and uplifting read * DAILY MAIL Books of the Year *** 'Beautifully precise and psychologically acute * INDEPENDENT *

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Book SynopsisThe crime: one scalding afternoon, the mutilated body of a young woman, half naked beneath her burqa, is discovered on a Saudi beach; soon afterwards a Western woman''s husband vanishes without trace.The place: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the City of Veils. A city of narrow streets and closed shutters, where nothing is what it seems ;and the Empty Quarter - one of the most beautiful, yet unforgiving deserts on earth.The people: Miriam Walker, alone in an alien culture, desperate to find her missing husband. Katya, a forensic scientist battling the prejudices of a society full of sexual, religious and moral contradictions; and Nayir, devout Muslim, desert guide, amateur sleuth - the man she loves.

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Book SynopsisWelcome to Corduroy Mansions in Pimlico: a temple of Arts and Crafts architecture, with comforting, weathered brickwork and frankly frivolous dormer windows, it is home to a delightfully eccentric cast of Londoners.In the top flat lives William, with a faithful ex-vegetarian dog named Freddie de la Hay and a freeloading son who he hopes will soon fly the nest. Four lively young women share the first-floor flat, including twinset-and-pearls Caroline from Cheltenham, Dee, vitamin addict and avid subscriber to Anti-oxidant News, and Jenny, a put-upon PA. And round the corner lives Oedipus Snark MP, possibly the world''s only loathsome Lib Dem, who has succeeded in offending everyone he knows, and many others besides. But what dark revenge is being plotted by his mother, Berthea Snark, and by his girlfriend, Barbara Ragg...?Trade ReviewQuirky and original . . . told with warmth, wit and intelligence, and McCall Smith's cast of characters are beautifully observed. It's a page-turner with many happy endings. Perfect * DAILY EXPRESS ** 'Bags of warmth and wisdom and easy, accomplished writing that begs for a comfy chair’ *Kate Saunders, THE TIMES ** 'Richly illustrates McCall Smith's absolute mastery of the art of storytelling * THE LADY ** 'The author's gentle humour and playful teasing-out of moral dilemmas great and small are there in abundance’ *SCOTSMAN ** 'The seriousness is always sugar-dusted in McCall Smith's delight in the ridiculous and his perfectly paced humour * DAILY TELEGRAPH *

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Book SynopsisAs well as its advantages, there are drawbacks to the enlightened village that is twenty-first-century Edinburgh, where every Saturday night ears burn at dinner parties across the city, and anyone requiring the investigative abilities of a philosophical soul knows where to find her.Jillian McKinlay -- wife of a trustee of an illustrious school -- is the latest petitioner; she asks Isabel to look into a poison-pen letter that makes insinuations about applicants for the position of principal. Isabel''s niece Cat has another new boyfriend who seems too good to be true. And when a pretty cellist with a tragic story takes a fancy to her husband-to-be, Isabel finds herself contemplating an act of heroic and alarming self-sacrifice.

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Book SynopsisTHE TWELFTH BOOK IN THE BELOVED NO. 1 LADIES'' DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIESThe one where Mma Makutsi gets married . . . As the countdown to Mma Makutsi''s big day begins, Violet Sephotho, her former rival for the affections of Phuti Radiphuti, is up to no good as usual. And will Mma Makutsi bury her differences with pushy Mma Potokwani, who has offered to help with the wedding feast?Meanwhile Mma Ramotswe is called away on a case at a southern cattle post, and Charlie has again got himself in a bit of bother with a young lady. At least they all have the happy occasion to look forward to . . .

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Book SynopsisTHE THIRTEENTH BOOK IN THE BELOVED NO. 1 LADIES'' DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIESThe one where Mma Ramotswe meets her hero . . . Mma Ramotswe, normally a peaceful sleeper, finds her slumbers disturbed by dreams of a tall stranger - but she is not quite ready to learn what this vision portends.Soon even Mma Makutsi has to admit that untoward things are occurring around the No. 1 Ladies'' Detective Agency: at Speedy motors, Fanwell finds himself in trouble with the law, and the indomitable Mma Potokwani disappears from the orphan farm. Armed with courage, kindness and an instinct for the truth, Mma Ramotswe sets out to restore order . . .

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Book SynopsisIn the genteel environs of Corduroy Mansions, Pimlico, strange doings are afoot, mostly in the name of love. Lonely William French and his faithful canine Freddie are recruited to the service of MI6 by a beguiling lady operative, William''s neighbour Caroline finds her suitor James mysteriously lacking, and Barbara Ragg is tempted to the Highlands by blossoming romance. Meanwhile sage psychiatrist Berthea Snark, under normal circumstances the voice of reason, finds herself called away to protect her brother from a band of scheming New Age fraudsters seeking to insert themselves into the bosom of the family.Hilarious and affectionate, The Dog Who Came In from the Cold rejoins Alexander McCall Smith''s delightful London tribe of loveable misfits and hopefuls in a new set of adventures in life, love and philosophy.

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Book Synopsis* A superbly evocative novel that was published to critical acclain, which chronicles the momentous events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066Trade ReviewWritten in supple, intelligent prose . . . Shieldwall is a vivid historical novel . . . Entirely convincing -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *Inspired . . . With wonderful, poetic passages, Hill reaches beyond the limits of the genre and . . . harks back to the halls of our Saxon forebears in those dark days -- Ian Mortimer * Guardian *Exciting, gripping and imaginative -- Kate Saunders * The Times *Truly compelling * Sunday Times *Hill's sense of place, landscape and home is really good. His particular discovery is how he makes his characters' internal lives. I shall be waiting for the next novel in the trilogy * Observer *

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Book Synopsis'' A pocket masterpiece. A jewel'' Hilary MantelOn the second floor of the famous F. G. Goode department store, in Ladies'' Cocktail Frocks, the women in black are girding themselves for the Christmas rush. Among the staff are Patty Williams with her wayward husband Frank, the sweet but unlucky Fay, faithful Mrs Jacob of the measuring tape, and Lisa, the new Sales Assistant (Temporary), who is waiting for the results of her Leaving Certificate. Across the floor and beyond the arch, Lisa will meet the glamorous Continental refugee, Magda, guardian of the rose-pink cave of Model Gowns.With the lightest touch and the most tender of comic instincts, Madeleine St John conjures a vanished summer of innocence.Trade ReviewThe book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up -- Hilary Mantel * Guardian *A delicious book. Funny and happy, it's like the breath of youth again -- Jane GardamThis wry debut...focuses on the loneliness and ennui of three department store employees. These women, identically attired in black dresses that serve as uniforms, work in the Ladies' Frocks Department at Goode's, a store in Sydney, Australia. Each suffers from long-standing unhappiness revolving one way or another around the opposite sex...During the frenzied Christmas shopping season, each saleswoman indirectly confronts her problem and attains contentment * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisA brilliant novel that vividly tells the story of Harald Hardrada (hard ruler), the last of the Vikings.Trade ReviewJustin Hill's writing is superb. Every sentence is crafted for balance and beauty and the sense of a world on the edge of turning is gloriously, brilliantly - and utterly believably - evoked -- Manda ScottJustin Hill's energetic re-creation of Hardrada's career shows that his was an extraordinary life . . . gripping -- Nick Rennison * BBC History *Gripping * The Times *Viking Fire is a sophisticated, subtle evocation of a brutal age * Sunday Times *This evocative tale of war and glory draws us into a Viking world of heroic frozen battlegrounds and treacherous perfumed palaces * Sunday Express *Fights aplenty, but this is a literary, intelligent read from a masterly storyteller -- Antonia Senior * The Times *

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Book SynopsisHauled in a cart to a field hospital in northern France in March 1916, an American woman wakes from unconsciousness to the smell of gas gangrene, the sounds of men in pain, and an almost complete loss of memory: she knows only that she can drive an ambulance, she can draw, and her name is Stella Bain. A stateless woman in a lawless country, Stella embarks on a journey to reconstruct her life. Suffering an agonising and inexplicable array of symptoms, she finds her way to London. There, Dr August Bridge, a cranial surgeon turned psychologist, is drawn to tracking her amnesia to its source. What brutality was she fleeing when she left the tranquil seclusion of a New England college campus to serve on the Front; for what crime did she need to atone - and whom did she leave behind? Vivid, intense and gripping, packed with secrets and revelations, The Lives of Stella Bain is at once a ravishing love story and an intense psychological mystery.Trade ReviewA powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit, this tale is utterly unforgettable * Lady *Atonement with just the tiniest dash of Downton Abbey. This is a First World War story with a difference . . . a fantastic read * Red *Gripping and moving * Sunday Times *Fascinating * Daily Mail *Captivating * Bella *

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Book SynopsisFor you, I was a chapter-a good chapter maybe, or even your favorite chapter, but, still, just a chapter-and for me, you were the book.'' Judith Whitman believes in the sort of love that ''picks you up in Akron, Ohio, and sets you down in Rio de Janeiro''. But she married more pragmatically.Before her marriage to a banker, before her career as a film editor in Los Angeles, Judith was 17 and living in Nebraska, where she met Willy Blunt, a carpenter whose pale blue eyes and easy smile awakened in Judith the reckless girl he alone imagined her to be. Marrying Willy seemed a natural thing to promise. But a violent episode followed by acceptance to a prestigious university carried Judith away. Twenty years later, Judith''s sturdy-seeming marriage is suddenly hazy with secrets, and her thoughts drift back to the time when she and Willy had escaped to a small world where sunlight seemed always to fall from a softer angle. What happens now when she holds in her hand the nu

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Book SynopsisCorduroy Mansions, Pimlico is an oasis of old-fashioned civilisation, its inhabitants considerate and peace-loving. But beneath the polite exterior seismic change is stirring.Barbara Ragg makes an eye-popping discovery about her stolid Scottish suitor''s past, while Oedipus Snark - newly appointed and tirelessly self-interested Government Minister - has a close encounter in Switzerland that leaves him a new man all together. Then plucky canine Freddie de la Hay goes missing, and his owner, widower William French, is so shaken by an unexpected declaration of love that he seriously considers making a disappearance himself.Goodhearted, well-intentioned but often to be found barking up the wrong tree, the residents of Corduroy Mansions remain a thoroughly entertaining example to us all.

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Book SynopsisHappy with her husband-to-be and beloved son, Isabel Dalhousie has feelings about parenthood that grow more tender daily. So when Jane, a visiting academic adopted and sent to Australia as a baby, asks for help in tracing her Scottish origins, she cannot refuse.However, habitually upright Isabel finds herself beset by temptation - for instance, to be suspicious of Professor Lettuce''s latest subterfuge, and of her niece Cat''s weakness for the wrong man. And when the search for Jane''s parents turns troubling, she can hardly prevent herself from interfering too forcefully in family secrets. As she steers a course between love and laissez-faire, our philosopher heroine succeeds in resisting all temptations but those which must be answered, and teases a solution from every problem.

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Book Synopsis''A major new talent announces himself'' Attica Locke, New York Times bestselling author of Guide Me Home and Bluebird, Bluebird''A debut of enormous ambition that succeeds on every level. .. a page-turning, rollicking novel'' Nathan Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of WaterThe Devil first visits Yetunde aboard a slave ship heading to America. Her home burned to ash, she lies shackled in the belly of the ship with only her dead sister''s spirit for company. Worse, she has a caught the eye of a white man. To survive the hell that awaits her, the Devil offers his protection and a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice.Their bargain extends far beyond Yetunde''s mortal lifespan. Over the next 175 years, the Devil visits all her descendants in their darkest hour of need. There''s Lucille, a conjure woman; Asa, the white-passing son of a slave; Louis and Virgil, a twentieth-century Cain and Abel; Cassandra, a girl who speaks to the dead; James, a father struggling to keep his family together; and many others. The Devil offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while wondering: can he save himself, too?Steeped in the spiritual traditions and oral history of the Black diaspora, The Devil Three Times is a baptism by fire and water, heralding a new voice in fiction.

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Book SynopsisHEARTWOOD is an enthralling literary mystery about a hiker lost in the woods, and the indomitable women who set out to find her... perfect for fans of Rebecca Makkai, Maggie Shipstead and Shelley Read

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