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
G.P. Putnam's Sons The Spirit of Love
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£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc The Sweetest Revenge
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£999.99
Penguin Putnam Inc The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique
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£12.79
Penguin Putnam Inc On Fire Island
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£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc Furever After
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£15.29
Penguin Publishing Group The Mostly True Story of Tanner Louise
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£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc Murder and Mamon
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£14.39
Penguin Random House Group Guilt and Ginataan
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£15.29
Random House Publishing Group O Sinners
Book SynopsisA young journalist, reeling from loss, investigates a mysterious cult in the California redwoods, only to be drawn in by its charismatic leader in this addictive novel that asks why people give up control and what it takes, ultimately, to find one?s place in the world.?O Sinners! invites us to be fully and vigorously present for the rhapsodic truths of our lives.? ?Megha Majumdar, author of A BurningFaruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult called ?the nameless.? Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, the nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as ?all suffering is distortion? and ?see only beauty.? Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of the nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult?s inner workings and alluring teachings. But as he gets closer to Odo, Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come to terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo?s spell.Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads?Faruq?s present-day investigation, Odo?s time as an infantryman during the Vietnam War alongside three other Black soldiers before the formation of the movement, and a documentary script that recounts the nameless?s clash with a Texas fundamentalist church?O Sinners! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel asks: What is it that we seek from the people we admire and, inevitably, from one another?
£25.20
Random House USA Inc O Sinners
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£14.39
Random House USA Inc Acts of Forgiveness
Book Synopsis?A vibrant and moving debut that takes to heart our deferred dreams and the value of remaining hopeful.??Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle WomenHow much of their lineage is one family willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation?s first federal reparations program?Every American waits with bated breath to see whether or not the country?s first female president will pass the Forgiveness Act. The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000 if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, and for ambitious single mother Willie Revel the bill could be a long-awaited form of redemption. A decade ago, Willie gave up her burgeoning journalism career to help run her father?s struggling construction company in Philadelphia and she has reluctantly put family first, without being able to forget who she might have become.Now she?s back living with her parents and her young daughter while trying to keep her family from going into bankruptcy. Could the Forgiveness Act uncover her forgotten roots while also helping save their beloved home and her father?s life?s work? In order to qualify, she must first prove that the Revels are descended from slaves, but the rest of the family isn?t as eager to dig up the past. Her mother is adopted, her father doesn?t trust the government and believes working with a morally corrupt employer is the better way to save their business,and her daughter is just trying to make it through the fifth grade at her elite private school without attracting unwanted attention. It?s up to Willie to verify their ancestry and save her family?but as she delves into their history, Willie begins to learn just how complicated family and forgiveness can be. With powerful insight and moving prose, Acts of Forgiveness asks how history shapes who we become and considers the weight of success when it is achieved despite incredible odds?and ultimately what leaving behind a legacy truly means.
£13.49
Berkley Romance Rules for Ruin
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£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc Seven Summer Weekends
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£22.09
Penguin Putnam Inc Seven Summer Weekends
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£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc A Nearby Country Called Love
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£21.25
Penguin Young Readers American Mythology
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£19.55
Penguin Putnam Inc Four Squares
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£15.29
Penguin Random House Group Lo Fi
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£15.29
Penguin Publishing Group Never Been Better
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£15.29
Penguin Publishing Group Welcome Home Caroline Kline
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£15.29
Random House USA Inc A Northern Light in Provence
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£13.49
Random House USA Inc Three Keys
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£15.29
Random House USA Inc Through an Open Window
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£13.49
Random House Publishing Group The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Book SynopsisIn this twisty tale of domestic suspense, four neighbors become the prime suspects in a murder investigation that reveals the sinister underside of their picture-perfect community?from the bestselling author of The Guilty Husband.Hawthorne Lane is the perfect place to live. Its tree-lined street and stately homes are the envy of the town. Every Halloween the residents of Hawthorne Lane come together to host their famous Fall Festival. But this year, someone won?t survive the night.As a murder investigation ensues, it quickly becomes clear there?s more going on behind closed doors on Hawthorne Lane than meets the eye. And four women, each with secrets worth killing for, find themselves at the center of it all.There?s Georgina, the perfectionist and reigning Queen Bee, who pays a high price for her elevated status. There?s Audrey, the bold and beautiful neighbor with the high-flying corporate career, but whose marriage is on the rocks. There?s Libby, the working mother who is struggling to come to terms with her recent divorce while parenting her teenage son. And finally, Hannah?the newcomer with a mysterious past that?s returning with a vengeance.As the clock ticks down to Halloween, their lives will cross in the most unexpected ways. And soon onlyone question remains: Who will pay the ultimate price for the lies they all tried so hard to bury?
£15.60
Random House USA Inc This Used to Be Us
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£13.49
Random House Publishing Group When the Harvest Comes
Book SynopsisIn this heart-wrenching debut novel, a young Black gay man, estranged from his father, must confront his painful past?and his deepest desires around gender, love, and sex.?Epic, intimate, brutal, and tender, Denne Michele Norris has written a breathtaking testimony about the boundlessness of love.??Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies?When the Harvest Comes is a book to sink into, to luxuriate within. . . . It?s only when you?re finished that you realize that you?ve never before read a story quite like this one.??Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby?I got tired of running away from what I should?ve been running toward.?The venerated Reverend Doctor John Freeman did not raise his son, Davis, to be touched by any man, let alone a white man. He did not raise his son to whisper that man?s name with tenderness.But on the eve of his wedding, all Davis can think about is how beautiful he wants to look when he meets his beloved Everett at the altar. Never mind that his mother, who died decades before, and his father, whose anger drove Davis to flee their home in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, for a freer life in New York City, won?t be there to walk him down the aisle. All Davis needs to be happy in this life is Everett, his new family, and his burgeoning career as an acclaimed violist.When Davis learns during the wedding reception that his father has been in a terrible car accident, years of childhood trauma and unspoken emotion resurface. Davis must revisit everything that went wrong between them, risking his fledgling marriage along the way.In resplendent prose, Denne Michele Norris?s When the Harvest Comes reveals the pain of inheritance and the heroic power of love, reminding us that, in the end, we are more than the men who came before us.
£999.99
Random House Publishing Group The Golem of Brooklyn
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£13.49
Random House The Ascent
Book SynopsisWhat would you do if the past showed up on your doorstep?A woman who grew up in a cult must decide if she can trust the stranger claiming to have answers to the dark mysteries of her childhood in this irresistible thriller.?I tore through this book and was genuinely shocked by its ending!??Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the PinesONE OF THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS? MOST ANTICIPATED MYSTERIES OF THE YEARFor decades, the whereabouts of The Fifteen has been an unsolved mystery. All the members of this reclusive commune outside Philadelphia vanished twenty years ago, except for one: a twelve-year-old girl found wandering alone on the side of the road.In the years since that morning, Lee Burton has tried to put the pain of her past behind her, building a new identity for herself with a doting husband and seven-month-old daughter, Lucy. But motherhood is proving a bigger challenge than she anticipated. She doesn?t want to let Lucy out of her sight even for a moment. She can?t return to work. She?s not sleeping, and she has started spiraling into paranoia.Then a stranger shows up on her doorstep, offering answers to all of Lee?s questions about her past?if Lee could only trust that this woman is who she says she is. Can Lee keep her safe, stable life? Or will new revelations about ?the cult that went missing? shatter everything? In The Ascent, Allison Buccola has crafted a nerve-rattling thriller about motherhood, identity, and the truths we think we know about our families.
£20.40
Random House Publishing Group My Documents
Book SynopsisThe paths of four family members diverge drastically when the U.S. government begins detaining Vietnamese Americans, in this sharp and touching novel about coming of age at the intersection of ambition and assimilation.Ursula, Alvin, Jen, and Duncan grew up as cousins in the sprawling Nguyen family. As young adults, they?re on the precipice of new ventures: Ursula as a budding journalist in Manhattan, Alvin as an engineering intern for Google, Jen as a naïve freshman at NYU, and Duncan as a promising newcomer on his high school football team. Their lives are upended when a series of violent, senseless attacks across America creates a national panic, prompting a government policy that pushes Vietnamese Americans into internment camps. Jen and Duncan are sent with their mother to Camp Tacoma while Ursula and Alvin receive exemptions.Cut off entirely from the outside world, forced to work jobs they hate, Jen and Duncan try to withstand long, dusty days in camp and acclimate to life without the internet. That is, until Jen discovers a way to get messages to the outside. Her first instinct is to reach out to Ursula, who sees this connection as a chance to tell the world about the horrors of camp?and as an opportunity to bolster her own reporting career in the process.Informed by real-life events, from Japanese incarceration to the Vietnam War and modern-day immigrant detention, Kevin Nguyen?s novel gives us a version of reality only a few degrees away from our own. Moving and finely attuned to both the brutalities and mundanities of racism, M? Documents is a strangely funny and touching portrait of American ambition, fear, and family. The story of the Nguyens is one of resilience and how we return to one another, and to ourselves, after tragedy.
£24.30
Random House USA Inc The House of Madelaine
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£12.59
Random House Publishing Group Find Him
£15.08
Random House Publishing Group Plum Bun
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£13.60
Penguin Putnam Inc On Top of Linguine An EyePopping Parody
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£10.44
Crown Publishing Group (NY) The Expert of Subtle Revisions
Book SynopsisA thrilling historical mystery about a young woman searching for her father, a young man trying to solve an impossible problem, and the quest for the power to transcend time.In Half Moon Bay, California, 2016, a young woman waits for her father''s sailboat to arrive at port. They have agreed to meet on this day and time. Yet he never shows.He has told her this event might come. And if it did, she was ready. Go to the library in Berkeley, find a certain book, follow the instructions. But what if the instructions lead to more questions than answers?In 1933, a young man arrives in Vienna to begin a new post as a professor of mathematics at the university. There he finds himself part of the Engelhardt Circle, a group of intellectuals that have recently been targeted by a growing, anti-academic mob. The circle includes the preeminent minds of their time and a cast of characters desperate to get invited into their midst, many of whom will stop at nothing to get there. As fascism rises, and polarization increases, moderate voices are drowned out.There are whispers of a machine, a music box, which can transport someone through time. But no one can confirm if it''s a rumor or true. And the only people who know firsthand are not talking.Between the young woman, who lives off the grid and spends her free time editing Wikipedia entries and picking fights with people online, and the circle of intellectuals debating space and time in Vienna on the eve of World War II, lie years of history that might easily be erased?unless old secrets are unraveled. Kirsten Menger-Anderson''s beautiful meditation on time, love, and obsession shows us how we never truly know what happened in the past, and often how the past eerily mirrors the future.
£21.00
Crown Publishing Group (NY) Our Secrets Were Safe
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£999.99
Crown Publishing Group (NY) Indian Country
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£21.25
Random House USA Inc The Great Mann
Book SynopsisIn thispoignantretelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.?s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities?and explosive tensions.In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry ofLos Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite?s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.?s newly rechristened ?Sugar Hill.?Settling in at a local actress?s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life?one brimming with opportunity?from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James ?Reaper? Mann. Reaper?s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie?s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community?s well-being with promises of retribution.Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education inpost-warAmerica.
£19.55
Alfred A. Knopf The Fate of Others
Book SynopsisA new collection of short stories examining the extraordinary shades of ordinary life, from the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (?A master of the short story ?The New York Times Book Review)In ten piercing new stories, Richard Bausch fleshes out the rich inner worlds of his characters and plumbs the nuances of infidelity, loss, and profound loneliness. In ?Donnaiolo,? a young divorcé moves back into her childhood home, with no plans other than to eat her parents? food and smoke cigarettes in her room. In ?Isolation,? a woman pines for her lover while quarantining from the COVID-19 pandemic with her husband, a situation that deteriorates when she learns her beloved has fallen gravely ill. In ?Broken Home,? a Catholic school field trip takes a violent turn when the unsupervised altar boys discover an abandoned house in the woods. And in ?The Widow?s Tale,? a recent widow attends a séance after her sister reports having reoccurring dreams about her late husband.Throughout The Fate of Others, Bausch illuminates the tender, comic, and profound facets of the human condition, affirming once again his status as a modern master of the short story form.
£20.40
Penguin Publishing Group When We Were Brilliant
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£22.94
Penguin Publishing Group What You Make of Me
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.29
Penguin Publishing Group Crush
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.29
Penguin Random House Group Kate Frida
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£21.25
Penguin Random House Group Kate Frida
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.29
Penguin Putnam Inc Winging It with You
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£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Peculiar Gift of July
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£22.94
G. P. Putnam's Sons Tantrum
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£19.54
Penguin Putnam Inc Stuart Woods Finders Keepers
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.29
Random House Publishing Group Cats People
Book SynopsisA stray cat brings together five strangers over the course of one fateful summer in this heartwarming novel about love, found family, and the power of connection.Núria, a single-by-choice barista with a little resentment for the ?crazy cat lady? label, is a member of The Meow-Yorkers, a group in Brooklyn who takes care of the neighborhood?s stray cats. On her volunteering days, she starts finding Post-it notes left by a secret admirer in an area where her feeds her favorite stray?a black cat named Cat. Like most felines, he is both curious and observant, so of course he knows who the notes are from. Núria, however, is clueless.Are the notes from Collin, a bestselling author and self-professed hermit with a weakness for good coffee? Are they from Lily, a fresh-out-of-high school Georgia native searching for her long-lost half sister? Are they from Omar, the beloved neighborhood mailman going through an early midlife crisis? Or are they from Bong, the grieving widower who owns Núria?s favorite bodega?When Cat suddenly falls ill, these five strangers find themselves bonding together in their desire to care for him, and discover that chance encounters can lead to the meaningful connections they?ve all been searching for.
£20.40
