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
Amazon Publishing All the Little Children
Book SynopsisAn Amazon Charts bestseller. When a family camping trip takes a dark turn, how far will one mother go to keep her family safe? Struggling with working-mother guilt, Marlene Greene hopes a camping trip in the forest will provide quality time with her three young children—until they see fires in the distance, columns of smoke distorting the sweeping view. Overnight, all communication with the outside world is lost. Knowing something terrible has happened, Marlene suspects that the isolation of the remote campsite is all that’s protecting her family. But the arrival of a lost boy reveals they are not alone in the woods, and as the unfolding disaster ravages the land, more youngsters seek refuge under her wing. The lives of her own children aren’t the only ones at stake. When their sanctuary is threatened, Marlene faces the mother of all dilemmas: Should she save her own kids or try to save them all?Trade Review“Jo Furniss’s debut All the Little Children is unique, gorgeously written, and absolutely terrifying. With all the mystique of a dystopian novel, Furniss deftly explores the idea of ‘sacrificing one for the good of many,’ even when that one is your own child. Utterly compelling!” —Kate Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year “Jo Furniss weaves a terrifyingly realistic story of survival and resilience in her debut novel, All the Little Children. With a story that’s heart-pounding in pace and heart-wrenching in content, this up-and-coming author brings to life the universal plight of parenthood—how do I protect my children? Furniss answers this question and more with a chilling and beautifully woven tale that will keep you up turning the pages and wondering, ‘What if this happened to me?’” —Emily Bleeker, bestselling author of Wreckage and When I’m Gone “What a truly fantastic book. One of my favorites of the year! It’s a feminist version of The Road. Jo Furniss has created a powerful female heroine: a successful career woman, wife, and mother who will do whatever it takes to protect her children. I devoured this novel in one day and [found] myself still thinking about it and Marlene long after I was finished. Jo Furniss’s characters are gripping, and the [plot] is fast-paced and relentless, each chapter leaving you breathless. I’m still reeling from the powerful story and the heart-stopping conclusion of this incredible debut novel.” —Hollie Overton, author of the international bestseller Baby Doll “When the world changes overnight, all that is left is instinct—survival and maternal. This tense, emotional, and wholly absorbing book makes you wonder: What would I do?” —JJ Marsh, author of The Beatrice Stubbs Series “Jo Furniss has written a hauntingly gripping tale layered in lyrical prose. A mother’s quest to save her children after a terrorist attack tests the limits of her endurance and leaves her with an agonizing choice. All the Little Children is a compelling page-turner from start to finish!” —Kylie Brant, author of Pretty Girls Dancing “All the Little Children is a moving, realistic, and suspenseful portrayal of the realities of motherhood. Marlene’s constant struggles with the balancing act of being a working mum take on an urgent meaning in this surreal, postapocalyptic context. This is literally a novel about surviving motherhood.” —Balli Kaur Jaswal, author of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows “A thoroughly original mash-up of mom lit and apocalyptic fiction, All the Little Children is a thrilling ride. Jo Furniss expertly blends heart-racing suspense with moments of genuine emotion—and even dark humor. At last, mothers have an action hero to call their own.” —Elizabeth Blackwell, bestselling author of In the Shadow of Lakecrest “Marlene Greene is a very modern mother and all the more realistic for it. Jo Furniss has the ability to tap into emotions without sentimentality, leaving you thinking long after the story finishes.” —Alice Clark-Platts, bestselling author of Bitter Fruits and The Taken “All the Little Children is one of those books that grips you from the start and never lets go. I was thinking about it long after I’d finished reading. It’s punchy, relevant, and horribly plausible, with a brilliant, flawed, brave narrator. The skillful interweaving of the frustrations of motherhood and the apocalypse makes this different from anything I’ve ever read before. And when I finished it I was crying on a train, and I didn’t care who saw me.” —Emily Barr, award–winning author of The One Memory of Flora Banks, Backpack and The Sleeper
£8.54
Enchanted Lion Books Tales from Dreamland
Book Synopsis LA photographer Ed Valfre imagines stories from snapshots of ordinary life, inviting readers to discover the magical in the everyday'Ed Valfre is an amazing photographer... Ed Valfre is also a wonderful human being with a gigantic heart. I am fairly sure you can see that by looking at his photos. So I believe we are done here.' —Musician, actor, and painter John Lurie (The Lounge Lizards) A cup of coffee with a swirl of cream. Clouds reflected on a tabletop. A shopping cart abandoned on the sidewalk. Photographer Ed Valfre captures these little moments of everyday life in his pictures and subsequently imagines the extraordinary universes, striking feelings, and unexpected narratives each moment might contain. By turns surreal, humorous, and profound, Valfre reveals the magic to be discovered in the everyday with this collection of photographs and accompanying short stories.
£18.69
Livingston Press (AL) Off the Yoga Mat
Book Synopsis
£13.15
Haymarket Books Is Just A Movie
Book SynopsisIn Trinidad, in the wake of 1970's Black Power rebellion, we follow Sonnyboy, Singer King Kala, and their town's folk through experiments in music, politics, religion, and loveand in their day-to-day adventures. Humorous and serious, sad and uplifting, Is Just a Movie, is a radiant novel about small moments of magic in ordinary life. Earl Lovelace's books include While Gods Are Falling, winner of the BP Independence Award; the Caribbean classic The Dragon Can't Dance; and Salt, which won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize. For Is Just a Movie, he has won the Grand Prize for Caribbean Literature by the Regional Council of Guadeloupe and the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.Trade Review"Maker, destroyer, recorder, revealer: that is Earl Lovelace and here he is at his soaring rhapsodic best. Starring two hapless almost-beens in search of movie fame, Is Just A Movie takes us on wild loving absurdist journey to the heart of a contemporary Trinidad, a Trinidad so ravishingly alive that the Naipauls of the world could never have imagined it or possessed the soul to write about it." --Junot Díaz, author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao "Earl Lovelace's genius is revealed in his capacity to consistently write characters of complex sophistication that remain fully believable as products of their landscape and time even as the author conjures up riveting and often unusual circumstances in their lives. Lovelace's characters are compelling because of the care and profound empathy with which he explores their thinking and their feelings. Lovelace understand Trinidad and its people, its music, its history and its psyche in ways that have made him one of the most important writers to have emerged from the Caribbean in the last seventy years. Is Just a Movie manages to combine all the elements of the best calypso-a postmodernist sense of the world, a earthbound wit, a capacity for complex tragedy and a haunting humanity. Lovelace makes you want to be Trinidadian." --Kwame Dawes, Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina "Lovelace has written an comic masterpiece. The dazzle of talent on display in this his latest novel is in its own way absurd. Yes, some writers do have it all." --Colin Channer, author, Waiting in Vain "The publication of a new novel by Earl Lovelace is an event to celebrate. This satire, while biting, is tempered with a pathos and humor which directs us to the fundamental humanity we have come to recognize in all of Lovelace's writing." --Lawrence Scott, author, Night Calypso "More than any other writer, the prose of Earl Lovelace is 'Trini to the bone.' And like the famed Cascadu river fish after which the village in Is Just a Movie is named, once its sweet flesh is tasted, the reader is destined to return to its shores." --Robert Antoni, author of Divina Trace and Carnival "Earl Lovelace is arguably the Caribbean's greatest living novelist. In Is Just a Movie, he writes at the top of his considerable literary powers, picturing the Caribbean's poor and powerless defending their ever-embattled humanity with resourcefulness and tenacity." --Randall Robinson, author, Makeda"Maker, destroyer, recorder, revealer: that is Earl Lovelace and here he is at his soaring rhapsodic best. Starring two hapless almost-beens in search of movie fame, Is Just A Movie takes us on wild loving absurdist journey to the heart of a contemporary Trinidad, a Trinidad so ravishingly alive that the Naipauls of the world could never have imagined it or possessed the soul to write about it." --Junot Díaz, author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao "Earl Lovelace's genius is revealed in his capacity to consistently write characters of complex sophistication that remain fully believable as products of their landscape and time even as the author conjures up riveting and often unusual circumstances in their lives. Lovelace's characters are compelling because of the care and profound empathy with which he explores their thinking and their feelings. Lovelace understand Trinidad and its people, its music, its history and its psyche in ways that have made him one of the most important writers to have emerged from the Caribbean in the last seventy years. Is Just a Movie manages to combine all the elements of the best calypso-a postmodernist sense of the world, a earthbound wit, a capacity for complex tragedy and a haunting humanity. Lovelace makes you want to be Trinidadian." --Kwame Dawes, Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina "Lovelace has written an comic masterpiece. The dazzle of talent on display in this his latest novel is in its own way absurd. Yes, some writers do have it all." --Colin Channer, author, Waiting in Vain "The publication of a new novel by Earl Lovelace is an event to celebrate. This satire, while biting, is tempered with a pathos and humor which directs us to the fundamental humanity we have come to recognize in all of Lovelace's writing." --Lawrence Scott, author, Night Calypso "More than any other writer, the prose of Earl Lovelace is 'Trini to the bone.' And like the famed Cascadu river fish after which the village in Is Just a Movie is named, once its sweet flesh is tasted, the reader is destined to return to its shores." --Robert Antoni, author of Divina Trace and Carnival "Earl Lovelace is arguably the Caribbean's greatest living novelist. In Is Just a Movie, he writes at the top of his considerable literary powers, picturing the Caribbean's poor and powerless defending their ever-embattled humanity with resourcefulness and tenacity." --Randall Robinson, author, Makeda
£12.34
Stone Bridge Press A Shameful Life: (Ningen Shikkaku)
Book SynopsisOsamu Dazai is one of the most famous--and infamous--writers of 20th-century Japan. A Shameful Life (Ningen shikkaku) is his final published work and has become a bestselling classic for its depiction of the tortured struggle of a young man to survive in a world that he cannot comprehend. Paralleling the life and death of Dazai himself, the delicate weaving of fact and fiction remorselessly documents via journals the life of Yozo, a university student who spends his time in increasing isolation and debauchery. His doomed love affairs, suicide attempts, and constant fear of revealing his true self haunt the pages of the book and reveal a slow descent into madness. This dark tale nevertheless conveys something authentic about the human heart and its inability to find its true bearing.Trade ReviewWinner of the William F. Sibley Memorial Subvention Award for Japanese Translation "Dazai's reputation has not waned a bit in seventy years. Reading Mark Gibeau's brilliant translation will show you why." --Roger Pulvers, award-winning translator, film director, and author of LIV
£10.44
Stone Bridge Press The Heron Catchers
Book SynopsisA 2023 American Writing Awards Finalist Joiner's second novel set in the fabled Kanazawa area is an intimate yet understated look at an American who seeks recovery after his marriage to a Japanese woman has failed.After Nozomi abandons Sedge and their marriage, taking all their money and leaving him with a ceramics shop he can’t manage alone, her brother and his wife offer him a lifeline at their Japanese hot spring inn until he can get back on his feet. As he proceeds forward from this devastation in his life, he becomes involved with the wife of the man Nozomi ran off with as well as her stepson, a troubled 16-year-old whose jealousy and potential for violence contrasts with his interest in birds, origami, and the haiku of Matsuo Basho. What unfolds in the shadow of “the immortal mountain of cranes” will change their lives forever.Set in Kanazawa and Yamanaka Onsen near the Sea of Japan, The Heron Catchers explores the importance of recognizing suffering both in others and in oneself, of being compassionate, and of trusting those who offer love in the shattering wake of loss.The Heron Catchers is the second in a series of novels set in and around the Japanese city of Kanazawa.Trade ReviewA 2023 American Writing Awards Finalist "A couple navigates their doomed marriage while living in Yamanaka Onsen, a beautiful yet claustrophobic town where gossip is rife and private lives are public knowledge."—Iain Maloney, The Japan Times"A multi-sided geometry of love and pain set in rural Ishikawa."—DC Palter, Japonica"An enjoyable look at life outside the major Japanese tourist haunts, and an examination of the issues faced by those who attempt to make a life for themselves there."—Tony's Reading List"The Heron Catchers, is at once a novel about a particular place, but is also a novel for us all, as our fates and feelings are intertwined with the natural world. Joiner's deeply felt and sensitive rendering of the inner lives of men and women in midlife, who are more affected by the place they live than they are aware, shifts in subtle waves, like the ocean that borders the town of Kanazawa where much of the novel is set. Closely observed and with care paid to emotional nuances, Joiner has written a book about adult life, and the endless striving we feel for meaningful connection."—Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye and The Tree Doctor"This slow burn of a novel sears itself into your consciousness with equal parts tension and poignancy. The Heron Catchers skillfully captures one blended, broken family's experience of growth and healing amidst the beauty and precariousness of Kanazawa's natural world."—Leza Lowitz, author of In Search of the Sun: One Woman's Quest to Find Family in Japan“Joiner reels the reader in with characteristic fine plotting, carefully crafted writing, vivid imagery and descriptions of life in the Japanese countryside, and a tone of authenticity belonging to a writer who knows and loves Japan. A riveting and worthy follow-up to Kanazawa.”—Amy Chavez, The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island“David Joiner’s The Heron Catchers introduces us to the quiet green abundance of the Japanese mountains, the slow beauty of pottery, and the pain of love ended. We follow wounded characters, Sedge and Mariko, as they learn to heal after each has suffered from devastating betrayals. Like the herons they ultimately rescue from injuries incurred by natural and human calamities, they too strike out at those who seek to help them. Not unlike the wandering poet Matsuo Basho who steps into the frame of the story here and there, Joiner offers flashes of insights as sharp and beautiful as a heron taking flight. Readers will find in this elegiac, imaginative work, space for reflection and discovery.”—Rebecca Copeland, author of The Kimono Tattoo, co-editor of Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch"An intimate, rewarding novel of people linked by misfortune who search for redemption, wholeness, and purpose. Joiner evokes his protagonist’s inner world vividly among descriptions of the life, culture, festivities, and natural environment of a small hot-spring town near Kanazawa. The Heron Catchers is an engrossing sojourn in one of Japan’s most charming off-the-beaten-path destinations."—Jeffrey Angles, translator of Hiromi Ito’s The Thorn Puller and author of My International Date Line (Winner of the Yomiuri Prize for Literature)PRAISE FOR DAVID JOINER'S KANAZAWA"Kanazawa is both a sensitive portrayal of the struggles of an international marriage and a paean to the city in which it is set."—The Japan Times"With its deliberate, expressive descriptions of the city and the mountains that surround it, Kanazawa is a character driven novel that illustrates the importance of communication and compromise."—Dontaná McPherson-Joseph, Foreword Reviews"He engages readers’ senses as a way of introducing his beautiful surroundings, describing sedate machiya homes, carafes of hot sake, aromas of temple incense, the prick of a snail shell on a lip. By keeping his sentences and structure simple, Joiner allows his decidedly Western prose to reflect a sense of Asian place without making Asia seem 'exotic.'—Lit Hub"Reflective and atmospheric, Kanazawa is a story for sitting with. The drama and conflict are experienced not as grand explosions of intense emotion but as a quiet gnawing from within that is far less easy to escape. Joiner’s patient attention to the interiority of his characters and a strong sense of place create a moving portrayal of the messiness of relationships and the ways that all the things we hope to bury in the past stay with us."—Reid Bartholomew, World Literature Today"Filled with lush greenery, formidable mountains, historic castles, and a vibrant local community... Kanazawa casts a shimmering layer of magical novelty around the countryside that has too long been reserved for prominent cities ever since Japan’s industrialization in the early 20th century."—Ella Kelleher, Asia Media International"A graceful novel of a graceful city. David Joiner’s Kanazawa interweaves four love affairs, echoing the fantastical writings of the early 20th century writer Izumi Kyoka. At the story’s heart lies the enigmatic bond between Emmitt’s wife’s parents, with a secret only revealed in the novel’s dramatic climax. The other three love affairs, with their own enigmas, are Emmitt’s own - for his wife Mirai, for his adoptive city of Kanazawa, and for his muse Kyoka."—Alex Kerr, author of Lost Japan and Finding the Heart Sutra"An intriguing story of a Japanese family worthy of the best of Japanese literature.”—Roger Pulvers, author of Liv"Kanazawa drips with a sense of place, the setting much more than just a back drop to the action; Joiner shows that there are plenty of stories taking place outside the vortex of Tokyo. Tense, moving, and subtly gripping, Kanazawa is a welcome addition to the books-about-Japan shelf."—Iain Maloney, author of The Only Gaijin in the Village "The novel is poignant, elegant and meditative, with a cathartic climax, a dramatic payoff after a steady buildup. This is achieved fantastically, without a single dull moment. The straightforward language, the rich atmosphere, the natural flow of the characters’ thoughts, words, and movements all drive the story forward organically. Joiner has achieved an incredible feat in making a story whose lifeforce is art seem so effortless and devoid of artifice."—My Murmuring Bones
£14.24
Small Beer Press Dance on Saturday: Stories
Book SynopsisPhilip K. Dick Award finalist In the title novella, Cotman imagines a group of near-immortals living in Pittsburgh in an uneasy truce with Lord Decay. Their truce is threatened when one of them takes pity on a young woman who knows their secret. In “Among the Zoologists,” a game writer on their way to a convention falls in with a group of rogue Darwinists whose baggage contains a great mystery. A volleyball tournament devolves into nightmare and chaos in “Mine.” In Cotman’s hands, the conventions of genres from fairytales to Victorian literature to epic fantasy and horror give shape to marvelously new stories.Trade Review"Elwin Cotman’s third collection of short fiction is only six stories long, but each story is packed with rich depth, like jeweled fruits glinting in wet loam. Mixing mythic and contemporary, humor and horror, melancholy and optimism, Cotman’s stories range from present-day Pittsburgh to fantasy Africa, with a beautifully flexible polyvocal prose. My two favorite stories make up about half the book: 'Seven Watsons' and the title story both deliver all the sophistication and complexity of a novel at a third of the length, and center Black joy and endurance." — NPR Best Books of the Year "Karen Russell’s cover blurb praises Cotman as 'a synthesizer … of lewd dialect and high lyricism.' I’ll speak instead of Cotman’s high dialect and lewd lyricism, of how his fashioning of character voices is superbly disciplined, lit from within, while his lyricism is the realm of bawdy jokes and opacity, a kind of literary trolling. “She was tall and wide like a sonnet,” one character notes — and you’ll just have to trust me on the contrast with the bawdy bits, none of which my editor will let me cite. "The core of the book is a cleareyed survey of the complexities of Black American experience, distilled in a few lines from the title story: 'I hated the powers for what they had done. But I learned the pride. That I was of a people who could take all the hate and poison of this world, and laugh, and go dance on Saturday.'” — Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review "Cotman utilizes the entire spectrum of fantasy and speculative fiction to write powerful stories on race, power, and human nature. The title novella is particularly stellar, about a group of immortals in Pittsburgh who can extend their life (and limbs) by growing and consuming certain fruit. It’s a timely collection filled with wit and beautiful language." — Lyndsie Manusos, Book Riot “The landscapes of Elwin Cotman are mythical, searching, and stimulated by haunting fanaticism. Among his third and most ambitious story collection are tales of magical scope—they do more than simply spellbind; they seduce, invite, crack open the extraordinary. . . . In the mold of Octavia Butler and Karen Russell, Dance on Saturday is a bold leap of speculative fiction.” — Jason Parham, Wired, 2020 Summer Reading List “Inventive, incandescent stories, rich in strangeness. Elwin Cotman’s writing is a tonic to ward off drabness and despair.” — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble “Cotman blends humor, emotional clarity, and wild imagination to bring life to stories about identity, power, and human nature.” — Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed, 29 Summer Books You Won’t Be Able To Put Down “Fantastically weird short stories infused with elements from Black culture. . . . Each story provides a singular and riveting reading experience.” — Margaret Kingsbury, Buzzfeed, 17 Summer Must-Reads For Fantasy Lovers “Cotman (Hard Times Blues) wields biting wit, powerful emotion, and magic large and small throughout these six superlative stories. . . . Readers will be blown away. . . . Cotman’s bold and timely speculative fiction marks him as a writer to watch.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review “Fun, inventive fiction that refreshes the fantasy genre with elements of black heritage and culture.” — Kirkus Reviews Praise for Elwin Cotman’s books: "Elwin Cotman is one of the most original new voices you will encounter—he is a synthesizer of the domestic and the fantastic, of soaring myth and the grittiest realities, of lewd dialect and high lyricism. His stories are profound engagements with suffering of every stripe—they will also make you hoot with laughter. I was amazed by the force of Mr. Cotman's pinwheeling imagination.” — Karen Russell, author of Orange World “Remarkable stories that are as ambitious as they are personal. Cotman is a first-class stylist with a heart and a wit to match.” — Paul Tremblay, author of Survivor Song “With its intoxicating blend of rock and roll and the supernatural, crazed religion and visionary prose, Hard Times Blues is a wild ride down the same shadowy American sideroads traveled by the likes of Cormac McCarthy, Greil Marcus and Samuel R. Delany. A marvelous collection by a strikingly original new voice in contemporary fiction.” — Elizabeth Hand, author of Errantry “With hyperbolic, technicolor imagery and engrossing characters that radiate intrigue, these modern tales comprise a new book of essential fables for our time—read it, close your eyes, and delight in the words still glowing hot inside your brain.” — Alissa Nutting, author of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls “Starbursts of talent . . . and a knack for biting and imaginative language.” — Lauren O’Neal, The Rumpus “Proves that magic and grit don't have to be mutually exclusive.” — Christine Stoddard, Quail Bell Magazine “Cotman’s interests are wide-ranging: Punk rock intersects with D.C.’s Dominican community, African-American folktale intersects with Greek myth, Goth teen suburban angst in 1990s Ohio sits side by side with racist atrocity in the pre-Civil Rights South . . . Yeah, there’s magic in some of these stories, but the real magic is in Cotman’s words themselves—stark and deadpan one moment, lushly descriptive the next.” — Michael S. Begnal, author of Ancestor Worship “This is not always a comfortable book to read, but it is a magnificent one. The Jack Daniels Sessions EP: A Collection of Fantasies is comprised of short stories and vignettes that flow into one another like the Mississippi rushes over the Delta. Elwin Cotman is a writer, an activist, a performance artist and above all, an impeccable storyteller. . . . With raw and sometimes shocking authenticity, Cotman turns the ordinary into the sublime. There is no pretension here, just a million-watt light shining into corners of the human condition that many people would prefer forgotten, with a large helping of fantastic creatures, classical myth, and modern mayhem.” — Erzebet YellowBoy, Cabinet des Fées "Elwin Cotman's carefully wrought, gracefully accomplished, and lyrical narratives range in tone and style from picaresque and carnivalesque to elegiac, ironic, and melancholy. Yet, while tonally distinctive and aesthetically vivid, his stories are not so much driven by style or voice, as they are by love in the largest sense. For love does not exclude chaos nor avoid the vicissitudes of history and neither do Cotman's socially engaged, brilliantly crafted stories.” — Miranda MellisTable of ContentsDance on Saturday Seven Watsons Mine The Son’s War Among the Zoologists The Piper’s Christmas Gift
£999.99
Other Press LLC In a Deep Blue Hour
Book Synopsis
£15.29
Oni Press,US The Freak
Book SynopsisOni Press is proud to present, in the tradition of Faceless and the Family, Eisner Awardnominated creator Matt Lesniewski's carefully crafted tale of rejection, loss and loathingnow in hardcover for the first time. Who hasn't, at some point in their life, felt misunderstood, outcast . . . alone? This is the constant conflict and plight of our eponymously named protagonist. Everywhere he travels, he is met with violence and disgust. But will his trip to the big city, where he hopes to go unnoticed amongst the masses, be any different from the places and experiences he's had previously?Enter the unique and visually expressive mind of writer-artist Matt Lesniewski in his debut graphic novel, which received a 2020 Eisner Award nomination.
£14.99
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Lost Boy
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Schaffner Press Pariahs
Book Synopsis
£16.10
Soho Press America del Norte
Book Synopsis
£15.29
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Its a Family Affair
Book Synopsis
£8.92
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Its a Family Affair
Book Synopsis
£10.99
Mango Media So This Is the End: A Love Story (Explore
Book SynopsisHow Would You Spend Your Last Few Hours on Earth?Early readers called So This Is the End "a breath of fresh air,” "moving and beautiful," and something with which you’ll "fall in love the instant you start reading.”#1 New Release in Science Fiction & Fantasy In Nora Hamilton’s world, doctors have found a cure for death, with just one caveat—it only lasts for 24 hours. This beautifully-written novel poses a thoughtful question: how would you spend your last 24 hours before death?One more day. One more chance to tell family you love them, feel the grass beneath your feet, or finally speak your mind. So This Is The End follows Nora Hamilton as she navigates her last 24 hours before death, and she is determined to do something meaningful with her last moments. While looking for unique bucket list ideas, a friend suggests going on one last first date. What happens next is like a love story. Of course Nora would fall in love in her last 24 hours before death.Enter: Renzo. Ren, for short. Their connection is immediate. Nora wants love, no lies. Should she tell Ren the truth about her condition—that she has less than 24 hours left before her second death? How will he react? Is it unethical to fall in love with someone if you only have one day left on earth? Or is love a gift, even when it's found on the final day a person has left? Inside So This Is The End, you’ll find: A love novel about taking chances, making your own rules, and how love does prevail How to treat all days like your final days—escape mundane living A moving romantic drama about finding love in your last 24 hours before death If you liked The Midnight Library, Me Before You, or The Light We Lost, you’ll love So This Is The End.
£11.89
Haymarket Books Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women
Book SynopsisThis comprehensive collection of fiction, poetry, and reportage by revolutionary women of the 1930s lays to rest the charge that feminism disappeared after 1920. Among the thirty-six writers are Muriel Rukeyser, Margaret Walker, Josephine Herbst, Tillie Olsen, Tess Slesinger, Agnes Smedley, and Meridel Le Sueur. Other voices may be new to readers, including many working-class Black and white women. Topics covered range from sexuality and family relationships, to race, class, and patriarchy, to party politics. Toni Morrison writes that the anthology is “peopled with questioning, caring, socially committed women writers.”Trade Review“This historic volume powerfully captures the vital role revolutionary women played in shaping American radicalism during the Great Depression. It is a must-read for anyone interested in history, gender, and politics.” —Keisha N. Blain, author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America“This republication of Writing Red comes to us just as we are primed to think deeply about gender, race, and class in a moment that mirrors both the tragedy and creative awakening in the aftermath of the early twentieth century’s capitalist crisis. In the 1930s, in the 1980s, and again today, these women writers attend to our neglected realities and dreams. Hopefully, future generations will learn how not to forget them, and we will all benefit from their wisdom and perspective, moving forward toward the freedom of not just some but all.” —Gina Dent, co-author of Abolition. Feminism. Now.“Thirty-five years ago, Nekola and Rabinowitz produced a labor of love, the path-breaking anthology, Writing Red. Indefatigable researchers, they discovered radical women writers whose work had gone missing from histories of the Thirties and histories of feminism. Theirs was not an academic exercise, but rather an effort to show that radical women of the Thirties, in their desire to tackle capitalism, racism and patriarchy, were there well before us. Now that historians are re-periodizing the women’s movement, suggesting the Thirties rather than the Sixties as its starting point, Writing Red is more essential than ever.” —Alice Echols, Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies at the University of Southern California“From Meridel Le Sueur’s fiction to Margaret Walker’s poetry, from legendary folk singer Aunt Molly Jackson’s lyrics to Tillie Olsen’s reportage from the West Coast Longshoreman’s Strike of 1934, Writing Red reignites the fires behind the battlelines of women’s struggles in the 1930s for a new generation of readers. Contemporary organizers and activists in abortion rights, trade unions, gender studies, sex work, and other sites of social action will find comrades-in-arms from a century ago in this magnificent volume by Nekola and Rabinowitz.” —Mark Nowak, author of Social Poetics“Writing Red is an indispensable record of the political struggles and intersectional solidarities of 1930s women radicals. With this updated edition, the revolutionary desires of the past are illuminated anew for the next generation of readers, writers, and activists. A testament to feminist collaboration, and a call to meet the challenges of the present, Writing Red is an enduring and necessary book.” —Sarah Ehlers, author of Left of Poetry: Depression America and the Formation of Modern Poetics“In Writing Red, Paula Rabinowitz and Charlotte Nekola introduce twenty-first century readers to remarkable writers from an extraordinary decade. Exquisitely readable and superbly informative, these collected voices bring to life women in fields and factories, kitchens, battlefields, and on the picket lines. By drawing attention to sexuality, domestic labor, motherhood, gender and racial oppression, these radical writers amplified the Left of their time. They remain a vital resource in ours.” —Rosemary Hennessy, author of Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism“Writing Red is one of those rare books that transformed twentieth century literary history forever. This bold and brilliant anthology, curated with audacity by Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz, became the vanguard text of a new direction in the study of United States Literary Radicalism, one that upended the masculinist narrative of the Marxist-led cultural movement of the 1930s. Nearly four decades later, its unparalleled mission of reinvention continues to refresh and inspire scholars, activists, and readers.” —Alan Wald, author of Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century Literary Left“This superb anthology offers the perfect introduction to the wide range of radical women writers in '30s America. And it documents a key moment in the evolution of the progressive movement in the US. A perfect book for any course touching on the Depression Era or the history of radicalism.” —T.V. Reed, author of The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Present“In this time of precarity, pandemic, and protest, we need more than ever to read those women writers of short fiction, poetry, and reportage that Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz first anthologized in 1987. Writing Red captures anger at exploitation and longing for a more just world: among both the left authors of the depression decade of 1930-1940 and its feminist editors of the 1980s, when women's studies as a field became institutionalized. We need these fighting words to counter the fascism and financial capitalism of our time.” —Eileen Boris, author of Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919-2019“When it was first published in 1987, Writing Red exploded the leftist literary landscape by forcefully demonstrating how Depression-era women writers engaged carefully with gender, sexuality, class, and race in their radical work. Thanks to this timely republication of a classic anthology, an entirely new generation of readers and activists can grapple with the brilliant pieces it contains – even as they ask themselves why so many of the struggles found in this essential volume’s pages continue to feel eerily familiar. Populated with the energetic voices of women who imagined their fiction, poetry, and reportage as essentially connected to on-the-ground protest, Writing Red will inspire, challenge, and provoke all who peruse its pages.” —Aaron Lecklider, author of Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture“This volume excavates the stories, poems, and reportage of women writers whose work originally appeared in now-defunct Left journals. This essential collection should inspire.” ―Library Journal
£14.99
Erewhon Books The Deading
Book SynopsisStephen King?s Under the Dome meets The Last of Us in this harrowing dystopian novel about the downward spiral of a seaside town that becomes infected by a mysterious ocean-borne contagion.If you want to stay, you have to die.In a small fishing town known for its aging birding community and the local oyster farm, a hidden evil emerges from the depths of the ocean. It begins with sea snails washing ashore, attacking whatever they cling to. This mysterious infection starts transforming the wildlife, the seascapes, and finally, the people.Once infected, residents of Baywood start ?deading?: collapsing and dying, only to rise again, changed in ways both fanatical and physical. As the government cuts the town off from the rest of the world, the uninfected, including the introverted bird-loving Blas and his jaded older brother Chango, realize their town could be ground zero for a fundamental shift in all living things.Soon, disturbing beliefs and autocratic rituals emerge, overseen by the death-worshiping Risers. People must choose how to survive, how to find home, and whether or not to betray those closest to them. Stoked by paranoia and isolation, tensions escalate until Blas, Chango, and the survivors of Baywood must make their escape or become subsumed by this terrifying new normal.At points claustrophobic and haunting, soulful and melancholic, The Deading lyrically explores the disintegration of society, the horror of survival and adaptation, and the unexpected solace found through connections in nature and between humans.
£15.29
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC The Right Oath
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£7.99
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC The Right Oath
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£12.34
She Writes Press Behold the Bird in Flight
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£15.29
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC The Panacea of Life
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£9.49
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Texas Beach Time
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£9.49
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Malkin
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£7.99
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC Academic Overtures
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£9.49
Amazon Publishing You Must Be New Here
Book SynopsisA friendship is put to the test when a young woman disappears from a quiet community in a dark and twisty novel of suspense by the bestselling author of Open House and The Vacation Rental.Sloane Thompson has a daughter named Daisy, attends school activities with other parents, and even has an amicable relationship with her ex-husband. But after ten years in bucolic Sycamore Glen, Sloane has yet to find someone to call a true friend. Until Harper and Ben Wilson move in next door.Harper is open, charismatic, and restless. She and Sloane quickly become confidantes and fall into a deep and intoxicating friendship. Then one afternoon, Daisy’s dependable babysitter, Margaret, fails to show. When texts from Margaret’s mother and boyfriend go unanswered, the inexplicable disappearance becomes a cause for alarm.As anxious hours turn into days, suspicion grows. And tension tightens. As if something is about to snap. When it does, long-held secrets are revealed, and not everyone in Sycamore Glen is who they seem to be.
£16.99
Amazon Publishing You Must Be New Here
Book SynopsisA friendship is put to the test when a young woman disappears from a quiet community in a dark and twisty novel of suspense by the bestselling author of Open House and The Vacation Rental.Sloane Thompson has a daughter named Daisy, attends school activities with other parents, and even has an amicable relationship with her ex-husband. But after ten years in bucolic Sycamore Glen, Sloane has yet to find someone to call a true friend. Until Harper and Ben Wilson move in next door.Harper is open, charismatic, and restless. She and Sloane quickly become confidantes and fall into a deep and intoxicating friendship. Then one afternoon, Daisy’s dependable babysitter, Margaret, fails to show. When texts from Margaret’s mother and boyfriend go unanswered, the inexplicable disappearance becomes a cause for alarm.As anxious hours turn into days, suspicion grows. And tension tightens. As if something is about to snap. When it does, long-held secrets are revealed, and not everyone in Sycamore Glen is who they seem to be.
£8.54
Amazon Publishing The Stars and Their Light
Book SynopsisIn Roswell, New Mexico, the mystery of the unknown grips a sheltered novitiate in a haunting historical novel about fate, agency, and faith by the bestselling author of October in the Earth. It's 1947 when Sister Mary Agnes arrives in New Mexico. Her mission is to establish a monastery in the town of Roswell, where weeks before rumors of the crash landing of an unidentified craft have triggered a crisis of faith. Residents are drifting away from the divine, awed no longer by the heavens but rather the stars. In service to the frightened and confused, Sister Mary Agnes soon befriends Betty Campbell, a teenager marked both physically and psychically by the inexplicable event. Mary Agnes is also unsettlingly drawn to Harvey, an attentive handyman refurbishing the monasteryand a firsthand witness to the crash. But as Mary Agnes tries to guide her wayward friends back to the church, it's the fantastic and the forbidden that begin to loom large in her imagination. Thrown into her own crisis of doubt, Mary Agnes must choose whether to uphold the order in which she came of age or embrace the truth she feels in her heart, despite its terrifying complexity.
£21.74
Amazon Publishing Every Precious and Fragile Thing
Book SynopsisA mother and daughter try desperately to reconcile just as a decades-old secret threatens to shatter their relationship forever in this powerful story from the bestselling author of The Echo of Old Books.For social worker Mallory Ward, working with at-risk youth is a calling. But when one of her clients is tragically killed, she finds herself at a crossroads. Despite long-held resentments toward her distant mother, Mallory retreats to her childhood home on the Rhode Island coast to contemplate her future. Instead, she’s confronted by her past, not only in the renewed tensions with her mother but in the unexpected appearance of a familiar face—and the wrenching losses that drove her away a decade ago.Helen Ward’s home is filled with precious keepsakes from her patients, a testament to decades spent caring for the terminally ill. Her work has always come first, though, leaving little time to connect with her daughter. Over the years, the rift between them has become a chasm, so when Mallory appears unannounced, Helen sees it as an opportunity to repair their broken relationship.But hidden among Helen’s mementos are the keys to her past…and a terrible secret that threatens to destroy the fragile new trust between them forever.
£21.74
Amazon Publishing Falling Overboard
Book SynopsisForbidden love on the sun-kissed Mediterranean. Regardless of the risks, it?s easy to get swept away in a breathtaking romance by Sariah Wilson, the USA Today bestselling author of Hypnotized by Love.Lucky Salerno?s dream is to own a bakery. To earn enough money to achieve it, she has secured a lucrative job as chief stewardess on a superyacht cruising the Mediterranean. Aboard the ship, there?s one unbreakable rule: no hookups among the crew. No problem. The last thing Lucky has time for is a man. Then she meets Hunter Smith, the gorgeous new deckhand sharing her cabin. Is the universe trying to test her willpower?Who needs the drama that comes with a relationship? Not Hunter. Who can ignore a witty, beautiful bunkmate like Lucky? Also not Hunter. There?s something just as enticing for Lucky: a tantalizing mystery behind Hunter?s piercing blue eyes she can?t wait to solve. But at what risk?As they get to know each other, a secret romance buds at sea, and Lucky has to choose. Abide by the rules to make her career dreams come true, or pursue her love for Hunter?another dream that?s just as near to her heart.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing In the Beautiful Dark
Book SynopsisA woman investigates a friend's long-ago murder in a haunting and hopeful novel about the weight of secrets and regrets by the bestselling author of The Wild Road Home and A Light in the Forest. At Sunny Pines Retirement Community, where the Sixty-Two and Better! share their golden years, secrets abound. Some scandalous, some haunting, and some dangerous. For Birdie Allen, a retired business owner and grandmother, her secret is the only thing she's got left. Getting old isn't the hardest part about life. It's the memories from more than fifty years ago of the death of her unrequited love. And Birdie's abandoned quest to root out the killer. With retirement comes a lot of time to revisit old ghosts, so when Birdie ties together a string of recent murders, and a woman disappears, she's drawn into the same chase she gave up decades earlier. But this time she has the help of an eccentric community of eager new friends. And they're not alone. Restless souls are watching, including Birdie's lost love, and they sense the danger that lies ahead. They're not leaving Birdie's side until she finishes what she set out to do. But will Birdie's pursuit of a killer finally free her of regrets and allow her to embrace the beauty of the life she's created?
£8.54
Amazon Publishing Michael Without Apology
Book SynopsisA film student struggling with self-acceptance finally stops looking away from his traumatic past in a powerful novel by New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde. Michael Woodbine was seven years old when a near-fatal fireworks accident scarred him and led to his placement in foster care. Now a college freshman, he is still trying to hide the effects of his trauma from his classmates, his adoptive family, and himself. When Michael signs up for a film class, he meets Robert Dunning, a teacher who wears his own scars unapologetically. Robert encourages Michael to make a documentary that explores body image and self-perception. Michael places an ad seeking people who feel unattractive and rejected by societyand is surprised to learn that this is essentially everyone. Although some participants are recovering from injuries or surgeries, others are dealing with more everyday factors like aging or the changes to a body from giving birth. As he collects these storiesand finally tells his ownMichael feels more connected to the world than he ever has before. But he knows his journey of self-acceptance has one more obstacle: his crushing doubts about why his birth parents wouldn't fight to keep him.
£8.54
Amazon Publishing The Master Jeweler
Book SynopsisFrom the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Night Angels comes the epic story of a brilliant young woman's dangerous rise to fame in the perilous world of jewelry in 1920s Shanghaiand the power of love and friendship. Harbin, China, 1925. Fifteen-year-old Anyu Zhang discovers a priceless Fabergé egg in the snow and returns it to the owner, Isaac Mandelburg, a fugitive and former master jeweler for Russia's imperial palace. In gratitude, he leaves her his address in Shanghai and a promise of hospitality, forever altering her fate. A dazzling world of jewelry shrouded in secrecy and greed awaits, when later Anyu arrives at Mandelburg's jewelry shop as an orphan. Single minded and relentless, Anyu will stop at nothing until she masters the craft of jewelry making. But she soon finds herself entangled in a treacherous underbelly of the city, where violent gangsters stalk the streets, vicious rivals seek to exploit her, and obsessive collectors conspire to destroy the people she loves. From snow-crowned land to diamond-sparkling showrooms to a pristine island on the brink of war, The Master Jeweler chronicles an exciting journey of a bold prodigy artisanincluding her losses and triumphsin a glamorous yet perilous world of treasure.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Trust Me On This
Book SynopsisTwo half sisters on a road trip to see their dying father end up miles from where they expected in an emotional novel about secrets, forgiveness, and what it means to be family by the author of La Vie, According to Rose. Zahra Starling and her younger half sister, Aurora, have nothing in common. Not their childhoods or their personalities. And certainly not their outlooks. After a terrible loss, Zahra prefers the solitude of her LA kitchen to people, especially family. Bubbly Aurora, a rising Hollywood starlet, has everything she's ever dreamed of, except a relationship with her sister. Then comes a plea from their dying father, who wants both daughters by his side. He has a secret to share that's been a long time coming. It's Zahra's last chance to bring closure to the past, even if traumatic memories mean there's no way she's stepping foot on a plane. For Aurora, road-tripping to Seattle is the perfect escape and the chance to win over prickly Zahra. What starts as a rough ride reopening old wounds evolves into something neither expects. When they finally reach their destinationand the truth that awaits themthe sisters will need each other like never before.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Betting on Good
Book SynopsisA Kentucky Derby weekend for two couples tests the high-stakes boundaries of friendship and marriage in a witty, winning, and emotional novel by the author of Feels Like Summer. Amid the heralded springtime traditions and fabulous splendor of the Kentucky Derby, two Boston coupleslongtime friendsindulge in a once-in-a-lifetime getaway. The weekend feels like a winner. It's a milestone-birthday present for the newlyand reluctantlyturned forty Drew Starling. Her husband, Nate, has spared no expensedespite the mounting gambling debts that Drew knows nothing about. He's certain that with his lucky charm, Drew, by his side, he can reverse his misfortunes at Churchill Downs. Joining them are friends Leslie and Graham, floundering in a twelve-year marriage that desperately needs a change of scenery, a new spark. Graham especially looks forward to being in the Starlings' charmed orbit this weekend, though he won't say why. When the bourbon begins to flow and the horses thunder down the track, secrets and simmering tensions soon spill. As sure as the bugler's call and the winner's purse, the stakes of marriage and friendship on this revelatory weekend have never been so high.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Letters from Strangers
Book SynopsisFrom the creator of the 2017 film All I Wish comes the heartbreaking story of two strangers searching for the truth about their familiesand discovering a secret that will change their lives forever. Jane's father is far from perfect. But his sudden death brings crushing grief. As Jane grapples with her pain, life delivers another blow: a stack of letters pointing to a secret life. A life her father shared with another womanpossibly pregnant with his child. Across the country, sixteen-year-old Adam is self-destructing. His adoptive parents never intended to show him the unsigned letters from his birth mother, but he is desperate for answers, even if they hurt. Jane and Adam are on a collision course, but not for the reasons we might suspect. Because the letters do not tell the whole story. What is true is that Adam and Jane are both looking for a woman who does not want to be found. A family saga spanning two decades, this emotional story explores how good things can grow from the ashes of old scars.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Just Want You Here
Book SynopsisAn intimate and deeply moving coming-of-age novel about second chances and the inextricable bonds between lovers and friends.The only love Ari has known is Morgan. Engaged and planning a life with him in New York, Ari is shocked when Morgan sits her down one rainy afternoon and tells her their decade-long relationship is over. They’ve been over for a long time now, he says—and Ari knows he’s right.Twenty-eight years old and suddenly alone, Ari throws herself into a new job in Boston, as assistant to a tech CEO. Wells is British, twelve years her senior, a devoted husband and father. He’s also captivated by Ari, in a way neither of them can explain. Ignoring every warning signal from friends and their own instincts, they dive into a fiery affair, which becomes more dangerous as Ari finds herself intricately tangled with his wife, Leah.Nothing can prepare Ari for the choices she must make as she tries to uncover what’s right for herself, and for the people she can’t let go. As a new path opens—a journey of lies and the twisted calculus of protecting them—Ari’s second chance at happiness forces her to consider who she really is. Can you love someone without dragging them under? What does it take to start over again?
£21.74
Amazon Publishing When Stars Align
Book SynopsisAn entertaining and poignant coming-of-age story about three young celebrity friends who go through the ups and downs of fame in the glaring eye of the spotlight. Mindy KalingThree girls in Hollywood who thought they'd rule the world. Reality bites in a touching novel about success, friendship, and redemption by a New York Times bestselling author. Best friends Miranda Montana, Germaine St. Germaine-Chang, and Sicily Bell were the darlings of Hollywood who rose from teen success to in-demand idols of screaming fans and paparazzi. They rode the momentum like there was no tomorrow. But nothing lasts forever. Now Miranda, the wild-child movie star, drifts from rehab to dead-end relationships as she tries for a comeback from a very public fall from grace. Germaine, the daughter of billionaire hotel moguls, has lost her purpose. And then there's Sicily, the all-American pop star who had a record deal, sold-out concerts, and controlling parents who squeezed the very life out of her. After a decade, fate reconnects these three young women for a long-awaited confrontation with the secrets, betrayals, heartbreak, and family traumas of the past. Settling old scores is just the beginning. It's also time to repair the damage done and to hold fast to the most galvanizing success of their lives: their friendship.
£8.54
Amazon Publishing American Sky
Book SynopsisThree generations of indomitable woman navigate life on their terms in an epic and inspiring historical novel about love and war, family secrets, and mothers and daughters finding the freedom to fly. It's 1943. The war rages. The newly launched WASP program is recruiting. And barnstormer fan Georgeanne George Ector's dream is to take to the skies. Grit is what she inherited from her mother, an Oklahoma farm girl at the turn of the century who preferred taking apart an engine to stitching linens for a hope chest. She taught her daughter well. George isn't the only woman about to follow her calling. Vivian Shaw, so similar to George they're like sisters, also longs for a career flying the fastest planes in the American arsenal. For a time, George and Vivian triumph. But at war's end, the adventurous women are grounded by the expectations of others: to get married, have children, and raise a family. Vivian has other plans. So, eventually, do George's daughters, Ruth and Ivy, who embark on very different paths of their own. Three generations of women staring down a vast horizon of possibilities are determined to navigate whatever comes their wayfrom the hardships of war and home to love and loss, and to the fallout of a long-held secret that could change their lives forever.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing When Stars Align
Book SynopsisAn entertaining and poignant coming-of-age story about three young celebrity friends who go through the ups and downs of fame in the glaring eye of the spotlight. Mindy KalingThree girls in Hollywood who thought they'd rule the world. Reality bites in a touching novel about success, friendship, and redemption by a New York Times bestselling author. Best friends Miranda Montana, Germaine St. Germaine-Chang, and Sicily Bell were the darlings of Hollywood who rose from teen success to in-demand idols of screaming fans and paparazzi. They rode the momentum like there was no tomorrow. But nothing lasts forever. Now Miranda, the wild-child movie star, drifts from rehab to dead-end relationships as she tries for a comeback from a very public fall from grace. Germaine, the daughter of billionaire hotel moguls, has lost her purpose. And then there's Sicily, the all-American pop star who had a record deal, sold-out concerts, and controlling parents who squeezed the very life out of her. After a decade, fate reconnects these three young women for a long-awaited confrontation with the secrets, betrayals, heartbreak, and family traumas of the past. Settling old scores is just the beginning. It's also time to repair the damage done and to hold fast to the most galvanizing success of their lives: their friendship.
£16.99
Amazon Publishing A Sky Full of Love
Book SynopsisFollowing a harrowing disappearance, a woman returns home to her familyand a life-changing secret in a powerful novel about betrayal, resilience, and love's unbreakable bonds. After fifteen years in captivity, Nova Lefleur is free, back home, and reunited with her Louisiana family. Through her ordeal, she never forgot them. They never forgot her either. But things have changed since Nova's been gone. Nova and her encouraging seventeen-year-old daughter, Skye, are getting to know each other for the first time. Her husband, Quinton, is rebuilding a relationship with a wife he thought was gone forever. And Nova's sister, Leah, is overjoyedand overwhelmed. Leah shares a secret with Quinton neither can bear to tell the woman they cherish. Not yet. Five years ago, bonding over grief and finding a reason to smile again, Quinton and Leah were married. When it's time for the truth to come out, they could lose Nova all over again. As Nova is eased back into a life both familiar and unfamiliar, she and her family must confront their deepest fears, the choices they made, and the choices to come that will reshape each of their lives forever.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Sweet Expectations
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£8.54
Amazon Publishing Life Derailed
Book SynopsisA visionary AI program upends a woman?s love life and career in a moving, funny, and thought-provoking novel about connection, friendship and family, and the resilience of the human heart.Remi Russell knows this playbook all too well. She?s seen it unfold five times over her six years at The Sophisticate, a once prominent but now struggling women?s magazine. So when the publication needs rescuing yet again, an intriguing new chief digital officer, Jason Ashbloome, arrives with a revolutionary plan beyond the usual workforce cuts. He proposes integrating MAUDE, an innovative AI software, to make the magazine more efficient. Remi fears she could lose her job to a machine, and worse, the magazine she loves might lose its humanity altogether.As a recent widow whose heart has been as empty as her dating-app inbox, Remi takes MAUDE for a test drive and asks it to revamp her profile in the hopes of healing from the loss of her college sweetheart, who died three years earlier. Fueled by wine and bittersweet memories, she makes a plea to MAUDE (and the universe!) to help her find someone just like him. The AI-assisted update pays off big-time when she receives a message from Noah the next day. He embodies everything she?s been seeking?intelligence, humor, adventure, and altruism?and he?s ruggedly handsome to boot.While her connection with Noah deepens, tensions at work escalate to a boiling point. Jason is determined to prove that AI can be as genuine as real people, while Remi strives to protect the very soul of The Sophisticate. But when a discovery about Noah?s true identity forces her to question everything she once believed, she must finally confront her own grief, embrace the unexpected bond she?s forming with the last person she ever expected, and find the courage to set a life derailed back on course.
£12.74
Amazon Publishing Five Oaks
Book SynopsisIn the Arkansas mountains, three generations of fiercely determined young women are poised for self-discovery in a decades-spanning novel about the bonds of family and secrets. Spending summer away from home for the first time, fifteen-year-old Wren Stone and her younger sister, Sylvie, arrive at Five Oaks, their grandparents' Arkansas lake house. As it was for their grandmother and mother before them, it's a place for coming of age, first love, triumphs and failures, and keeping secrets. This year, it's Wren's end-of-girlhood season. And Sylvie vows to keep all her secrets: Wren slipping away in the middle of the night, the boy on the dock, racing with him on the dark back roads, and slipping quietly into bed before dawn, carrying the scent of adventure. And still, as Wren's behavior begins changing and the moonlit escapes become more daring, Sylvie holds her tongue. Even when it feels like Wren is speeding toward disaster. Then one night, Wren doesn't come home. The halcyon days in the Ouachita Mountains are not what they appear. When the truth comes to lightabout mothers, daughters, and sistersno one in the family will ever be the same.
£15.29
Amazon Publishing The Union Street Bakery
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£8.54
Simon & Schuster Habitations
Book SynopsisA young academic moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more in this “delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor” (Ha Jin, National Book Award–winning author of Waiting). Vega Gopalan is adrift. Still reeling from the death of her sister years earlier, she leaves South India to attend graduate school at Columbia University. In New York, Vega straddles many different worlds, eventually moving in and out of a series of relationships that take her through the striving world of academia, the intellectual isolation of the immigrant suburbs, and, ultimately, the loneliness of single motherhood. But it is the birth of Vega’s daughter that forces the novel’s central question: What does it mean to make a home? Written with dry humor and searing insight, Habitations is an “irresistible debut” (Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) about identity, immigration, expectation, desire, and love lost and found. But it is also a universal story of womanhood, and the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties: to family, to community, and to themselves. A “sweeping, immersive, and utterly perfect” (Weike Wang, author of Chemistry) meditation on the many meanings of home and on the ways love and kinship can be found, even in the most unfamiliar of places, Habitations introduces Sheila Sundar as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.
£10.44
Wordfire Press The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
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£16.19
Turner Publishing Company Cities of Women
Book Synopsis“With a scholar’s commitment to accurate detail, and the heart of a lover of beauty, Kathleen B. Jones’s engaging and well-crafted parallel story is as colorful and lucid as the illuminated manuscripts at the center of her novel.” —Laurel Corona, author of The Mapmaker’s DaughterA deeply affecting dual narrative separated by several centuries, Cities of Women examines the lives of women who dare to challenge the social norms of their days, risking their reputations and livelihoods for the sake of their passions.In the twenty-first century, we meet Verity Frazier, a disillusioned history professor who sets out to prove that the artist responsible for the illuminated artwork in Christine de Pizan’s medieval manuscripts was a remarkable woman named Anastasia. As Anastasia’s story unfolds against the exquisitely-rendered medieval backdrop of moral disaster, political intrigue, and extraordinary creativity, Verity finds her career on the brink of collapse by her efforts to uncover evidence of the lost artist’s existence.Inspired by a decade of research, Jones has woven together a luminous and incisive masterpiece of historical fiction, evoking the spare joys and monumental pitfalls facing medieval women artists and a contemporary woman who becomes obsessed with medieval books.
£12.34
Turner Publishing Company Paradise, WV
Book SynopsisIn a poor West Virginia town decimated by the opioid epidemic, teenagers Henry and Jane have it worse than most. Their father is Hollis Lusher, a convicted serial killer known as “the Blind Spot Slasher.”Despite being bullied and ostracized, the siblings maintain their father’s innocence. But now, a popular true-crime podcast is coming to town, and their presence turns all eyes to the Blind Spot Slasher’s case . . . and Henry and Jane.Meanwhile, an eager young officer, Lieutenant Elena Garcia, is put on the case of a missing girl. Despite warnings from her superiors, Garcia begins to dig deeper into the case and realizes there may be other mysteries buried in the flood of opioid-related crimes. With many deaths quickly labeled as overdoses, or “No Human Involved,” she fears the drug epidemic has created the perfect storm for a Blind Spot Slasher copycat to thrive. Unless that is, they never caught the real Blind Spot Slasher.An amateur private investigator is also on the case: Henry’s new friend, Otis. A home-schooled genius with his own family issues and a suspicion their father might be innocent, Otis makes it his mission to help Henry and Jane find the real killer. As the three probe into the evidence, they discover a possible connection between the killings and a doomsday, snake-handling cult—propelling them all down the dark backroads of Appalachia to find justice for Hollis and themselves.Trade Review“An infectious mix of thriller and social commentary... brilliant.” —Publishers Weekly“Unsettling and unforgettable, Paradise, WV walks a line between pulp fiction and compassionate storytelling.” —Foreword Reviews“Paradise, WV is chock-full of transient characters seeking truth and belonging amid bleak circumstances. Rufus adeptly explores the often-overlooked angles of the opioid epidemic and true crime fascination: empathy and hope. Between the eerie backroads, disturbing killings, and a snake-handling cult—I couldn’t look away! If Flannery O’Connor’s fiction and Metallica’s music had a baby, it would be this book.” —Jennifer Moffett, author of Those Who Prey“Paradise, WV takes readers on a heart-pounding thrill ride that exposes the dark underbelly of humanity. In it, the opioid crisis, cults, and family dysfunction counterpoint a complex mystery about a serial killer haunting a West Virginia town and the children of a wrongfully-convicted murderer who'll do anything to prove their father's innocence. Rufus's prose is sharp and cutting; his damaged characters painfully realistic and memorable. Lovers of both the horror and mystery genres will find much to enjoy in this macabre thriller.” —D.K. Stone, Giller Prize nominated author of Edge of Wild, The Dark Divide, and Fall of Night“Rufus's thriller was an atmospheric ride that started quick, had me holding on for dear life through the twists and turns, and swept me up to a stunning and surprising end. Excellent.” —CL Walters, author of The Stories Stars Tell"Paradise, WV strikes like a copperhead, filled with dark hilarity, crackling Appalachian gothic mystery, and buzzsaw punk rock energy. Fans of Elmore Leonard, Harry Crews, and Daniel Woodrell, take note.” —Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of The Serpent King“What do you get when you have a story about friendship, family and hope intertwined with a town overridden with drug addiction, a cult and a serial killer? Rufus' seamlessly-told tale Paradise, WV. Rufus' exceptional storytelling showcases the novel's distinctive characters through their flaws, their actions and their motivations. Always engaging and never lacking in satisfaction, Paradise, WV is a literary pleasure.” —Cyn Vargas, author of On The Way“Rufus's multi-layered page-turner about cults, murder, and deep, dark secrets is a thrilling, creeptastic ride from the punch-you-in-the-gut beginning to an EPIC ending you won't see coming.” —Candace Ganger Powell, author of Six Goodbyes We Never Said
£11.04
