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
Double 9 Books LLP A Pair of Blue Eyes
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£17.99
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Alone: An intoxicating story of collapse and
Book SynopsisMei is a forty-two year-old editor living in Barcelona. After years of unsuccessfully trying to become pregnant, and having grown apart from her husband, she decides to escape her crude reality when she’s made redundant from her job at a publishing house. When she moves to the cottage where she grew up, hidden in a remote forest of Catalunya, she believes this to be the perfect opportunity to finish the novel she’s been obsessing over. But as she begins writing, or trying to, tragedy hits her and solitude possesses her, forcing her to face her past, an unsolicited present and a future that is adrift. As Mei’s chance encounters and new relationships with figures from her childhood seem to keep her grounded, the forest and its inhabitants take over her as she fights to finish her novel and attempt to escape solitude unscathed.Trade Review"A real literary 'tour de force' with a totemic protagonist installed in a place full of mystery." * Time Out (Spain) * "Gurt knows how to marry the mundane with the transcendent (...), creating high poetic tension." * La Vanguardia * "Loneliness is not the only character in the novel: it talks about the longed-for freedom, the rediscovery of one's own identity, sexuality or the connection with nature, themes that transform the reader." * El Nacional * "Carlota Gurt proves to have an indomitable narrative power." * El Pais * "An exceptional novel." * ElDiario.es * "This is Carlota Gurt's first novel, but it feels like her fifth or sixth. It's a story that stays inside you long after reaching the end." * Susana Santaolalla (RNE) *
£13.49
Double 9 Books LLP The Pickwick Papers
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£35.99
Double 9 Booksllp Mary Louise
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£11.04
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Paradises Lost
Book SynopsisNoam is a young man when the Flood wreaks havoc on the world, destroying the peaceful lakeside village he called home, and turning his whole life upside down. Destined to live forever as an immortal, Noam travels through the centuries in search of the meaning of life, and the events which shaped who we have become today.Paradises Lost is the first installment of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's monumental project of recounting the history of humanity, the fruits of more than thirty years of research. The first in a series, and in the form of a stylistic novel much like Yuval Noah Harari crossed with Alexandre Dumas. Schmitt combines his scientific, religious and philosophical research to propel readers from one world to another, and from pre-history to today.
£13.49
Double 9 Books LLP With Clive in India
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£15.74
Double 9 Booksllp Villette
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£23.99
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd The Axemans Carnival
Book SynopsisIn this darkly comic work of literary satire by New Zealand's most acclaimed and best-selling novelist Tama, a talking magpie and social media influencer, is the sole witness to a marriage in freefall.Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie. If it keeps me awake,' says Marnie's husband Rob, a farmer in the middle of a years-long drought, I'll have to wring its neck.' But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple's future. Tama's fame is growing, and with it, his earning potential. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds and all the precarity, darkness and hope within them bleed into one another. Like a stock truck filled with live cargo, the story moves inexorably towards its dramatic conclusion: the annual Axeman's Carnival.Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama is the star of this story. And although what he says to humans is often nonsensical (and hilarious), the tale he tells makes disturbingly perfe
£13.49
Double 9 Booksllp All the Sad Young Men
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£12.74
HarperCollins India The perfumist of Paris: A Novel
Book SynopsisParis, 1974. Radha is now thirty-two and living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she''s finally found her passion-the treasure trove of scents. When her friend''s grandfather offered her a job at his parfumerie, she quickly discovered she had a talent-she could find the perfect fragrance for any customer who walked through the door. Now, ten years later, she''s working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can''t give up the thing that drives her.
£17.09
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Lambda
Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In a disturbingly familiar parallel world, a small population of tiny, semi-aquatic humans known as lambdas has quietly lived in the capital for decades. When a school bombing is claimed by an unknown faction of their community, everything changes.Meet Cara Gray, anarchist-turned-surveillance officer, who is trialling an application that will render her life as a novel. Experience a world of government agents made of slime mould protein, dubious quantum computers, and sentient toothbrushes.
£9.49
Double 9 Booksllp The Little Demon
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£16.79
Double 9 Booksllp Don Quixote
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£40.49
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to
Book SynopsisThe humorous and heart-wrenching story of a woman’s re-entry into life on the outside after twenty years in incarceration, told over one whirlwind Fourth of July weekend. “There’s no one quite like Carlotta Mercedes, the transgender Black Colombian heroine – no, star – of the second novel by Hannaham.” —THE OBSERVER When Carlotta Mercedes was pulled into a robbery gone wrong, she still went by the name she was born with. But not long after her conviction, she began to live as a woman, an embrace of selfhood that prison authorities rejected, keeping Carlotta trapped in an all-male cell block, abused by both inmates and guards. Over twenty years later, Carlotta is granted conditional freedom and returns to a much-changed Brooklyn, where she struggles to reconcile with a family reluctant to accept her identity, and to avoid any minor parole infraction that might get her consigned back to lockup. Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta sweeps the reader through seemingly every street of Brooklyn, much as Joyce’s Ulysses does through Dublin. Hannaham introduces a cast of unforgettable characters even as it challenges us to confront the glaring injustices of a society and prison system that continues to punish people long after their time has been served.Trade Review"A remarkable novel…the hilarity, the sharpness, and the wild lyricism of Hannaham's Delicious Foods resurface in Carlotta, along with an interest in racism, community, family, love, the possibilities of language, and the preciousness of the freedom to be who you are." * Francine Prose, The New York Review of Books *“We were big fans of James Hannaham’s previous novel Delicious Foods… The long wait for his follow-up is finally over and it’s a doozy: a raucous social comedy that takes on our carceral system, the poor treatment of trans people, and capitalist failings in one unmissable package.” * Chicago Review of Books *“The title of the James Hannaham’s latest novel is ironic, because one would need to be both inhuman and immune to stylistic brilliance to be able to spend any time in Carlotta Mercedes’ world without starting to care deeply about the protagonist of Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta.” * CyprusMail *
£9.49
DOUBLE 9 BOOKSLLP The Golden Bowl
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£14.10
Double 9 Booksllp The Money Moon
Book SynopsisThe Money Moon is a delightful love story. To defeat the Haunting Spectre of the Might Have Been, the American wealthy hero, George Bellow, goes on a walking tour of the Kent countryside. George finds his ideal Arcadia and true love along the road while making friends with a little kid on a quest to find a fortune to save his Aunt Anthea from having to sell the family land.Mutual acquaintances in New York, Newport, and elsewhere eagerly anticipated word of their engagement while Sylvia Marchmont traveled to Europe, followed by George Bellew who was eager to test his newest boat at the same time. They were greatly shocked to find that she would soon wed the Duke of Ryde. Some predicted that he would blow himself up, while others said that he may wed an undesirable young person who was unknown. Those who take the time to flip the following pages will learn to what extent these honorable ladies were correct or incorrect in their assumptions.
£11.99
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd. The House of Gazes
Book SynopsisDaniele is a young poet plagued by an unknown darkness, an invisible disease of the heart, or of the mind. He refuses to conform to society's expectationsfinding a job, starting a familyyet he struggles to define a path of his own and find a sense of purpose in life.In a desperate attempt to pull himself out of a dangerous spiral of emptiness and self-destruction, Daniele accepts a job at a paediatric hospital in Rome, the Bambino Gesù, where he'll work with sick children, many of them terminally ill. In the house of gazes, that is, the hospital, through his interactions with patients and co-workers, and forced to confront pain in some of its most heartbreaking forms, Daniele will slowly start to look at life with new eyes and learn to accept it in all its brutality and beauty.Writing with the evocative power and sharp focus of a poet, Mencarelli tells a raw and moving story of self-discovery, renewal, and liberation achieved through solidarity and compassion, a story closely inspired by the events of his own life.
£13.49
Double 9 Booksllp The Mucker
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£16.49
Double 9 Booksllp The Man From Glengarry
Book SynopsisGlengarry's dense woods are no longer there, and the conquerors of those woodlands have also disappeared. The way of life and character traits prevalent in those early years have also vanished, forever. The males are important to remember. They bore the scars of their blood in their fiery passions, courage, and loyalty; and the scars of the forest in their endurance, ingenuity, and independence. But more than anything else, it was their faith-for, in them, the dread of God dwelt-that bore witness to the depths of their souls. Though their faith may have been limited, their lifestyles were also limited by certain molds. The largest thing in them was it. It may have taken on a dismal tint from their dark woodlands, but since a sweet, gracious presence lived among them, it increased day by day in sweetness and grace. The sons of these Glengarry men may be discovered in Canada beyond the Lakes, where men are building empires. Such males are required there. Because only men-and only men with the fear of God in their hearts-can transform a nation into one that is certain to be great. Wealth, business, and energy cannot do this. And one of the goals of this book is to make this plain.
£15.74
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Trick
Book SynopsisFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER LONGLISTED AND WINNER OF THE STREGA PRIZE THE HOUSE ON VIA GEMITOStarnone uses languages the way a great painter works with colour, conjuring the illusion of three dimensions from a blank flat surface.Jhumpa LahiriCompelling One of Italy's most accomplished novelists.The GuardianTrick is a chillingly weird chamber piece - a very tricksy treat.The TimesTrick is a stylish drama about ambition, family, and old age that goes beyond the ordinary and predictable. Imagine a duel between two men. One, Daniele Mallarico, is a successful illustrator who, in the twilight of his years, feels that his reputation and his artistic prowess are fading. The other, Mario, is Daniele's four-year-old grandson. Daniele has been living in a cold northern city for years, in virtual solitude, focusing obsessively on h
£999.99
Double 9 Booksllp The Leavenworth Case
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£16.49
Double 9 Booksllp Ozma of Oz
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£10.79
Profile Books Ltd Outrageous Horizon
Book Synopsis'A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war - an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present' Deborah Levy March 1941. A converted cargo ship, the Paul-Lemerle, left Marseille on a voyage to the Caribbean, fleeing Vichy France and the devastation of the war. The ship was filled with immigrants from the East, exiled Spanish Republicans, Jews, stateless persons and decadent artists. Among them were Claude Lévi-Strauss, the painter Wifredo Lam, the writers Anna Seghers and André Breton, and the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge. Can we know the taste of pineapple from listening to travellers' tales? asks Bosc in the follow-up to his bestselling debut. Can we ever feel the sensation of history? Mixing the documentary techniques of history, the imaginative leaps of fiction and the cool analysis of the essay, Bosc takes us from Marseille to Casablanca to Martinique and on to New York, to tell an evocative story of migration, cultural crisis and the intellectual cost of the rise of fascism.Trade ReviewAn intellectually star-studded and dreamy document, Outrageous Horizon leads the reader irresistibly along, and leaves a lingering sense of amazement in its wake -- Geoff DyerAn outlaws' odyssey of the Second World War -- Éric Vuillard, author * The Order of the Day *Outrageous Horizon is an erudite, brilliantly imagined odyssey into exile that weaves historic narrative, psychological writing, and cultural history. With his immersive portrait of a distinguished cast of mid-20th century refugees, Adrien Bosc guides us into the choppy seas of our own present moment where catastrophe, once again, meets opportunity -- Kapka Kassabova, author * Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe *A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war - an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present -- Deborah Levy, author * Hot Milk *Erudite and charming * Vanity Fair *
£8.54
Double 9 Booksllp Pearl-Maiden
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£15.74
Double 9 Booksllp Some Reminiscences
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£9.89
Profile Books Ltd Hollow in the Land
Book SynopsisOut walking Ada Robinson's dog while his wife drinks herself into a forgetful fug, Harry Maiden discovers an intricate system of caves beneath the wind turbines. Over at the Woolpack one night, Rosco re-encounters friendships he thought he'd left behind at the Stubbins paper mill. Mad old Gos leads a mysterious treasure hunt to the Bronze Age burial site at Whitelow Cairn. This is the Hollow in the Land: a corner of England teeming with mystery and intrigue and filled with real, flesh-and-blood characters, each of them at a different point along life's journey through childhood hopefulness, faded first love and middle-aged disillusionment. Hollow in the Land uncovers the small everyday mysteries of their lives - and ours.Trade ReviewFull of insight, empathy and wry laughter * M. John Harrison, Guardian *A joy to read . . . Like McGregor, Clarke is attuned to landscape in a way that is both mineral and metaphysical -- Catherine Taylor * TLS *A beautifully melancholy and worldly book. Clarke's characters may lead quiet, thwarted lives but his prose is generous and electrifying, unjudgmental and assured. A brilliant new talent -- Colin Barrett, author * Young Skins *A magic portrayal of modern life in the peripheries -- Amy Liptrot, author * The Outrun *There is an American influence on James Clarke's writing - Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Denis Johnson - but the accent is English, matter-of-fact, which makes the vivid observations and moments of grace all the more vivid ... a story of England today. -- Anthony Cartwright, author * Iron Towns *Like Benjamin Myers and Jon McGregor, James Clarke is bringing a new consciousness to Northern England, an awareness of its uniqueness, natural beauty and threat are the basis of his writing ... He brings something of the sensibility of James Kelman to his writing, but also (perhaps) some of the American tradition of short stories set in one place, whether William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County or Chris Offutt's Kentucky Straight collection. James Clarke also shares with them one of the great qualities of the short story writer, the ability to craft a final sentence that keeps the story running off the page in the reader's mind. * Bookmunch *
£8.54
Double 9 Booksllp Seven Little Australians
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£10.79
Profile Books Ltd Sanderson’s Isle: 'A raucous, Technicolor scream'
Book Synopsis'[An] engaging, inventive literary noir ... full of neat twists and potent writing' Independent Book of the Month 'A feisty, subversive countervision of England's lost futures and buried longings' Rob Doyle, author of Threshold A Burley Fisher Book of the Year 2023 1969. Thomas Speake comes to London to look for his father but finds Sanderson instead, a larger-than-life TV presenter who hosts 'midweek madness' parties where the punch is spiked with acid. There Speake meets Marnie and promises to help her find her adoptive child, who has been taken by her birth mother to live off-grid in a hippie commune in the Lake District. Forced to lie low after a violent accident, Speake joins Sanderson on a tour of the Lake District, where he's researching a book to accompany his popular TV series, Sanderson's Isle. Fascinated by local rumours about the hippies, Sanderson joins the search for their whereabouts. Amid the fierce beauty of the mountains, the cult is forming the kind of community that Speake - a drifter who belongs nowhere - is desperate to find but has been sent to betray. This is the follow up to James Clarke's Betty Trask Prize-winning debut novel. It is filled with gorgeous nature writing of the urban and the rural, and its portrayal of the moment when British society was unsettled and transformed by the counterculture of the 1960s is visionary and electrifying. 'Psychedelic 1960s London, TV personalities, counterculture in the Lake District, a lost child! Wasn't I always going to read this book? Magnificent' Wendy Erskine, author of Dance MoveTrade ReviewIntriguing and unsettling ... [Clarke] has a terrific gift for the uncomfortable and threatening scene as the novel cartwheels its way to a conclusion both spectacular and sordid -- Alex Clark * Times Literary Supplement *Off-kilter, eerie, defiantly awkward: there's little else like it right now -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *Freewheeling, vivid, and intensely imagined, Sanderson's Isle creates a portrait of a nation - but what a portrait is offered up here by James Clarke, and what a nation... although set 50 years and more ago, Sanderson's Isle has a decidedly contemporary flavour: it is a letter of love to another England, one that has long been marginalised, brutalised and effectively silenced * Irish Times *Much literary fiction of recent years has erred towards minimalism: little action, few characters, story replaced by mood, dialogue replaced by thought. Manchester-born James Clarke's third novel, Sanderson's Isle, is a raucous, Technicolor scream against this trend ... If it feels gratuitous, that's only because of the lethargic narratives we've become used to * Sunday Times *Clarke is particularly good at the landscapes that are one of the main pleasures of the narrative, from scraggy east London to the vividness of the Lake District -- Toby Litt * Guardian *Set at the end of the 1960s, with the schism between straight society and the substratum of psychedelic dropouts making for some uneasy culture clashing, Clarke's pacing is shrewd and cinematic, his characters vivid and beguiling ... depicts the crumbling end of a hazy decade vividly * Buzz Magazine *Psychedelic 1960s London, TV personalities, counterculture in the Lake District, a lost child! Wasn't I always going to love this book? And what a magnificent experience it is in its rendering of isolation and belonging, its precise evocation of place and time -- Wendy Erskine'A feisty, subversive countervision of England's lost futures and buried longings' -- Rob DoyleWhat a narrator. How Speake speaks. How he bends your ear, and your heart. Sanderson's Isle sometimes reads like a lost John Braine or David Storey novel. There's even a touch of Ted Lewis in its elemental fatalism. It's that good -- Tom Benn, author of OxbloodGorgeous, luxurious language propels a motley crew of characters as they beg, borrow, beat and maneuver their ways up and down the country, through TV shows, derelict stations, weird communes, lockhouses and forests. Extraordinarily mapped and cinematic in its sense of place, character and time through a powerful narrative voice, this is a portrait of riotous, joyful, mystical, horrible and high little Englanders that I loved. -- Rachael Allen, author of KingdomlandSanderson's Isle is a hugely enjoyable sex and drug fuelled human drama, set against the gritty backdrops of 1960's London and the Lake District. Clarke's vivid writing brings his characters fully to life, each one grappling in their own way with the social turbulence at the dawn of the space age. A powerful and deeply engaging read -- Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell[An] engaging, inventive literary noir ... full of neat twists and potent writing * Independent *Praise for James Clarke * : *His prose is generous and electrifying, unjudgemental and assured. A brilliant new talent * Colin Barrett *A magic portrayal of life in the peripheries * Amy Liptrot *Clarke writes with relish ... a ferocious portrait of a time and place -- M. John Harrison * Guardian *
£15.29
Double 9 Books The Book Of The Damned
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£16.79
EduCart Dear Enemy
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£999.99
Profile Books Ltd Before the Ruins
Book Synopsis'Engrossing, beguiling, and with an undertow of menace, Before the Ruins is a masterly debut from a richly talented author.' Sarah Waters 'Jaw-droppingly brilliant writing' Marian Keyes Andy believes that she has left her past far behind her. But when she gets a call from Peter's mother to say he's gone missing, she finds herself pulled into a search for answers. Bored and restless after their final school exams, Andy, Peter, Em and Marcus broke into a ruined manor house nearby and quickly became friends with the boy living there. Blond, charming and on the run, David's presence was as dangerous as it was exciting. The story of a diamond necklace, stolen from the house fifty years earlier and perhaps still lost somewhere in the grounds inspired the group to buy a replica and play at hiding it, hoping to turn up the real thing along the way. But the game grew to encompass decades of resentment, lies and a terrible betrayal. Now, Andy's search for Peter will unearth unimaginable secrets - and take her back to the people who still keep them.Trade ReviewGosling is a stylish, sophisticated writer, and we realize that we are following Andy on what amounts to a grand scavenger hunt for the truth. Rain falls relentlessly, and the ensuing floods form an ominous backdrop to a story that becomes darker as it goes along. * The New York Times *Victoria Gosling has crafted a perfectly balanced literary page-turner filled with evocative detail about rural youth paired with a genuinely thrilling mystery. -- Ben FergussonReading this reminded me of being young and tucked into an Agatha Christie. It granted the same delicious pleasure as I watched the puzzle put back together. -- Rowan Hisayo BuchananFour disaffected teenagers, a deserted manor, an unlimited supply of drugs, and a cache of potentially explosive secrets. What could go right? Before the Ruins, Victoria Gosling's stunner of a debut novel, is rich with mystery and moral disorder. It put me in mind of Edward St. Aubyn and Donna Tart; dark, fierce, and totally addictive. -- Valerie MartinEngrossing, beguiling, and with an undertow of menace, Before the Ruins is a masterly debut from a richly talented author. -- Sarah WatersI don't know the last time I enjoyed a book this much. Unbelievably tense and incredibly smart, Victoria's Gosling's story about four friends playing a truly terrifying game of cat-and-mouse in a deserted manor house is the perfect ménage à trois of superb plotting, haunting characters, and gorgeous, atmospheric prose. Tana French fans will devour this. -- Aimee MolloyA stellar debut... The gorgeous, poetic prose perfectly complements the suspenseful plot. * Publishers Weekly starred review *Lush and razor-sharp, Before the Ruins is both deliciously gothic and completely contemporary. Every single page is absorbing and surprising. -- Flynn Berry, author of Under the HarrowAtmospheric... Gosling uses her richly ruinous setting as a jumping off point to examine class, innocence, morality, and loss * LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021 *A whip-smart debut * Shelf Awareness *Wonderfully sophisticated and beautifully conceived... a captivating and thought-provoking novel * New York Journal of Books *Richly atmospheric and exquisitely written, Before the Ruins is wistful and haunting, hopeful and beautiful. * BookPage *Gosling's atmospheric debut takes a familiar theme - the way the things we do as teenagers reverberate in later life - but treats it with care and empathy... the finely drawn characters, especially the spiky narrator Andrea, linger in the memory * Mail on Sunday *
£8.54
Double 9 Booksllp I Will Repay
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£11.99
Double 9 Booksllp Black Jack
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£12.74
Profile Books Ltd Eat My Heart Out
Book Synopsis'The anti-Bridget Jones ... brutally funny' Chris Kraus Ann-Marie's life has collapsed, and she's blaming everyone but herself. Twenty-three, heartbroken, skint and furious, she's convinced that love - sweet love! - is the answer to all of her problems. But then she meets an unlikely saviour in legendary feminist Stephanie Haight, for whom Ann-Marie becomes the first step in re-educating an entire generation out of their ironic detachment and into the welcoming arms of second-wave feminism. As Ann-Marie's semi-consensual feminist awakening leads her from neo-burlesque pop-up strip clubs to ritual worship ceremonies summoning ancient power goddesses, Zoe Pilger spins around her heroine a fiercely clever and unapologetically wild satire for our narcissistic, hedonistic, post-post-feminist times. 'Pilger might be the heiress to Angela Carter.' Deborah LevyTrade ReviewDead smart and gloriously, mercifully, snort-out-loud hilarious -- Stuart Hammond * Dazed and Confused *
£8.54
EduCart The Royal Book of Oz
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£10.79
EduCart My Doggie and I
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£9.89
Profile Books Ltd The Five Wounds
Book SynopsisWinner of The Center for Fiction's 2021 First Novel Prize 'A gorgeously written, Franzen-calibre tale' O Magazine In this vivid, darkly funny and beautifully rendered debut novel, Kirstin Valdez Quade brings to life the struggles of five generations of the Padilla family. Amadeo, struggling to stay off the bottle, Angel, his pregnant fifteen-year-old daughter, Yolanda, the family matriarch, reeling from a recent discovery, Angel's mother, who Angel isn't speaking to and Tío Tive, keeper of the family's history. But amid the challenges they face individually and together, it is Connor, Angel's baby, who might just be the one to save the family from themselves.Trade ReviewAn unputdownable novel, The Five Wounds takes my breath away with its intimate, humorous and heart-aching portrayal of a New Mexican family. -- Yiyun Li, author of Must I GoIncredibly well crafted ... captures both the strength and fragility of relationships and existence and the resilience and great power of love and belief. -- A. M. Homes, author of May We Be ForgivenLuminous and memorable ... Just as the pacing is perfect, so too are the tact and care with which each scene is made. -- Colm Tóibín, author of House of NamesKirstin Valdez Quade writes with exquisite precision about the fragility and resilience of the Amadeo family... I loved The Five Wounds, which reminded me that growing pains are not confined to adolescence -- Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!The acclaimed author of Nights at the Fiestas returns with a gorgeously written, Franzen-caliber tale of one Latinx family's via dolorosa. * Oprah Magazine's Best Books of 2021 *In this cruel and divisive era, Kirstin Valdez Quade has brought healing and regeneration with The Five Wounds. It is bracing and wise, and it breaks us in the best ways. Then builds back up again. It should find many grateful readers. -- Luis Alberto Urrea, author of House of Broken AngelsI don't remember ever reading a novel as vibrant and warm as The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade. Just a few pages in, I felt like I intimately knew the characters, and cared about them as if they family members. It's both heartbreaking and a joy to read! -- Lara Vapnyar, author of Divide Me by ZeroWith deep empathy, fierce intelligence, and subtle wit, Kirstin Valdez Quade has crafted an indelible portrait of a family living in precarity. The characters in The Five Wounds are so vivid, their struggles, failures, and grasping efforts towards love and redemption so finely wrought, and each page full of such immaculate prose, that I read this novel with ever-increasing breathless urgency. -- Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
£8.54
EduCart The Tin Woodman of Oz
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£10.79
Double 9 Booksllp Dorothy And The Wizard In Oz
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£10.79
Profile Books Ltd The Disenchantment
Book Synopsis'A shimmering, sexy, thrilling tale of intrigue and desire, and the dark paths we walk to keep our secrets safe. Bell has written a shining debut' Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Dance Tree A Best Historical Fiction of 2023 selection in The Times An Evening Standard Ones to Watch for 2023 pick Everyone connected to the court of Louis XIV has something to hide. For the Baroness Marie Catherine, it is the pleasures she seeks outside of her unhappy marriage, indulging in a more liberated existence of decadent salons and discussions with writers and scholars. At the centre of her illicit freedom is her lover Victoire Rose de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Conti, the androgynous, self-assured countess. When Victoire's devotion results in an act of murder to save Marie Catherine, the pair must escape from the clutches of Paris' overzealous chief of police. As they attempt to outwit him, they are led to the darkest corners of Paris and Versailles, discovering lies, mysticism, and people with secrets they too would kill to keep. Fast-paced, opulent and hypnotically absorbing, Celia Bell's debut is a love story to die for.Trade ReviewThis is historical storytelling at its most captivating. Celia Bell puts the body itself back in time: smells, sights, fears, sensation propel us into the epicentre of a 17th century Paris where breaking out of the prison of arranged marriage is only one of the many challenges confronting women. I couldn't put it down. -- Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday MadnessThe writing has the quality of velvet about it, so lusciously rich that it folds you into a thrilling love story ... Beautifully researched. -- Sally GardnerA hothouse atmosphere in which depravity, sensuality, and duplicity reside side by side, and Marie Catherine's plight builds in suspense as the noose tightens around her ... a bold and inspired mix of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Crucible. * Publishers Weekly starred review *The Disenchantment is filled with rich and beautiful detail that brings 17th Century Paris to life. Marie Catherine's struggle to remain true to herself despite the restrictions she faces is depicted with understated power, and hers is a story that will stay with me for a long time. -- Elizabeth Lee, author of Cunning WomenGripping, filled with a quietly persuasive tension that kept me turning the page and beautiful, moody description, both evocative and authentic -- Crystal Jeans, author of the InvertsAn authentic, stylish and absorbing portrait of 17th century Parisian courtly life, and a compelling meditation on the ingenuity and resilience of women... A masterly rendition of all that's right with historical fiction. -- Laura Carlin, author of Requiem for a KnaveSkulduggery, sorcery, and a sapphic storyteller under suspicion... an opulent, unsettling journey through a world as beautifully brutal as Marie Catherine's fairy tales. Scheme with the servants and you shan't regret it! -- Nat Reeve, author of NettleblackWhile this compelling portrayal of aristocratic life in 17th century France is rich with detail, it is the timeless female struggle to find and sustain a self able to withstand the metamorphoses and disguises required for survival which captivates the reader. A combination of history and fairy tale, The Disenchantment exposes unsuspected relationships and ambiguous boundaries as it follows its characters through a dream world of sorcerers and blue-stockings, servants and savants. -- Susanna Moore, author of In the Cut and Miss Aluminium: A MemoirAs rankly sensuous as a twilit Parisian street in winter, Celia Bell's The Disenchantment is a rare historical novel that gets under your skin not only for its period details but for its swooning falls, without narrative safety nets, into the eternal now of deceit, desire, and the violent weather of love... Celia Bell practices both black and white magic in this remarkable first novel. -- Brad Gooch, author of Rumi's SecretThere's a deliciously hothouse feel to Celia Bell's slow-burn, smouldering debut. Intrigue a-plenty .... beautifully detailed ... [a] beguilingly dark fairytale * Daily Mail *A powerful, atmospheric debut * Sunday Times *In this bewitching work of historical fiction. . . . Bell elegantly balances the passion of a romance with the tension of crime fiction, all while conjuring a Paris rich in sensuous detail. . . . An astonishingly accomplished debut that brings a past full of intrigue and ardor to life on the page. * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *There are so many things to love about Celia Bell's debut novel, The Disenchantment-drama in the royal court! murder! intrigue! historic gays! I could keep shouting, that's how much I adored this enthralling story of love and scandal in seventeenth century Paris. I can't wait to see what Celia does next! -- Lindsay Lynch * Parnassus Musings *We love historical lesbian romances, and The Disenchantment by Celia Bell satiates our hunger for more. . . . The novel explores witchcraft, female scholars, and characters who defy traditional gender norms, giving us everything to appease our desire for historical feminist stories. * Women.com *The Disenchantment is a rare find in queer historical fiction. . . . a very good suspenseful story. [Bell] has a fine eye for detail, capturing Paris and its intrigues. * The Montecito Journal *Ghosts and shadows infuse Bell's enigmatic tale with elements of the supernatural, while Marie Catherine's allegorical fairy tales tell of feminist self-determination. . . . This is a tightly plotted, atmospheric and moody read, full of dark malevolence and a tangled web of complex relationships. . . . A riveting debut. * Historical Novel Society *[The Disenchantment] explores the court of Louis XIV in 17th century France, where two noblewomen fall in love amongst dark magic and intrigue. From the most elite salons to the grittiest quartiers, Bell weaves a tale that is complex and compelling. -- Tom Hall * WYPR *This debut novel stuns with both romance and thriller elements. . . . Crime, passion, deception, and black magic all intertwine in this captivating, atmospheric story of two noblewomen, sure to leave you breathless. * Bookstr *From its very first pages, the novel is rich with the darkness that made the original fairy tales so compelling, and Ms. Bell's lush, gorgeous writing is a stirring tribute to those early and bleak cautionary tales ... a thrilling cat and mouse game * Pittsburgh Post Gazette *
£15.29
Double 9 Booksllp Tik-Tok Of Oz
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£11.04
EduCart Aunt Jane's Nieces out West
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£11.89
Duckworth Books Mockstars: Four boys. One band. No chance.
Book SynopsisFour boys. One band. No Chance. Chris and George are best friends, and they want to be rockstars. Unfortunately, a childhood spent playing in the school orchestra and listening to Jimmy Nail has left them a little fluffy around the edges, and at the age of 23, their acoustic duo Satellite doesn’t resemble Bon Jovi nearly as much as they’d planned. So how do two ordinary boys from a sleepy village go about taking on the cut-throat world of rock ’n’ roll? They'll have to fake it until they make it. True to life, funny and uplifting, Mockstars is a coming-of-age story about friendship and chasing the rock ’n’ roll dream. Inspired by the real-life tour diaries of the author’s band The Lightyears, Mockstars is a refreshingly different musical odyssey.
£8.09
Double 9 Booksllp The Huge Hunter; Or, The Steam Man Of The
Book SynopsisWhen Johnny Brainerd was a little child, he first began to tinker. He quickly adopts his mother's proposal to build a mechanical man after growing weary of creating the usual inventions. He keeps it hidden in his garage till a strange-looking man eventually sees it. Baldy Bicknell, a tracker, and frontiersman are immediately enthralled by the steam man. Johnny can try it out in the prairies, where he promises it will be very helpful for another project he is working on. Baldy is working with two unreliable gold miners! But the guys have consistently faced assaults from Indians. The presence of a massive steam man may frighten the Indians. A young prodigy creates a steam-powered robot that can walk quickly and pull a cart in its wake. He is persuaded by a frontiersman that traveling across Indian territory to a gold mine he has staked a claim to would be the ideal field test for the steam man. They engage in buffalo racing, Indian battles, and prairie exploration on the route.
£9.49
Double 9 Books Phaedrus
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£9.49
HEAD OF ZEUS Children of Lovely Lane Pack
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£12.78
Double 9 Books Margaret Ogilvy
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£8.54
Double 9 Books Hunted And Harried
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£9.89
