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
Red Robin Publishing Ltd. Weekly Family Planner with Pen 2026 Square Wall Calendar
£999.99
Everyman Ada or Ardor
£15.29
Poolbeg Press Ltd The House
£11.45
Birlinn General Magnus
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1973 by the Hogarth Press, Magnus is George Mackay Brown’s tour de force – his most poetic and innovative book. He links the twelfth-century story of the saintly Earl Magnus of Orkney’s brutal murder at the hands of his cousin Hakon Paulson, to that of the philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis during World War II. This is a unique exploration of the eternal questions of guilt, goodness and personal sacrifice.Trade Review'Magnus is, I believe, the most beautiful contemporary book I have ever read' * The Times *'A distinctive and distinguished novel, of unusual power and purity ... Brown uses language with beautiful precision, resource and power' * The Sunday Times *'[Mackay Brown] weaves the twentieth-century strand into the Nordic tapestry more deftly than might have been thought possible' * The Herald *
£9.49
Collective Ink If Its Tuesday
Book SynopsisA journey that will take you somewhere you've never been before.
£13.99
Pushkin Press Such Sweet Thunder
Book Synopsis?Astonishing … an uncommonly rich picture of Black American family life in early 20th century Jim Crow America.? ? Publishers Weekly (starred review)This ?vibrant portrait of African American life? in Jazz Age Kansas City captures the magic of childhood and parental love through the eyes of a remarkable boy (New York Times) This must-read rediscovery, published in an elegant and unabridged paperback edition with a new foreword, is a literary masterpiece poised to take its rightful place in the American literary canon.Such Sweet Thunder immerses readers in the life of a precocious infant, Amerigo Jones, and then tells the story of his first 18 years as he becomes aware of the adult world, from racism and crime to falling in love. All the while, in one of the most moving homages to parents ever to appear in literature, Amerigo is protected by Viola and Rutherford, who are loving and, mostly, even-tempered, but also desperately young ? teenagers themselves when Amerigo is born ? and poor.When it was finally published in 2003, 40 years after Carter completed it and 20 years after he died, Critics hailed the novel?s ?unflinching condemnation of a society that rejects bright, eager Black children? (The Cleveland Plain Dealer).This ?colossal work of fiction? (The Kansas City Star) and ?vibrant portrait of African-American life? (New York Times) is set in an era marred by racial segregation and relentless, daily injustices and yet renders with deep appreciation and artistry a time and place enriched by a widely influential African American culture and a fierce feeling for family and community.
£11.69
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Hotel Bahnhof
£9.49
Everyman Death Comes For The Archbishop
Book SynopsisWilla Cather (Author) WILLA CATHER (1873-1947) was born in Virginia and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for the Nebraska State Journal, then moved to Pittsburgh and finally to New York City. There she joined McClure's magazine. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexander's Bridge, appeared in 1912, but her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel, O Pioneers! published in 1913, followed by her most famous pioneer novel, My Antonia, in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. Her other novels include Shadows on the Rock, The Song of the Lark, The Professor's House, My Mortal Enemy, and Lucy Gayheart. She died in 1947.INTRODUCER BIOGRAPHYNICHOLAS GASKILL is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at Oriel College. He is the author of Chromographia: American Literature and the Modernization of Color and editor of the The Lure of Whitehead.
£14.24
The Book Guild Ltd Overdressed
Book SynopsisOverdressed follows eight men who meet by chance in a hospital waiting room, each grappling with personal crisesfrom infidelity and addiction to isolation and ambition. Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, revealing dark truths beneath everyday appearances in a gripping, darkly humorous tale of modern masculinity.
£9.49
Troubador Publishing Ltd Fail Again Fail Even Better
Book SynopsisAn uproarious insight into a life misdirected towards the arts, following Bosco Helly as he attempts to finish his last poetry collection.
£10.44
Troubador Publishing Ltd Empty
Book SynopsisBobby, a born 'n bred Lewis girl, leads a blissfully uneventful life. What will become of her though, when despite her care and diligence, life throws curveballs she simply canât avoid?
£10.44
Bedford Square Publishers A Spell for Midwinters Heart
£9.49
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers On Earth As It Is In Heaven
£7.59
Olympia Publishers Push of Destiny
£8.54
Independent Publishing Network The Red Barn
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
Independent Publishing Network I Lorina
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
Troubador Publishing Ltd Street Sweeper
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£10.44
Inanna Publications & Education Black Creek
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£999.99
Olympia Publishers Waiting for the Drop
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£12.59
Troubador Publishing Ltd Sherlockholmesing
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£10.44
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers London Boys
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£11.69
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers The Friend
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£9.49
Vanguard Press Cloven
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£15.29
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers HIV Negative
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£12.59
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Prospero Returned
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£11.39
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers White Trash
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£10.79
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Walls of Age
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£10.44
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers A Peculiar Coupling
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£11.69
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers The Street of Yearning
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£9.49
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Last Chance Rebellion
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£9.49
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Will Yesterday Be Over By Tomorrow
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£10.79
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Lunch at Alfredos
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£9.49
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers The Dirty Beauty of Love
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£11.39
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers More About Harriet
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£7.99
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Remnants of Yesterday
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£9.49
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers People You May Know
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£12.59
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers All Things Must Pass
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£7.59
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers The Cottonwood Trap
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£10.44
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers 49 Windows
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£21.24
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Affair and True Love
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£10.44
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Two Peas in a Pod
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Gandolf The Skysurfer of the West
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£8.04
Big Finish Productions Ltd Caustic Comedies
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£11.07
Boldwood Books Ltd Something in the Air
£20.69
Boldwood Books Ltd The Twin
£20.69
Boldwood Books Ltd The Woman with All the Answers
Book SynopsisThe brilliantly observed, witty and heart-warming new book club read from Richard & Judy bestseller Linda Green'Wonderfully executed, unique, clever and hilarious... Linda Green is absolutely at the top of her game. An absolute gem of a book!' Mike GayleAlexa knows your family better than you do. Now you're about to get to know her... Fifty-two-year-old Michelle Banks is struggling to keep all the plates spinning. She's a perimenopausal district nurse, caring for elderly parents. Her husband is wasting their money on children's TV memorabilia, her teenage daughter is riddled with anxiety and her sixteen-year-old son is behaving secretively. Alexa is the only one who knows how much Michelle is juggling. Listening in via four smart speakers, she also knows that it's about to get even worse. So, when Michelle pleads for help from the woman with all the answers, Alexa decides to go rogue and reveal her true identity as Pauline a sixty-five-year-old former voiceover artist from Halifax to teach Michelle everything she knowsWise, funny, relatable and inspiring, The Woman With All The Answers is perfect for fans of Clare Pooley, Mike Gayle and David Nicholls. 'I loved this funny, poignant and utterly original novel - a unique and brilliant portrayal of the muddle and messiness of modern family life' Fiona Gibson'It just sings off the page with humour and insight. It is uniquely funny and very moving.' Susan Lewis'I don't think I could have loved this book more! Linda Green's characters have such personality and warmth that they soon feel like friends. It's a wonderful book I know many people will relate to.' Kate Storey'An audacious premise, great characterisation, compelling storytelling and family dramas that just kept spiralling!' Tracy Rees'A super smart concept played out in a hugely enjoyable way. Heart-warming, relatable and ever so funny. Brilliant!' Kate GalleyPraise for Linda Green:'Linda Green is bloody brilliant!' Amanda Prowse'Heart-warming and inspiring: a great read' Katie Fforde'I felt so invested in the characters' lives' Lucy Diamond'Warm, wise and very moving' Araminta Hall'A rollercoaster adventure full of inspiration, hope and sometimes tears.' 5-Star Reader Review'Best book I've read in years! It may be because I'm from Yorkshire or because I'm a mum that I felt such an affinity to the characters in this book but I dare you not to enjoy it. It has everything.' 5-Star Reader Review'A brilliant book that made me laugh out loud, AND audibly so too. True to life characters with real problems.' 5-Star Reader Review
£20.69
Scribe Publications The East Indian
Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES 2023 SUMMER READ Meet Tony: the first Indian to set foot on American soil. Among the settlers, slaves, and indentured servants that make the treacherous journey across the Atlantic to the New World in the early 1600s — for some, an exciting opportunity, for others, a brutal abduction — there is also Tony. As a child, his homeland on the Coromandel Coast of India becomes a trading outpost for the English; as an orphaned teenager, he finds himself kidnapped from the streets of London and bound to servitude on a Virginia plantation. But Tony is not giving up on his dreams just yet. Under the rule of a sadistic plantation owner, he forms a tender bond with a young boy who will haunt his nightmares; on an exploration inland alongside a trader and Native Americans, he realises the world is vaster and more mysterious than he could have imagined; and in Jamestown, he finally earns himself a position as a physician’s apprentice, an ambition he has long harboured. The East Indian is a Dickensian-style yarn about family, friendship, and finding oneself in the seeds of a new world.Trade Review‘Spins a drama of hardship, dislocation, and love … This sweeping coming-of-age tale is more than a little Dickensian.’ -- James Smart * The Guardian *‘A fascinating novel.’ -- Alida Becker * The New York Times *‘A sweeping coming-of-age story which heads from the jasmine-scented air of the Coromandel Coast in 1635 via the teeming streets of London to arrive in the gruelling tobacco plantations of Jamestown, Virginia, in the charismatic company of orphaned Tony.’ -- Eithne Farry * The Daily Mail *‘Marvellous … Richly imagined characters and keen explorations of identity, place, and the power of imagination drive this luminous achievement.’ * Publisher’s Weekly, starred review *‘Charry’s most remarkable feat with this novel is that she wears her enormous learning and research lightly throughout. Her cinematic worldbuilding ensures spectacle and substance as it sweeps us along the Coromandel coast, London streets, and the Virginian countryside. The characters are detailed with care and attention so that we find humanity even in the worst of them. Tony’s voice, in first-person point of view, is earnest and endearing, especially when he is filled with wonder about human biology, the beauty and curative qualities of various plants and flowers, and the powerful mystery of falling in love … Just over the last four decades, there has been a slew of books about South Asian or East Indian immigrants — both fiction and nonfiction. Several have won awards. Almost all of them have centred on contemporary stories. Charry’s “Tony East Indian” plants his own flag in this literary landscape. Through this fictional first East Indian immigrant story, Brinda Charry has also beautifully pioneered a much-needed path forward into rich, new literary territory.’ -- Jenny Bhatt * NPR *‘History comes alive in this brilliant, highly-imaginative, and vivid novel. Immersive and revelatory — a stellar achievement.’ -- E. C. Osondu, winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, author of This House is Not for Sale‘Tony, the “East Indian” of the title of Brinda Charry’s utterly enjoyable debut novel, reads like a character straight out of Dickens. Based on an actual historical figure, the first person from India documented in the records of Colonial Virginia, Tony ventures into the entangled richness of a nascent America — a place he calls, “this precarious edge of the world.” It is peopled by “servants” — both white and black, female and male — who find themselves as bound to the New World as they are to the Englishmen who rule it. Picaresque in style, lyrical of voice, gripping and authentic, The East Indian is a real treat.’ -- David Wright Falade, author of Black Cloud Rising‘Filled with memorable characters, The East Indian grapples with the brutal colonialism and indentured labour of the 1600s with warmth and wit. An entertaining novel that adds more heft to Brinda Charry’s already impressive oeuvre.’ -- Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire and Why I Am a Hindu‘What a vast and wondrous ocean of a novel this is — throwing up the unexpected and startling, the horrifying and utterly beautiful, moving from shore to shore with spectacularly skilful narrative poise. To journey with The East Indian is to journey through a world shape-shifting into the modern, a world being ravaged and transformed. It is to be reminded that amidst the rough sweep and scour of history, what remains precious are these timeless, enduring things — friendship, kindness, healing.’ -- Janice Pariat, author of The Nine-Chambered Heart and Everything the Light Touches‘A debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to live in the American colonies, Charry’s stirring coming-of-age tale centres on Tony, whose kidnapping resulted in a voyage to England and later to the new colony of Virginia.’ * The Washington Post *‘[D]azzling … Brinda Charry, a specialist in English Renaissance literature, brings all her tremendous knowledge of colonial history to these pages. Her writing is poised, polished and beautifully crafted. Most outstanding, however, is the joy and wonder she breathes into her eminently loveable characters. Charry provides insight into issues of class, wealth, welfare and racism through the eyes of our bright-eyed, innocent and compelling protagonist.’ -- Cheryl Akle * The Australian *‘The East Indian is a vivid, meticulously detailed novel that benefits from the erudition of a specialist historian.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald *‘Epic … special mention must be made of the beauty of the translation … The attention to historical detail is impressive and the characterisation is superb. This is an extraordinary novel.’ -- Bob Moore, Good Reading Magazine, starred review‘A wonderful look at the formative years of the new world through the eyes of Tony, the son of a Tamil courtesan, as we follow his journey into adulthood. Set in the 1600s, a young Tony leaves what would become Madras for London after the death of his mother. There he is press-ganged into becoming an indentured servant in Virginia, then a new colony of the British in America. It’s through Tony’s compassion, curiosity, bonds of friendship, and yearning to become a physician that this story unfolds — a historical sweep across the perhaps familiar literary terrain of early America, but imagined anew through the experiences of an Indian boy. We are all familiar with the NRI dream and modern aspirations of immigrants, but few of us know just how deeply entwined some Indian lives were with the building of America. Brinda Charry does a remarkable job of painting this world with finely observed brush strokes and individual stories to build an evocative global picture.’ -- JCB PrizePraise for Brinda Charry: ‘Brinda Charry is the real thing, a master at the top of her game. Her work engages the human condition and the personal with an intensity and authority that can only be explained by literary grace.’ -- Arthur R. Flowers
£13.49
Bluemoose Books Ltd Love, Politics and Possibly Murder
Book Synopsis‘I loved your book which brightened up my life no end. I laughed out loud so hard that I frightened the cat. I think you are a wonderful writer. So few books that say they are funny actually are and yours is magnificent.’ Cathy Rentzenbrink
£9.49
