Contemporary Fiction

One morning, Rebecca wakes up and realises she has turned into the wrong person. Is she really this joyous and outgoing organiser of parties, the put-upon heart of her dead husband's extended family? What happened to her quiet and serious nineteen-year-old self, and what would have happened if she'd married her college sweetheart? Can someone ever recover the person they've left behind?**ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE**'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson

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Now available for preorder: Katie Fforde's wonderful new book, A WEDDING IN PROVENCE________________'Thank goodness for Katie Fforde, the perfect author to bring comfort in difficult times. She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.' AJ PEARCE_________________May, Sally and Harriet have had enough.They may work at Quality Cleaners, but there is nothing quality about the way their boss, 'Slimeball' Slater, runs the business. Sick and tired of working for a crook, May, Sally and Harriet decide to set up their own business. Soon May finds she can afford the mooring fees for her beloved narrowboat, Harriet discovers she has a gift for painting, and Sally's dream of owning a place of her own is fast becoming a reality. It all seems to be going so well. But is it really?And is it too much, May wonders, to want a man to share her newfound happiness?

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Toru Okada's cat has disappeared.His wife is growing more distant every day.Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*'Visionary...a bold and generous book' New York Times'Murakami weaves textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty' Independent on Sunday'Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down' Daily Telegraph'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times

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'Kurkov is a fine satirist and a real, blackly comic, find' ObserverDiscover the international thriller, shot through with black satire and authentic detail, by one of Ukraine's most highly acclaimed authors.When the corpse of a distinguished general and presidential adviser is found, attached to an advertising balloon, lieutenant Viktor Slutsky is sent in to investigate. Meanwhile, KGB officer Nik Tsensky arrives in Kyiv for a secret mission. A larger-than-life hitman, bombs under furniture, a hearse, a deaf-and-dumb blonde, a tortoise and a parrot all play a part as Kurkov evokes a world of secret militia not seen before in Western fiction.

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Neal Stephenson continues his extraordinary Baroque Cycle in this sequel to his bestselling Quicksilver, bringing to life a cast of unforgettable characters in a time of breathtaking genius and discovery. It is the late 1600s, on the high seas. A group of Barbary galley slaves plot as they ply the oars of a pirate ship, hatching a daring scheme to find an enormous cache of Spanish gold. Amazingly, they succeed - leaving some very unhappy men behind who vow to hunt down the vagabonds and bring them to justice, no matter the cost.Meanwhile, back in France, the beautiful Eliza - toast of Versailles and spy extraordinaire - attempts to return to London with her baby, a child whose paternity is shrouded in mystery. Making her way home, her ship is stopped by a French privateer and she is returned to the Sun King's court. Thrown back into a web of international intrigue, Eliza must contend with all manner of characters, including buccaneers, poisoners, Jesuits, financial manipulators, and even a stray cryptographer or two...

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A searing and magnificent picture of Australia at the moment of its foundation, with early settlers staking out their small patch of land and terrified by the harsh and alien continent. Focussing on the hostility between the early British inhabitants and the native Aborigines. Remembering Bablyon tells the tragic and compelling story of a boy who finds himself caught between the two worlds. Shot through with humour, and written with the poetic intensity that characterised Malouf's An Imaginary Life, this is a novel of epic scope yet it is simple, compassionate and universal: a classic.

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WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREAlice Munro's territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.

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Kathy is a young recovering alcoholic recently seperated from her husband. When her family home is repossessed she is devastated. Her house is sold at auction to Behrani, a former Iranian Air Force officer for whom it represents an entry into real estate and a passport to the future for his family and his own version of the American Dream. For Kathy, its loss is the last of a sereis of insults life has dealt her and the stage is set for a gut-wrenching tragedy.

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A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. Joe Christmas - a man doomed, deracinated and alone - wanders the Deep South in search of an identity, and a place in society. After killing his perverted God-fearing lover, it becomes inevitable that he is pursued by a lynch-hungry mob. Yet after the sacrifice, there is new life, a determined ray of light in Faulkner's complex and tragic world.

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A mind-bending, thrilling journey into 20th-century history and outer space - 'a brightly coloured portrait of our times that is alternatively intimate and epic . . . brilliant' (Independent on Sunday). In 1941, Larry Zagorski was a naïve young writer of science-fiction. Seven decades on, he looks back on that crucial year and traces his place in a mysterious web - one that connects the Second World War with the Space Age, stretches from London to Cuba and Southern California, and links Ian Fleming with Rudolf Hess in a conspiracy that reverberates in the present.Could this be the secret history of the 20th century? In a mesmerising novel peopled by spies and propagandists, the conned and the heartbroken, dreamers and fanatics, the question is: who will you believe?

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At the age of twelve, under the Wind Moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home. In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins - for a brief moment - a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will's destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians, including a Cherokee Chief named Bear, he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassle Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee's homeland and culture. And he will come to know the truth behind his belief that 'only desire trumps time'. Brilliantly imagined, written with great power and beauty by a master of American fiction, Thirteen Moons is a stunning novel about a man's passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man's destiny over the many moons of a life.

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'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENTWinner of the World Fantasy Award and longlisted for the Booker and Folio Prizes'A triumph'GUARDIAN'Fantastical'OBSERVER'Epic'EVENING STANDARD'Mind-spinning'INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'Dazzling'NEW YORK TIMESThe internationally bestselling novel from the author of Cloud Atlas, at once the kaleidoscopic story of an unusual woman's life, a metaphysical thriller and a profound meditation on mortality and survivalRun away, one drowsy summer's afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict.Over six decades, the consequences of a moment's impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family's survival . . .PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL'A thrilling and gifted writer'FINANCIAL TIMES'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'DAILY MAIL'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'A superb storyteller'THE NEW YORKER

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If you could go back in time, what would you do differently? For Eliott, there is no question. To all appearances, his life has been a success. At 60, he is an esteemed surgeon with a daughter he adores. The only thing missing is Ilena - a girl who died thirty years ago. But then he is given an extraordinary opportunity to revisit his past: to go back to San Francisco, when the seventies were in full swing, and find the passionate young doctor who has yet to lose the love of his life.

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Charles Carter, dubbed Carter the Great by Houdini himself, was born into privilege but became a magician out of need: only when dazzling an audience can he defeat his fear of loneliness. But in 1920s America the stakes are growing higher, as technology and the cinema challenge the allure of magic and Carter's stunts become increasingly audacious. Until the night President Harding takes part in Carter's act only to die two hours later, and Carter finds himself pursued not only by the Secret Service but by a host of others desperate for the terrible secret they believe Harding confided in him.Seamlessly blending reality and fiction, Gold lays before us a glittering and romantic panorama of our modern world at a point of irrevocable change.

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Byron Aldridge, heir to a timber empire, returns from the First World War a changed man and finds refuge as a company policeman in a backwoods Louisiana sawmill. Soon his younger brother Randolph tracks him down, assuming charge of the mill in the hope of rescuing his former idol. But as the brothers try to understand each other and their wives contend with their own hopes and fears, it is Randolph who starts a feud with the Sicilians who control the whisky and girls, and the future grows fearsome for them all.

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Take his hand and follow him into the darkness . . .John Connolly, bestselling author of seven brilliantly scary mystery novels, now turns his pen to the short story to give us a volume of chilling tales of the supernatural. In this macabre collection, echoing masters of the genre from M R James to Stephen King, Connolly delves into our darkest fears - lost lovers, missing children, subterranean creatures and predatory demons.Framing the collection are two substantial novellas - THE CANCER COWBOY RIDES charts the fatal progress of a modern-day grim reaper, while THE REFLECTING EYE is a haunted house tale with a twist and marks the return of private detective Charlie Parker, the troubled hero of Connolly's crime novels. This edition contains two additional stories - THE CYCLE and MR GRAY'S FOLLY - not previously included. NOCTURNES is a masterly volume to be read with the lights on - menace has never been so seductive . . .

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'An extraordinary storyteller' Bernardine Evaristo'People say that on the first night Francis Sancher spent in Rivière au Sel the wind in its temper screamed down from the mountains...'Francis Sancher always said he would come to an unnatural end. So when this handsome newcomer to the Guadeloupean village of Rivière au Sel is found dead, face down in the mud, no one is particularly surprised. Loved by some - especially women - and reviled by others, Francis was an enigmatic figure. Where did he come from? What caused his strange nocturnal wanderings? What devils haunted him? As the villagers come to pay their respects, they each reveal another piece of the mystery behind his life and death - and their own buried secrets and stories come to light.'The grand queen, the empress, of Caribbean literature' Fiammetta Rocco, Guardian

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The key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain - just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have.Bruised in love by her faithless Irish husband, Isabel Dalhousie is a connoisseur of intimate moral issues: she edits a philosophical journal and spends a great deal of her time considering how to improve the lives of those around her. There is her housekeeper Grace, whose future she must secure; her niece Cat, who is embarking on a new relationship with a dubious workaholic mummy's boy; and even an American couple newly arrived in Edinburgh on a tour. And then there is Jamie, Cat's ex-boyfriend, a handsome, gifted musician fourteen years Isabel's junior, with whom she is slowly and hopelessly falling in love.Intensely thoughtful and consistently entertaining, THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TO RAIN is shot through with compassion and unassuming intelligence.

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* Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2003. * A powerful, startling novel set in America's Deep South in the early 19th century - a story of freedom, both political and personal.

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From the No 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Crossfire saga comes the beginning of a twisty tale of obsession and fury, as a trinity of women protect what they covet at any cost.THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER''Dangerous and sultry . . . domestic suspense at its sexiest'' SAMANTHA DOWNING''A gripping pageturner'' GLAMOUR UK''Absolutely cannot wait for the next one in the series. So many twists and turns . . . I was constantly delighted by each chapter'' 5* READER REVIEW''Powerful . . . I''m obsessed! Why can''t the rest of the series be available immediately?'' 5* READER REVIEWYou can''t believe all of them . . . But can you trust any of them?___________Widower Kane Black has been hollowed by grief.Until he sees a woman with his wife Lily''s inimitable beauty on Manhattan''s streets. He whisks her up to his towering penthouse,

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From the very first day that they move to the Oddlode Valley, it's inevitable that young teacher Mo Stillitoe, recently separated socialite Diana Lampeter and cool, retired dressage diva Anke Brakespear will find their lives entangled. Despite their differing generations and backgrounds, the women are on a relocation collision course. As inept removal men deliver furniture - and even horses - to the wrong houses, other moves are being made . . . Mo's bad boy lover takes Diana's eye, Anke's flirtatious husband immediately suggests Mo hop into bed with him – and Diana's local heart-throb brother comes joyfully face to face with the Danish ice-maiden he posted on his wall as a teenager.As a long, hot Indian summer burns its embers into winter, the newcomers settle into their beautiful frost-hugged surroundings, generating enough heat to melt every heart in Oddlode. New passions ignite and old flames are fanned amid the honeyed villages, enchanted gardens, haunted parkland and raucous country social life. The heat is on, and sparks fly - but is this just a flash in the pan or is somebody fuelling the fire?

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LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION'Defiantly complex and frequently dazzling' Sunday Times'Siri Hustvedt's most ambitious, most rewarding novel. It mesmerises, arouses, disturbs' Salman Rushdie'Superb . . . What I Loved is a rare thing, a page turner written at full intellectual stretch, serious but witty, large-minded and morally engaged' New York Times Book Review'A love story with the grip and suspense of a thriller' Times Literary SupplementIn 1975 art historian Leo Hertzberg discovers an extraordinary painting by an unknown artist in a New York gallery. He buys the work, tracks down its creator, Bill Wechsler, and the two men embark on a life-long friendship. This is the story of their intense and troubled relationship, of the women in their lives and their work, of art and hysteria, love and seduction and their sons - born the same year but whose lives take very different paths.'A big, wide, sensuous novel - clever, sinister, yet attractively real' GuardianPRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie'One of our finest novelists' Oliver Sacks'Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch' Financial Times'Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt' Washington Post'A 21st-century Virginia Woolf' Literary Review

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The debut novel from Strictly’s very own Craig Revel Horwood, this book will make you laugh, make you cry, and everything in between.‘Heartwarming, funny and FAB-U-LOUS!’ Woman magazine_________________________‘A story that sparkles on the page – I absolutely loved it.’ Milly Johnson_________________________Set against the colourful boho backdrop of London’s Camden in the 1990s, Dances and Dreams on Diamond Street, tells the story of an unlikely family of friends who each rent a room in a ramshackle six-bedroom, four-storey townhouse. Like any family, the residents of Diamond Street sometimes fight and often act up but when the chips are down, they’re there for each other in an instant – usually brandishing a cheap bottle of booze and the offer of an impromptu kitchen disco.Presided over by the wise-cracking but warm-hearted patriarch of the family, Danny Hall, a professional dancer turned choreographer, the novel follows a year in the life of the inhabitants of Diamond Street, rough diamonds one and all, as they try to achieve their dreams – with unexpected, heart-warming and sometimes hilarious results.

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''One of the wittiest books about family life ever written'' Guardian''A hilarious, remarkable and beautiful book'' Jeffrey Eugenides ''A blackly funny and beautifully written novel'' Sunday TimesSuburban New England, and the Hood family are about to wish they''d stayed home....1973 - ''The last year of the sixties'' as the author describes it. Amidst the worst storm for 30 years the local families gather for a party - the highlight of which is the wife-swapping ''key game'' - and for two couples this supposedly harmless piece of liberal-minded entertainment spells permanent disaster.Astutely acerbic, painfully funny, The Ice Storm is an astonishing novel of the decade that taste forgot.

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Feckless, unwashed, charming, penurious Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, Trinity College Law student, Irish American with an English Accent, maroon in the ould country and dreaming of dollars and ready women, stumbles from the public house to the pawnbrokers, murmuring delusive enticements in the ear of any girl who'll listen, in delirious search of freedom, wealth, and the recognition he feels is his due. Lyrical and ribald, illuminating, poignant and hugely entertaining, The Ginger Man is a work of authentic comic genius.

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Action-packed, wittily observed and non-PC satire set in California where terrorists are gearing up for the Millenium.

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BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN 'Highsmith is a damn fine writer' GUARDIAN'No one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying' VOGUE'The setting is Venice, the characterisation brilliant, the style spare and superb' DAILY MAIL The honeymoon is over; the bride dead by her own hand. Ray Garrett, the grieving husband, convinces the police in Rome of his innocence, but not his father-in-law, Ed Coleman, who shoots him at point-blank range and leaves him for dead. Ray survives and follows Coleman to Venice, where the two fall into an eerie game of cat-and-mouse - Coleman obsessed with vengeance and Ray determined to save his reputation, and himself. Those Who Walk Away simmers with violence and unease. As they switch between the roles of hunter and hunted, this tense psychological novel races towards a thrilling climax.

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BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN INTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA'Highsmith is a giant of the genre. The original, the best, the gloriously twisted Queen of Suspense' MARK BILLINGHAM'She kind of takes you by the hand and walks you toward the cliff. I like that sensation' GILLIAN FLYNN 'One of Highsmith's finest novels' NEW YORK TIMES A gripping novel that explores the shifting sands of moral values - is murder still murder when committed in a lawless place?Howard Ingham, an American writer, is in Tunisia working on a screenplay, and feeling stranded. No one has written to him since he arrived - neither the film director who he is supposed to be meeting in Tunis, nor his lover in New York. The erratic mail eventually brings news of the director's suicide. For reasons obscure even to himself, Ingham decides to stay and work on a novel, but a series of events - a hushed-up murder and a vanished corpse - lures him inexorably into the deep, ambivalent shadows of the town; into deceit and away from conventional morality. Ultimately, what is in question is not justice or truth, but the state of his oddly quiet conscience. 'Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear . . . Highsmith's finest novel to my mind is The Tremor of Forgery, and if I were asked what it is about I would reply, "apprehension"' GRAHAM GREENE

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"The Secret Talker is a profound meditation on love, the difficulties of communication and the agonizing joy and brutality of commitment." -- THE NEW YORK TIMESA NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLER OF 2021 AND "GLOBETROTTING" PICK!A woman reclaims her own story in this taut and wholly original literary tale from one of China’s literary superstars.Hongmei is the perfect Chinese wife: beautiful, diligent, passive. Glen is the perfect American husband: intelligent, caring, well-off. From the outside, Hongmei and Glen's life in the San Francisco Bay Area seems perfect. But at home, their marriage is falling apart. Post-its left on the fridge are their primary form of communication. When Hongmei receives a beguiling email from a secret admirer, naturally she’s intrigued. But what starts out as harmless flirting with an internet stranger quickly turns into an all-consuming emotional affair. As Hongmei spills more and more about her dark past as a military intelligence officer-in-training in China, she falls deeper and deeper into a tense cat-and-mouse game. Desperate and self-destructive, she embarks on an investigation into her emailer’s secret history…one that may tear her life and marriage apart forever.A psychological story at its core, The Secret Talker elegantly examines how repressed desire and simmering silence can upend even the most idyllic marriage. As Hongmei pursues her stalker, her identity and agency come into question, and the chase curveballs into a captivating journey of self-actualization. Yan Geling pierces the human psyche to reveal devastating and emotional truths – and an ending that will leave readers speechless.Translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

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The explosive, emotional and unforgettable new romance from the NYT bestselling author of the On Dublin Street seriesAlexa Holland's father was her hero-until her shocking discovery. Ever since, Alexa has worked to turn her life in a different direction and forge her own identity outside of his terrible secrets. But when she meets a man who's as damaged by her father's mistakes as she is, Alexa must help him.Caine Carraway wants nothing to do with Alexa's efforts at redemption, but it's not so easy to push her away. Determined to make her hate him, he brings her to the edge of her patience and waits for her to walk away. But his actions only draw them together and, despite the odds, they begin an intense and all-consuming affair. Only Caine knows he can never be the white knight that Alexa has always longed for, and when they're on the precipice of danger, he finds he'll do anything to protect either one of them from being hurt again . . . Praise for Samantha Young:'Ridiculously incendiary chemistry.' - Dear Author 'Scotland's answer to E.L. James. Steamy romance . . . mysterious, all-consuming and pretty damn good' Closer'Humor, heartbreak, drama, and passion.'-The Reading Cafe'A true gift for storytelling with a liberal dose of racy encounters. But what really sets it apart is exquisite characterisation, so vivid that the cast seeps into the reader's psyche' - Daily Record"Heartwarming, sizzling and captivating. . . . [Young's characters] are complex, a little flawed, and at their core good people struggling to make it in this crazy world. . . . Young creates steamy scenes that sizzle with just the right amount of details." - Caffeinated Book Reviewer

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Logan from Echoes of Scotland Street is back with his own smouldering story, as the bestselling On Dublin Street series returns...Logan spent two years paying for the mistakes he made. Now, he's ready to start over. He has a great apartment, a good job, and plenty of women to distract him from his past. And one woman who is driving him to distraction...Grace escaped her manipulative family by moving to a new city. Her new life, made to suit her own needs, is almost perfect. All she needs to do is find her Mr. Right-or at least figure out a way to ignore her irresistible yet annoying womanizer of a neighbor.Grace is determined to have nothing to do with Logan until a life-changing surprise slowly begins turning the wild heartbreaker into exactly the kind of strong, stable man she's been searching for. Only just when she begins to give into his charms, her own messy past threatens to derail everything they've worked to build...Praise for the On Dublin Street series:'Scotland's answer to E.L. James. Steamy romance . . . mysterious, all-consuming and pretty damn good' Closer'Ridiculously incendiary chemistry.' - Dear Author'Humor, heartbreak, drama, and passion.' - The Reading Cafe'A true gift for storytelling with a liberal dose of racy encounters. But what really sets it apart is exquisite characterisation, so vivid that the cast seeps into the reader's psyche' - Daily Record'Heartwarming, sizzling and captivating. . . . [Young's characters] are complex, a little flawed, and at their core good people struggling to make it in this crazy world. . . . Young creates steamy scenes that sizzle with just the right amount of details.' - Caffeinated Book Reviewer

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Trust is the most precious commodity of all.In the cutthroat world of Sweden's financial elite, no one knows that better than corporate raider David Hammar. Ruthless. Notorious. Unstoppable. He's out to hijack the ultimate prize, Investum. After years of planning, all the players are in place; he needs just one member of the aristocratic owning family on his side - Natalia De la Grip. Love, power, risk. She holds the cards . . . Elegant, brilliant, driven to succeed in a man's world, Natalia is curious about David's unexpected invitation to lunch. Everyone knows that he is rich, dangerous, unethical; she soon discovers he is also deeply scarred. The attraction between these two is impossible, but the long Swedish nights unfold an affair that will bring to light shocking secrets, forever alter a family, and force both Natalia and David to confront their innermost fears and desires.'I've been searching for this feeling all year: this book left me absolutely breathless.' New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren 'All in is sexy, smart, and completely unputdownable. Breathtaking, from start to finish. I loved this book, and I can't wait to go whatever Simona Ahrnstedt takes her readers next.' New York Times bestselling author Tessa Dare'Everything a reader could want!' New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James

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Raised together, Kate, Margo, and Laura are as close as real sisters, despite their differing backgrounds. Laura Templeton is the beloved daughter of the wealthy Templetons, Kate Powell is her orphaned cousin, and Margo Sullivan is the housekeeper's daughter. Margo has achieved fame and success far away from home, but her world comes crashing down when the man she thought she loved loses all her money and involves her in an international scandal. Devastated and broke, Margo has no choice but to return home to try to rebuild her life. Laura's older brother, Josh, has been in love with Margo for years. He's always disapproved of her lifestyle, but her unexpected return heats up the long dormant passion between them. But is Margo just on the rebound, or could she really be falling for Josh?

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"The Book of Katerina is a gleefully sardonic novel about illness and family, and how we can never quite cure ourselves of either." - GLEN JAMES BROWN Award-winning and prolific author of novels, plays, novellas, short story collections and translations. A popular stage adaptation of the novel, directed by Yorgos Nanouris, won critical acclaim and was presented to UK audiences in 2016. 'My name is Katerina, and I died by a route dark and lonely, for there was too much in me I could bear no longer.' In this acclaimed Greek novel, Auguste Corteau imagines his own mother's inner life, observing with wit and earthy humour the saga of her extended family's ups and downs in the city of Thessaloniki over three generations. From the poverty of the early years through to affluence and aspirations of grandeur, Katerina drags her husband and son into the chaos of her life: sicknesses are hidden, siblings fight for love and attention while feckless husbands and unwanted children are riven through the family story.

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The long, hot summers spent on Fire Island have always been the highlight of the year for sisters Riley and Alice. Not least because it is there that they always see Paul: their next-door neighbour, Riley's best friend in all the world, and the only boy Alice has ever loved. Then Paul goes to university, and he leaves them both behind him. Three years later, as Alice prepares to start Law School, Paul returns. The trick, he tells himself, is to have what he had without destroying it. But their world will change irresistibly, wonderfully and tragically, with every breath they take.

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A spellbinding yarn set a thousand years ago along the ancient Silk Road, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'It's been a while since I had such fun reading a book' Daily Telegraph'Readers might feel they have reached the book equivalent of the Promised Land' The TimesGENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is set in the Kingdom of Arran, in the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, A.D. 950. It tells the tale of two wandering adventurers and unlikely soulmates, variously plying their trades as swords for hire, horse thieves and con artists - until fortune entangles them in the myriad schemes and battles that follow a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars. Hired as escorts for a fugitive prince, they quickly find themselves half-willing generals in a mad rebellion, struggling to restore the prince's family to the throne. As their increasingly outrageous exploits unfold, they encounter a wondrous elephant, wily Rhadanite tradesmen, whores, thieves, soldiers, an emperor, and discover the truth about their young royal charge.Beautifully illustrated throughout, this is a novel brimming with raucous humour and cliff-hanging suspense, combining the spirit of The Arabian Nights with the action of The Three Musketeers.

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A teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran, Massoumeh is an ordinary girl, passionate about learning. On her way to school she meets a local man and falls in love - but when her family discover his letters they accuse her of bringing them into dishonour. She is badly beaten by her brother, and her parents hastily arrange a marriage to a man she''s never met. Facing a life without love, and the prospect of no education, Massoumeh is distraught - but a female neighbour urges her to comply: ''We each have a destiny, and you can''t fight yours.''The years that follow Massoumeh''s wedding prove transformative for Iran. Hamid, Massoumeh''s husband, is a political dissident and a threat to the Shah''s oppressive regime and when the secret service arrive to arrest him, it is the start of a terrifying period for Massoumeh. Her fate, so long dictated by family loyalty and tradition, is now tied to the changing fortunes of her country. Spanning five turbulent decades of Iranian his

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“Sens-Plastique has now been a companion of mine for nearly 20 years, and so far as I am concerned, Malcolm de Chazal is much the most original and interesting French writer to emerge since the war.” –W.H. Auden After seeing an azalea looking at him in the Curepipe Botanic Gardens (and realizing that he himself was becoming a flower), Malcolm de Chazal began composing what would eventually become his unclassifiable masterpiece, Sens-Plastique, which would take its final form in 1948. Containing over 2,000 aphorisms, axioms and allegories, the book was immediately hailed as a work of genius by André Breton, Francis Ponge, Jean Dubuffet and Georges Braque. Embraced by the Surrealists as one of their own, Chazal chose to avoid all literary factions and steadfastly anchored himself in his solitary life as a bachelor mystic on the island nation of Mauritius, where he would proceed to write books and paint for the rest of his life. Sens-Plastique employs a strange humor and an alchemical sensibility to offer up an utterly original world vision that unifies neo-science, philosophy and poetry into a new form of writing. Mapping every human body part, facial expression and emotion onto the natural kingdom through subconscious thinking, Chazal presents a world in which humankind is not just made in the image of God, but Nature is made in the image of humankind: a sensual, synesthetic world in which everything in the universe, be it animal, vegetable, mineral or human, employs a spiritual copula. Malcolm de Chazal (1902–81) was a Mauritian writer and painter. Forsaking a career in the sugar industry, he spent the majority of his life in a solitary, mystical pursuit of the continuity between man and nature.

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'As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better' Sunday TelegraphAfter years of exile, Alban Wopuld has been summoned back to his family's highland estate, Garbadale. The Wopuld clan are closing ranks. They have built their fortune on the boardgame Empire! - which has become a hugely successful computer game - and now the Americans want to buy them out. As the family gathers for their Extraordinary General Meeting, old grudges, forbidden passions and dark secrets emerge. What drove Alban's mother to take her own life? And is Alban over Sophie, his bewitching cousin and teenage love?Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'A poisoned bonbon, a bitter fairy tale' IndependentKate Telman is a senior executive officer in The Business, a powerful and massively discreet transglobal organisation. Financially transparent, internally democratic and disavowing conventional familial inheritance, the character of The Business seems, even to Kate, to be vague to the point of invisibility. It possesses, allegedly, a book of Leonardo cartoons, several sets of Crown Jewels and wants to buy its own State in order to acquire a seat at the United Nations.Kate's job is to keep abreast of current technological developments and her global reach encompasses Silicon Valley, a ranch in Nebraska, the firm's secretive Swiss headquarters, and a remote Himalayan principality. In the course of her journey Kate must peel away layers of emotional insulation and the assumptions of a lifetime. She must learn to keep her world at arm's length. To take control, she has to do The Business.Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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