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
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group The Orenda
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£15.30
Penguin Publishing Group In the Company of Witches
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£15.38
Pan Macmillan Rosarita
Book SynopsisBorn and educated in India, Anita Desai is the author of many novels, including Rosarita, and short stories, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times for her novels Clear Light of Day, In Custody and Fasting, Feasting. She is the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature.
£9.49
St Martin's Press Offside
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£14.33
Simon & Schuster Ltd The Best of Intentions
Book SynopsisDon't miss the wonderful new novel from the author of Good Taste and The Photographer of the Lost . . . Welcome to a utopia in the English countryside . . . When Robert Bardsley arrives at Greenfields in the spring of 1933, it is home to a collective of writers, artists, thinkers, musicians and horticulturalists; a place of unchecked idealism and outlandish lifestyles that regularly scandalises the county. An ambitious young gardener, Robert's been offered a cottage in the grounds of Anderby Hall in return for his efforts to restore the hornbeam maze and tame the feral roses. When the residents of Greenfields discover that Mrs Fitzgerald has sold the old orchard to a property developer, who intends to build an estate of mock-Tudor bungalows, cracks start to fracture the community's façade. Told by four members of the community over the course of a year, this is a novel about the tensions between ideals and practicalities. At what price do we let go of our principles? And,
£9.49
Quercus Publishing The Black Loch
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£9.49
Simon & Schuster Slanting Towards the Sea
Book SynopsisSpanning twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the millennium, when newly democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona’s dreams one after another—and a devastating secret forced her to set him free. Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona’s life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life’s disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona’s life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved. Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.
£23.19
Bonnier Books Ltd Getting Away
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£14.44
Galley Beggar Press All My Precious Madness
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£10.44
G&D Media Notes From The Underground
Book Synopsis?To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise? ? Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the UndergroundThe darkly fascinating novella Notes From The Underground was written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1864, shortly before he penned his lengthier later novels, including The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.Considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels it follows the complicated mind of a bitter, retired civil servant (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who lives alone in St. Petersburg, Russia in the mid 19th century.Able to retire after recently inheriting some money, the narrator in full retreat from society has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory rambling narrative that runs the gamut from human morality, to logic and reason and serves as a devastating attack on emerging Western and contemporary Russian philosophy, as well as social utopianism and an assertion of man?s essentially irrational nature. These memoirs or confessions describe and explain his alienation from modern society and the work can be viewed as an attack on and rebellion against determinism, the idea that everything, including the human personality and will, can be reduced to the laws of nature, science and mathematics.One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the narrator is a doubting, alienated protagonist in a novella that introduces the moral, religious, political and social themes that dominated Dostoyevsky?s later masterworks.
£10.44
Profile The Course of the Heart
Book SynopsisThe cult classic novel from the author of Climbers and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise AgainWith an introduction by bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield'A spare textual elegance and closure-denying restraint that impresses and fulfils' IAIN BANKSOn a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Decades later, none of the participants can remember what transpired; but their clouded memories bind them together. Unable to move on, Pam Stuyvesant is an epileptic haunted by strange sensual visions. Her husband Lucas believes that a dwarfish creature is stalking him, and invents histories to soothe Pam's fears. Self-styled Sorcerer Yaxley becomes obsessed with a terrifyingly transcendent reality. The narrator is seemingly the least effected participant in the ritual: he is haunted by the smell of roses, and his guilt as he attempts to help his friends escape the torment that has engulfed their lives. Strange, dreamlike and moving, The Course of the Heart is an examination of the edges of humanity where we lie, hide, hurt and heal.'A gloriously intelligent, beautifully written and thoroughly maddening book' INDEPENDENT
£10.44
Atlantic Books The Lives of Women
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£9.49
Canongate Books Ltd. Swallows
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£14.39
Rebellion Publishing Ltd. The Sludge 60th Anniversary
Book SynopsisA strange and terrible living jelly-like substance the product of nuclear weapons testing emerged from the depths of the sea near Canada in 1965. Known by the human world as The Sludge', this unique monster posed a threat to anything that stood in its way. Anything it covered became possessed of a frightening, malignant power aimed against Mankind!
£17.09
Diversified Publishing The Dungeon Anarchists Cookbook
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£21.32
Podium Publishing The Wrong Play
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£15.11
Faber & Faber Helm
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£18.00
Sourcebooks Breathe In Bleed Out
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£15.20
Pocket Books My Darling Girl
Book SynopsisFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Children on the Hill, a psychological thriller “that delivers both chilling scares and genuine emotion” (Chandler Baker, New York Times bestselling author) about a woman who, after taking in her dying, alcoholic mother, begins to suspect demonic possession is haunting her family.Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call. Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter’s family. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of. But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family in this “twisty, propulsive, character-driven, and hair-raisingly scary” (Nick Cutter, author of The Troop) novel.
£9.89
HarperCollins Publishers Paper Heart
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£17.60
Profile Books Ltd Saraswati
Book SynopsisAs a holy river returns, seven lives change course in this masterpiece debut for fans of David Mitchell, Zadie Smith and Eleanor Catton'A writer we will be talking about for years to come' NEEL MUKHERJEECenturies ago, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Punjab. Many dismiss this as myth, but when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother's funeral, he finds water in the dried-up well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river as an act of Hindu nationalist pride. The river changes the course of Satnam's life, and those of six others. As legends and histories resurface, the distant relatives - from a Canadian eco-saboteur to a Mauritian pest exterminator to a Bollywood stunt double - are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Ambitious, moving and brimming with folklore, Saraswati is a tour de force from one of Britain's most feted young writers. 'A new talent of the kind that comes along rarely' Observer
£14.44
Vintage Publishing The Gilda Stories
Book SynopsisJewelle Gomez is a writer, activist and the author of the double Lambda Award-winning novel, The Gilda Stories. Her other publications include The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears and Oral Tradition. Formerly the executive director of the Poetry Center and the American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University, she has also worked in philanthropy for many years. She is the former director of the literature programme at the New York State Council on the Arts, the director of Grants and Community Initiatives for Horizon and the President of the San Francisco Library Commission. She lives in San Francisco.
£9.49
Image Comics Spectators
£24.67
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Golgotha
Book SynopsisTwo men, decades apart, traverse the same land in search of fabled treasure in this haunting conclusion to Lavie Tidhar's epic Maror Trilogy.
£17.00
Bedford Square Publishers Blood Pact
Book SynopsisDetective Superintendent Jack Hawksworth and his team have to untangle a terrorist threat from a possible serial killer in the latest book in the series by million-copy bestseller Fiona McIntosh.
£9.49
Bedford Square Publishers People Watching
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Your Heart Belongs to Me
Book SynopsisDean Koontz's compelling and high-concept new thriller is the story of a young man who owes his life to a heart transplant … but confronts an imminent and far worse death because of whose heart it was.Trade ReviewPraise for Dean Koontz: ‘A terrific pursuit story … clever, up-to-the-minute, and riveting’ Guardian ‘There’s surprise after surprise, including a killer finale … a read-in-one-go novel’ Independent on Sunday ‘Velocity hits its pace from the first page and races through to a suitably climactic ending’ Sydney Sunday Telegraph ‘Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler’ The Times ‘Psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying’ The New York Times
£12.34
Proud Peacock Publishing LLC Afuera A Young Latinos Journey
£8.54
Muse Ink Press The Lost Traveler
£13.88
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Dilemmas of Working Women
£16.87
Penguin Books Ltd The Predicament
£14.39
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group The Confessions of Edward Day
Book SynopsisA brilliant new novel set in the bohemian, glamorous theater world of 1970s New York, by the Orange Prize-winning author of Property. • “One of the best novels I’ve ever read about the actor’s psyche.” —The New York Times Book Review It’s the 1970s in New York—rents are cheap, love is free, and with the explosion of theater venues off and off-off Broadway, aspiring actors will work for nothing in no clothes. Enter Edward Day, who wants more than anything to move an unsuspecting audience to an experience of emotional truth. But he must also contend with the drama of his own life: he is locked in a bitter rivalry with fellow actor Guy Margate, with whom he shares a marked physical resemblance and a fatal attraction to the beautiful, talented, and all-too-available Madeleine Delavergne. Edward’s pursuit of Madeleine is complicated by the fact that he owes Guy his life. In this riveting tale of para
£13.56
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group The Biographers Tale
Book SynopsisFrom the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes an ingenious novel about love and literary sleuthing: a dazzling fiction woven out of one man’s search for certainty.“Elegant ... witty ... intelligent.” —The Washington PostHere is the story of Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student who decides to escape the world of postmodern literary theory and immerse himself in the messiness of “real life” by writing a biography of a great biographer. In a series of adventures that are by turns intellectual and comic, scientific and sensual, Phineas tracks his subject to the deserts of Africa and the maelstrom of the Arctic. Along the way he comes to rely on two women, one of whom may be the guide he needs out of the dizzying labyrinth of his research and back into his own life. A tantalizing yarn of detection and desire, The Biographer’s Tale is a provocative look at “truth” in biography
£14.40
Random House USA Inc Endling
£22.40
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Whale Fall
£13.60
Random House USA Inc Not Quite Dead Yet
£21.00
Grove Atlantic Vanishing World
£18.99
St Martin's Press We Met Like This
£12.07
Alfred A. Knopf The Girls Who Grew Big
£14.25
Cornerstone Thief of Night
£14.39
Quercus Publishing The Bewitching
Book Synopsis Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.''Moreno-Garcia is a deft enchantress - this is a ghost story in high Gothic style'' - M.L. Rio, author of If We Were Villains ''Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches'': that was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva - stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that''s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay''s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay''s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved. Readers love The Bewitching . . . ''An absolute masterpiece'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Hauntingly addictive'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Feels like being put under a spell'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Evocative and chilling'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Gothic fiction at its finest'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Had me enthralled from the first page until the last'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐''Blew my expectations out of the water . . . This may be the best gothic horror book of 2025'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
£15.29
Grand Central Publishing Circle of Days
£32.03
Vintage Publishing Men In Love
£13.49
Transworld Publishers Ltd By Your Side
Book SynopsisDON'T MISS THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BAFTA-WINNING CO-WRITER OF GAVIN & STACEY.''Ruth Jones writes with such warmth you can''t help but fall in love with the characters she creates.' JAMES CORDENThe joyful and life-affirming new novel from the co-creator of Gavin and Stacey and the Richard and Judy Book Club author of Love Untold.Linda and Levi will never meet. But they're going to change each other's lives.In her role at the council's Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who've died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She's been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she's looking forward to an early retirement.But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda takes on one last case that of Levi Norman a Welshman who made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years.What brought Levi here? And who did he leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse) with her arch nemesis Fergus Murray, and helped (and hindered) by local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew.Bursting with all the heart and humour that has made Ruth's name as a screenwriter and author, By Your Side is about finding joy in the most unlikely connections, and the importance of holding onto friendship, love and community especially when life gets messy.SPECIAL HARDBACK LIMITED EDITION - AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER WHILE STOCKS LASTPraise for Ruth Jones:Ruth Jones is excellent on human nature and why we make the mistakes we do' JOJO MOYESA cast of characters you''ll lose your heart to.'' ADELE PARKS''Beautifully warm and totally absorbing.' JANE FALLON
£14.39
