Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Das Dorf Staufenberg liegt auf einer Felskuppe. Hoch oben die alte Burg. Wenn der böhmische Flüchtlingsjunge Peter vom Turm ins Tal blickt...

Sasha is well and truly over it all: work (all-consuming), friendships (on the back burner), sex-life (non-existent). Sasha has hit a brick wall. Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga and find solitude, she heads to the Devon resort she loved as a child. But it's off-season, the hotel is falling apart and now she has to share the beach with someone else: a grumpy, stressed-out guy called Finn. How can she commune with nature when he's sitting on a rock, watching her? Especially when they don't agree on burnout cures.

Compton Magna and Nether Bagot sit high on the Fosse Hills to either side of the Gloucestershire/Warwickshire border, just half a mile apart. They form the backdrop to this rich story of secrets and rivalries, as glamorous Ronnie Ledwell returns to take up the reins of her father's horse breeding stud farm, years after she scandalised family and friends by eloping with her lover. News of her return will well and truly set the cat among the pigeons....

In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life - the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. Anne Rice's compulsively readable novel is arguably the most celebrated work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker's Dracula which was published in 1897.

At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive - known locally, as 'Larks'. His reasons for doing so are purely financial, but he is encouraged by the opportunities the scheme gives him for frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save what is a fast-sinking school from closure.

When Alice Love surfaces from a beautiful dream to find she's been injured in a gym, she knows that something is very wrong – she hates exercise. Alice's first concern is her baby – she's pregnant with her first child, and she's desperate to see her husband, Nick, who she knows will be worried about her.But Alice isn't pregnant. And Nick isn't worried.

Following the death of her bullying husband, Etta Bancroft's selfish children move her to a village in the Cotswolds. One night, she discovers a filly, left to die in the snow. With help, Etta rescues the horse, and she and her friends form a syndicate to pay for her upkeep. As the horse recovers, she begins to show racing pedigree, so the syndicate enters her into a maiden hurdle - and are shocked at the result.

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity, he can stay one step ahead of his past – and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love. But what if the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him?

A fateful car crash sets in motions a series of events for Floriana, Esme. Floriana gathers the courage to attend the wedding of her one true love, and Esme journeys with her to Lake Como to find the man who stole her heart many years ago. It’s time for Esme and Floriana to face the past - and the future - on the shore of the most romantic and enchanting of lakes.

Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl in the world. When a dramatic suicide attempt destroyed her violin career, she set her sights on the male-dominated heights of the conductor's rostrum. Given the chance to take over the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra, Abby is ecstatic, not realising the RSO is composed of the wildest bunch of musicians ever to blow a horn or caress a fiddle.

Summer has arrived in Barton-in-the-Dale and as a new term begins at the little primary school, it's not just the warm weather that's getting people hot under the collar. Meetings with the teachers from Urebank School to discuss the merger are producing more than a few fireworks, a disruptive new pupil arrives, set to cause trouble, and a surprising staff love affair is exposed.

The complete finale of the hit BBC Radio 4 sitcom- 2 episodes. Cabin Pressure is set in the wing and prayer world of a tiny, one-plane airline, staffed by two pilots, one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. In this, the finale of the whole series, we discover that for MJN Air, whether it's choosing an ice-cream flavour, putting a princess in a van or remembering your grandmother's name, no job is too small, but, many, many jobs are too difficult.

If Joe and Vicky had known what relocating to a tiny mountain village in Andalucía would really be like, they might have hesitated. They can have no idea of the culture shock in store for them...no idea they'll become reluctant chicken farmers and own the most dangerous cockerel in Spain...no idea they'll help capture a vulture and be rescued by a mule. Will they stay, or will they return to the relative sanity of England?

Shadow Moon has been on the road a while now, but he can't walk any farther tonight, not with the rain lashing down. Gratefully he heads home with a nice English couple, who offer a box room, hot whisky and local tales. But when the man collapses en route, Shadow realises that something about this place has been left untold. Something ancient, something within the very walls of the village. Something shadowing them all.

The much anticipated prequel to best seller Wool that takes us back to the beginnings of the silo. The full novel which brings together First, Second and Third Shift.

The second book in the delightful Barton-In-The-Dale series which began with The Little Village School. Elisabeth Devine certainly rocked the boat when she arrived in Barton-in-the-Dale to take over as head teacher of the little primary school. Now it's a new term, and after winning over the wary locals, she can finally settle in to her role. Or so she thinks... For the school is hit by a brand-new bombshell: it's to be merged with its arch rival, and Elisabeth has to fight for the headship with Urebank's ruthless and calculating headmaster. She has her work cut out for her.

Aged 13, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld.

Does your life feel like a dress rehearsal? Do you long to enter the limelight and steal the show? But what do you do when you're playing second fiddle to an arrogant actor who barely knows your name? And, more importantly, what do you do when you find yourself falling in love with his wife?

Shadow Moon has been away from America for nearly two years. His nights are broken with dangerous dreams. Sometimes he almost believes he doesn't care if he ever returns home. In the Highlands of Scotland, where the sky is pale white and it feels as remote as any place can possibly be, the beautiful and the wealthy gather at a grand old house in the glen. And when the strange local doctor offers him work at the party, Shadow is intrigued.

The Hypnotist's Love Story is about the mild craziness that lurks behind the facades we present to the world, especially when it comes to love. Ellen O'Farrell is an expert when it comes to human frailties. She's a hypnotherapist who helps her clients deal with everything from addictions to life-long phobias. So when she falls in love with a man who is being stalked by his ex-girlfriend she's more intrigued than frightened.