Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

When recently orphaned Barnaby Gaunt is sent to stay with his uncle on a beautiful remote island off the coast of Canada, he is all set to have the perfect summer holiday. Except there is one small problem: His uncle is trying to kill him. Heir to a ten-million-dollar fortune, Barnaby tries to tell everyone and anyone that his uncle is after his inheritance, but no one will believe him. That is, until he tells the only other child on the island, Chrissie, who concludes that there is only one way for Barnaby to stop his demonic uncle: He will just have to kill him first.

In astonishing new masterpiece from the Nobel and twice Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace and Summertime. After crossing oceans, a man and a boy – both strangers to each other – arrive in a new land. David, the boy, has lost his mother and Simón vows to look after him. In this strange new country they are assigned a new name, a new birthday, a new life.Knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David’s mother.

When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher - and you have a badly-set, freshly-busted nose, patched with silver duct tape - it isn't easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia, so he doesn't quit. And at last, he's picked up by three strangers - two men and a woman. But within minutes it becomes clear they're all lying about everything - and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway.

Michel Marini - douze ans en 1959, élève à Henri IV - a une passion, la littérature. Il ne s'en intéresse pas moins au rock'n'roll. Et au baby-foot. Au café où il joue tous les jours se réunit un club d'échecs fréquenté par Tibor, Léonid, Sasha, et les autres, tous réfugiés de l'Est qui ont dû s'exiler pour survivre.

Daniela Dröscher erzählt vom Aufwachsen in einer Familie, in der ein Thema alles beherrscht: das Körpergewicht der Mutter. Ist diese schöne, eigenwillige, unberechenbare Frau zu dick? Muss sie dringend abnehmen? Ja, das muss sie. Entscheidet ihr Ehemann. Und die Mutter ist dem ausgesetzt, Tag für Tag.

Screenwriter Megan Silver is a waitress in an L.A. burger joint, and her life is going nowhere fast. But she has an idea worth a million dollars - if only she can get someone to read her script. Supermodel Roxana Felix is the richest, bitchiest catwalk queen of them all. But it's not enough; she wants to be a movie star, and she'll let nothing get in her way. Studio president Eleanor Marshall is the most powerful woman in Hollywood, yet the romantic inside her longs for love - and a baby.

As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica: an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal "office kit" and a plaque that reads "Still Anal After All These Years".

Abie follows the arc of a letter from London back to Africa to a coffee plantation that now could be hers if she wants it. Standing among the ruined groves she strains to hear the sound of the past, but the layers of years are too many. Thus begins the gathering of her family's history through the tales of her aunts - four women born to four different wives of a wealthy plantation owner, her grandfather.

J’ai voulu y croire, j’ai voulu rêver que le royaume de la littérature m’accueillerait comme n’importe lequel des orphelins qui y trouvent refuge, mais même à travers l’art, on ne peut pas sortir vainqueur de l’abjection. La littérature ne m’a pas sauvée. Je ne suis pas sauvée. Neige Sinno lit elle-même son texte, insufflant une force supplémentaire à son bouleversant récit autobiographique.

If sex is a truth-teller, Eve—a young, queer woman in Brooklyn—is looking for answers. On an evening when she is feeling particularly impulsive, she posts some nude photos of herself online. This is how Eve meets Olivia, and through Olivia, the charismatic Nathan—and soon the three begin a relationship that disturbs Eve as much as it delights her. As each act of the affair unfolds, Eve is left to ask: to whom is she responsible? And to what extent do our desires determine who we are?

Charming and heroic, there’s nothing about Gabriel Woodruff that Avery Burke doesn’t love. His warm brown eyes, his generosity, that small scar above his lip. The newspaper photo of him carrying her from a burning home only adds to the romance of it all. A fairytale beginning and a picture-perfect marriage practically guarantees Avery and Gabriel a ride into the sunset. But every relationship has flaws, and what they ignored while they were busy being flawless eventually surfaces. The unraveling begins with the smallest tug on the tiniest string.

Married four times, Susannah Forbes had a starry career as a top model. Now, with an instinctive eye for design, she finds herself in constant demand as an interior designer. Offered a commission by a recently divorced American to make over his lavish Long Island home, Susannah accepts, bringing as her assistant young divorcee Daisy Mitchell. Taking off from Heathrow, Susannah is transported back to a time when, at the height of her modelling career, she lived in New York.

A captivating exploration of human love, marriage, and the illusions upon which it is founded, Mrs. Kimble presents a fascinating psychological portrait of a mesmerizing opportunist and the women who believe in him. Beautifully wrought, stunningly original, Jennifer Haigh's sparkling debut marks the arrival of a remarkable new talent.

Barrytown, Dublin, has something to sing about. The Commitments are spreading the gospel of the soul. Ably managed by Jimmy Rabitte, brilliantly coached by Joel 'The Lips' Fagan, their twin assault on Motown and Barrytown takes them by leaps and bounds from Paris Hall to immortality on vinyl. But can The Commitments live up to their name?

Adrian Weynfeldt, Mitte fünfzig, Junggeselle, großbürgerlicher Herkunft, Kunstexperte bei einem internationalen Auktionshaus, lebt in einer riesigen Wohnung im Stadtzentrum. Mit der Liebe hat er abgeschlossen. Bis ihn eines Abends eine jüngere Frau dazu bringt, sie - entgegen seinen Gepflogenheiten - mit nach Hause zu nehmen.

Sunny's mundane country life is changed overnight when handsome, stylish Gray's Bentley breaks down outside her parents' cottage in Rushington. It seems that he may have fallen in love with her. Sunny herself remains unconvinced.

"Dacă Bolintineanu ar fi avut acces la lumea de curăţii geometrice cărora li se închina Ion Barbu? Dacă pe Eminescu l-ar fi mişcat zbuciumul din sufletul unui Manoil? Dacă lui Arghezi i-ar fi venit gustul să rescrie el Ţiganiada? Dacă ar fi presimţit paşoptiştii noştri că se va ivi pe meleagurile române un tiran fără pereche şi porneau să-l ia în tărbacă, aşa cum ştiau ei, cu cântecele comice şi monoloage autodemascatoare?"

The Tides are a family full of secrets. Returning to Clifftops, the rambling family house high on the Dorset coastline, youngest daughter Dora hopes for a fresh start, for herself and the new life she carries. But can long-held secrets ever really be forgiven? And even if you can forgive, can you ever really learn to love again? Secrets of the Tides is the spellbinding debut from Hannah Richell; a rich and compelling family drama with a dark thread of suspense at its heart.

Joan’s voice is almost a whisper. ‘Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren’t allowed to.’ Joan Stanley has a secret. She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet, unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world. Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists

Can you ever forget your first love? Liberty Evans hasn’t.She has a beautiful daughter, a successful career as an actress, and she’s married to one of Hollywood’s most powerful directors.But behind the glamour, things are not what they seem. Her daughter Brooke is turning into a spoiled teenager, her husband controls everything she does, and Liberty longs for Cory, the man she loved before she became famous. Unable to live a lie any more, Liberty returns to England with a reluctant Brooke, to start a new life.