Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

It was a preference for cricket over schoolwork that united Mike and Psmith in their reluctance to attend their new school, Sedleigh. The school insists that its attendees be keen, but it is sorely unprepared for boys of such foresight and resources as Mike and Psmith who have decided to indulge in all manner of high-jinks and adventures.

When Sam, Jackie and Anna successfully campaign to save their children's school lollipop lady, they are asked by a TV reporter if they fancy standing in the general election. It is, of course, a crazy idea: Sam's youngest son has an incurable disease, Jackie is desperate for another child and her mum is struggling with Alzheimers, Anna's teenagers - and marriage - are in danger of going off the rails. But sometimes the craziest ideas turn out to be the best. And just think what they could do if they got to run the country...

1945. The vote in the House of Lords as to who should inherit the Barrington family fortune has ended in a tie. The Lord Chancellor’s deciding vote will cast a long shadow on the lives of Harry Clifton and Giles Barrington. Harry returns to America to promote his latest novel, while his beloved Emma goes in search of the little girl who was found abandoned in her father’s office on the night he was killed. When the General Election is called, Giles Barrington has to defend his seat

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is...don't make any afternoon plans.

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way.

Sun, sea and secrets... A week on the sunny Greek island of Kethos is just what Alice Archer needs, even if she has to put up with her difficult sister. Stella's tantrums and divalike demands are a fair price to pay for crystal-clear waters, blue skies and white clifftop villas. When Alice meets Milo, a handsome gardener at the Villa Argenti, for the first time she suddenly feels beautiful, alluring and confident. But is it just holiday magic, or will the irresistible pull between Alice and Milo survive against all odds?

In order to stay human, Audrey has built a moat around herself; a moat of books, music, and dreams. It makes her different from the echoes: the sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble and work for the humans. Daniel is an echo - but he's not like the others. He has feelings he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in danger, he's determined to save her.

Uno strappo che sembrava impossibile da ricucire, una famiglia che nel corso degli anni ritrova la strada nella forza dei legami. Ci sono libri che ti entrano dentro, che ti accompagnano per mano nella vita di tutti i giorni. È ciò che succede con l'esordio magnetico di Roberta Recchia, una storia da cui non ci si stacca, con protagonisti vivi, autentici. Come Marisa e Stelvio Ansaldo, che nella Roma degli anni Cinquanta si innamorano nella bottega del sor Ettore, il padre di lei.

Impetuous Ali Anderson has always been a loose cannon. While she’s still trying to come to terms with the death of her baby son and subsequent divorce from Elliot, she takes it upon herself to play God with her best friend’s incomprehensible marriage. Ali’s meddling has disastrous consequences. Finding herself cut off from those she loves, she comes to realise that a little forgiveness goes a long way...

Lester Ferris needs a rest. He's spent his life being shot at, and Afghanistan was the last stop on his road to exhaustion. Mancreu is the ideal place for Lester to relax. A former British colony, soon to be destroyed because of its very special version of toxic pollution. But Lester Ferris makes a friend: a street kid with a comicbook fixation who will need a home - who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. But in a place like Mancreu, just what sort of hero will the boy need?

It's the May Day holiday, and a fair has come to the village of Thrush Green. The residents of Thrush Green all have their own views about the fair. For young Paul, just recovered from an illness, it is a joy to be allowed out to play at the fair; for Ruth, who returned to the soothing tranquility of Thrush Green nursing a broken heart, the fair is a welcome distraction from her own problems. And for Dr Lovell, the fair brings an unexpected new patient.

Aiming to make a fresh start in life, Sydney agrees to tutor the teenage daughter of an affluent couple during a summer spent in their New Hampshire cottage. But when the Edwards' two grown sons arrive, Sydney finds herself caught up in a web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt is threatened.

It’s the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be.Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is already history.Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war.

Sarah Stratford is a wedding planner hiding a rather inconvenient truth - she doesn't believe in love. Or not for herself, anyway. But as the confetti flutters away on the June breeze of yet another successful wedding she somehow finds herself agreeing to organise two more, on the same day and only two months away. And whilst her celebrity bride is all sweetness and light, her own sister soon starts driving her mad with her high expectations but very limited budget.

The instinct of the true Porterhouse man faced with a crisis is to reach for the bottle and then to fall back on the subtle tactical skills honed at Cambridge down the centuries: blackmail and kidnap. But will these be enough? Menaced on all sides - by the collapse of the Chapel, by the tentacles of organised crime, and by the hovering threat of the abominable Dog’s Nose Man - will Porterhouse be forced to unleash the most fearsome weapon in its armoury - the college food?

En écoutant les cassettes léguées par sa tante, Agnès découvre une autre facette, surprenante, de Colette. Ces secrets de famille mèneront Agnès à renouer les fils de sa propre vie, rompus après son divorce.

Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire – but that doesn’t stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to ‘Biscuit’, Lord Biskerton, who doesn’t have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann – just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine.

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking.

A novel from the director of the film Country Life. A young actor struggles to make his way in the theatre, experiencing the quick, intense relationships that flare within the closed world of the theatre as he acts out small, solid roles with a famous classical company outside of London.

Colm O’Flynn was loved by his close circle of family and friends, however his death came too soon for everyone to make peace with their past. Shauna, his second wife, adored him. But one night she broke their marriage vows and didn’t get time to ask Colm’s forgiveness. Jess was the first Mrs O’Flynn. Her heart is set on someone new, but will the last one-night stand she shared with Colm come back to haunt her? Colm’s best friend, Dan, is recently divorced. Can he take a second shot at happiness if it means betraying the one person who always had his back?

The two-hundred-year-old cottages known as Tyler’s Row, with charming leaded-glass windows and an arched thorn hedge over the gateway, are supposed to provide a haven of peace for their new owners, Peter and Diana Hale.