Showing titles in City Life

Abandoned, penniless and orphaned as young children, Bertram and Alice saved each other from a terrible fate. For seven long years they have been kept apart, Bertram, BJ to his friends, learning how to survive and then thrive in the penal colonies of Australia, and Alice growing her prosperous chain of bakeries in the Black Country town of Wednesbury. Now BJ’s sentence is nearly up and he has a choice to make. Queen Victoria’s England has changed since he’s been away and so has Alice. Should he leave behind the life he’s built and face the terrifying, months-long voyage back home?

A fatal jump. A missing suffragette. An inexplicable murder. London, 1920. Reporter Iris Woodmore lands a headline story when, for the first time, two women compete against each other in an election to become Britain’s next female MP. But she’s forced to confront her past as the House of Commons is where her mother, Violet, died during a suffragette attack on Parliament in 1914.

1812. In Bath and London, Jane Austen's characters are attending balls, and the Bridgerton family are making waves in Regency high society. But these are the grimy streets of Liverpool: a city where the extreme wealth of international commerce meets brothels and brawls, smugglers and secrecy; where both high and low society operate amidst revolutionary rumblings from France and the shadow of the recently abolished slave trade.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of White Teeth by Zadie Smith, read by Lenny Henry, Sagar Arya, Pippa Bennett-Warner and Ray Panthaki. From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, On Beauty and Grand Union 'BELIEVE THE HYPE' The Times 'The almost...

Grace can’t believe it when her husband of 25 years announces he doesn’t want to join her on their anniversary trip to Paris - instead, he wants a divorce. Reeling from the shock, Grace makes the bold decision to go on this holiday of a lifetime alone. Audrey leaves behind heartache of her own when she arrives in Paris. A job in a bookshop is her ticket to freedom, but with no money and no knowledge of the French language, her summer adventure seems doomed to fail. Until she meets Grace, and everything changes....

Who is Vernon Subutex? An urban legend. A fall from grace. The mirror who reflects us all. Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Bastille. His legend spread throughout Paris. But by the 2000s his shop is struggling. With his savings gone, his unemployment benefit cut and the friend who had been covering his rent suddenly dead, Vernon Subutex finds himself down and out on the Paris streets. He has one final card up his sleeve. 

The second book in the multi-million-copy bestselling series about a cosy Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s heartwarming Tales from the Cafe, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would...

'IT MOVED ME DEEPLY' LIV LITTLE 'DEEPLY POIGNANT' HARPERS BAZAAR 'GORGEOUS' RAVEN LEILANI THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN 'It will make you laugh, cry deeply, and want to call your siblings’ Cosmopolitan 'Even better than Cleopatra and...

Chris Wright has one shot at his dream. After years of late nights and countless revisions, an agent finally takes notice of Chris’s novel—but with one catch: he has a tight deadline to deliver a major rewrite. With bills stacking up and no extra time to pick up more shifts, Chris feels like he's barely holding his life together. Then, fate throws him a curveball in the form of Mia.

Someone’s watching you… Living in a beautiful home on the edge of a council estate, Kara Bannon can’t imagine what it’s like to have nothing. An eerie phone call plays on her mind and within three days she loses everything – her job, her home and Justin, the only person she thought she...

Heather arbeitet im »Museum of Broken (He)arts« in Vancouver, wo sie traurige Erinnerungsstücke aus zerbrochenen Beziehungen katalogisiert. Als ein Brief samt kaputtem Silberarmband eintrifft, ist sie tief gerührt. Der junge Anwalt Casey wurde verlassen, ohne den Grund zu kennen. Gemeinsam mit Heather recherchiert er, bis er erfährt, dass seine Ex sich in jemand anderen verliebt hat. Während dieser Zeit kommen sich Heather und Casey immer näher. Doch kurz darauf wird Heather mit ihrer eigenen Vergangenheit konfrontiert, als jemand aus ihrem früheren Leben auftaucht.

Eine grausame Mordserie erschüttert Köln. Scheinbar wahllos entführt ein Unbekannter ältere Menschen, fesselt sie und lässt sie dann unbarmherzig verhungern. Kommissarin Anna Melcher wird auf den Fall angesetzt. Seit ihrer Scheidung leidet die Ermittlerin unter Panikattacken, die sie vor den Kollegen zu verheimlichen versucht. Ein Hinweis führt sie zurück in die achtziger Jahre zu einem grausamen Fall von Kindesmisshandlung.

When Another Country appeared in 1962, it caused a literary sensation. James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.

In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth — no, sixth? — child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block. Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions.

As war rages and brave soldiers returning home from the frontline need nurses more than ever, fiercely proud redhead Sylvia Roberts is determined to help in any way she can. In spite of her mother’s belief she isn’t good enough, Sylvia believes that becoming a home front nurse is her calling. Together with the two friends she makes on her first day in the job – Freda and Veronica – she knows she can help save lives. And, as the devastation of war shows no signs of ceasing, their work becomes ever more vital.

She’s no damsel in distress, and he’s certainly not wearing shining armour. But one knight can change everything… Daisy Hastings has always thought she was born in the wrong era. So when she bags a summer job at the Tower of London helping to run their Knight school, it feels like a...

1594, Bishopsgate Ward, London. Within the walls and without, unease and uncertainty lurk beneath the noise and bustle of a smoky, teeming city. Matthew Cutler, newly widowed and caring for two spirited daughters, takes his position as constable for the parish of Spitalfields very seriously. So when Paulo Brisco, a quiet Venetian perfumer is found brutally murdered in his own shop, Cutler throws himself into his first major crime, and one which threatens to set all Bishopsgate alight.

Liverpool 1931. In a Liverpool torn by the Depression, Daisy Gallagher grows to womanhood the hard way. She is the mainstay of her poverty-stricken family and the devoted friend of Nellie O’Brian, who is dying for lack of medical attention. Daisy’s desperation for money leads her into the darkened streets and into the arms of drunken sailors willing to pay for their relief. Through her own strength and suffering, Daisy earns enough to pay for her friend’s much needed medical attention.

In the bustling heart of London’s East End, Maisie, Amanda and Bethan work long hours at the uniform factory. The pay is poor, the shifts relentless and the bombs fall far too close for comfort ­– but these three women refuse to give in to despair. For when not at the factory, the girls spend their days on the markets of Petticoat Lane, trying to source material in order to make dresses ­– doing their best to bring any small amount of joy in these troubled times. When a chance encounter leads them to a bundle of parachute silk, they decide to think bigger.

The sixth book in the multi-million-copy bestselling series about a cosy Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time. In a special seat in a fabled Tokyo cafe, you’re offered something irresistible – not just a warm, comforting coffee, but the chance to go back...