Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Douglas Petersen’s family is on the brink of dissolution. His marriage of twenty-one years to Connie is almost over. When autumn comes around, their son Albie will leave for college. Connie has decided to leave soon after. But before everything falls apart, there's still the summer holidays to get through - a Grand Tour of Europe's major cities - and over the course of the journey, Douglas devises a plan to win back the love of his wife and repair his troubled relationship with his son.

Zwanzig Jahre sind vergangen: Als sich Stefan und Theresa zufällig in Hamburg über den Weg laufen, endet ihr erstes Wiedersehen in einem Desaster. Zu Studienzeiten waren sie wie eine Familie füreinander, heute sind kaum noch Gemeinsamkeiten übrig. Stefan hat Karriere bei Deutschlands größter Wochenzeitung BOTE gemacht, Theresa den Bauernhof ihres Vaters in Brandenburg übernommen. Aus den unterschiedlichen Lebensentwürfen sind gegensätzliche Haltungen geworden. Stefan versucht bei seiner Zeitung, durch engagierte journalistische Projekte den Klimawandel zu bekämpfen.

Brought to you by Penguin. The hilarious romantic comedy from NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR Sophie Kinsella Lexi wakes up in a hospital bed after a car accident, thinking she's twenty-five with crooked teeth and a disastrous love life. But, to her disbelief, she learns it's actually three years...

The brand-new novel from the Sunday Times best-selling author of The Perfectly Imperfect Woman - a gorgeous listen full of love, life and laughter. Sophie Mayhew looks like she has the perfect life. Wife of rising political star John F Mayhew, a man who is one step away from the top job in the government, her glamour matches his looks, power, breeding and money. But John has made some stupid mistakes along the way, some of which are threatening to emerge. 

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.

Jess Penhaligon is on her way to Devon to receive an award for her botanical painting. Hosting her will be Kate, who gladly welcomes her into her home. Jess's own family fell apart several years ago, so she is grateful for Kate's friendliness - and her close unit of extended family and friends, who embrace Jess just as warmly. As this group begins reminiscing on their pasts and sharing their stories with Jess, it becomes apparent that her family history may be linked with theirs.

Arthur MacDonald, 85, is having an end-of-life crisis. His beloved, dying wife of over 60 years no longer knows who he is. His older brother still has all his hair and a wife almost half his age. The man his middle-aged daughter is dating has a ponytail. His teenaged grandson wants to cook desserts for a living. And his daughter wants him to move into Silvermine retirement home. Then Arthur meets the gorgeous, radical, 80-something-year-old Robbie and learns that nobody is ever too old to fall in love all over again.

Marigold Green calls herself ‘hideous, quaint and barmy’. Other people call her Bilgewater, a corruption of Bill’s daughter. Growing up in a boys’ school where her father is housemaster, she is convinced of her own plainness and peculiarity. Groomed by the wise and loving Paula, upstaged by bad, beautiful Grace and ripe for seduction by entirely the wrong sort of boy, she suffers extravagantly and comically in her pilgrimage through the turbulent, twilight world of alarming adolescence.

It’s the perfect wedding: tropical sunshine, glamorous guests, a beautiful bride and a handsome Hollywood millionaire. But the day is about to take a shocking turn. Lisa Costello has all the expensive clothes and exotic vacations that come with dating a rich man. But her relationship with Josh Steen is a sham. Yet nothing could have prepared Lisa for the morning after their decadent wedding in Thailand. Josh is dead – and it looks like Lisa killed him.

Beth's life, like the unfinished manuscript on her laptop, is stuck. Since her devastating breakup with Fraser she's retreated into a lonely working-from-home world of sweatpants, disordered timekeeping and comfort eating. The one luminous constant in her life is her love for her rescue dog...

At 28, Lucy is doing well for herself. She's got a great job, her boss loves her, and her friends think she's great. The only problem is she does feel the need to lie outrageously on dates - often with hilarious results. But when Lucy decides that her flatmate and oldest friend, Henry, is in need of a makeover, nothing can prepare them for the surprise results! Before long, Lucy realises that their lives will never be the same again.

Once more we catch up with the delightful goings-on in the fictitious 44 Scotland Street from Alexander McCall Smith. With customary charm and deftness, McCall Smith gives us another instalment in this popular series, now running in its ninth season in The Scotsman. Anything could happen to Bertie and the gang.

When Joss, an adopted child, discovers that her real mother has left the beautiful family home, Belheddon Hall, to her, she is thrilled, until she discovers that the Hall is haunted by a presence which will not tolerate husbands or sons living in the house. Joss Grant is eager to begin a new...

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says.

The new emotional thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls, My Best Friend's Girl and The Brighton Mermaid. Dorothy Koomson, 'Queen of the big reveal', is back with a gripping page-turner full of twists and turns. Pieta has a secret. Ten years ago, Pieta was...

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

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.

In a beautiful Southern Spanish town, where the sea sparkles and orange blossoms scent the air, the gates of a brand-new apartment complex, La Joya deAndalucía, glide open to welcome the new owners. Anna and Austen MacDonald, an Irish couple, are preparing to enjoy their retirement to the full. But the demands of family cause problems they have never foreseen and shake their marriage to the core. Sally-Ann Connolly Cooper, a feisty Texan mother of two young teenagers, is reeling from her husband's infidelity. La Joya becomes a place of solace for Sally.

Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a Greek god in the 21st century: Nobody believes in you any more, even your own family doesn't respect you, and you're stuck in a dilapidated hovel in North London with too many siblings and not enough hot water.

When a teenage girl leaves the workhouse and abducts a child placed in her care, the local priest is called upon to retrieve them. Chased through the Cumbrian mountains of a distant past, the girl fights starvation and the elements, encountering the hermits, farmers and hunters who occupy the remote hillside communities. An American Southern Gothic tale set against the violent beauty of Northern England, Beastings is a sparse and poetic novel about morality, motherhood and corruption.