United Kingdom
France
Germany
Netherlands
Sweden
USA
Italy
Spain
General & literary fiction
Available
-
'It was the month of
May, or the month of
June, in any case summer
was near, and within
Availability: In Stock
£11.69
Available
-
In this masterly
collection of stories,
Isaac Bashevis Singer
once again weaves
bewitching fables from
seemingly ordinary lives,
showing us with subtlety
and compassion humanity
at its most mundane and
mysterious. From modern
apartments in Miami to
nineteenth-century Polish
villages, from bravery
in wartime Warsaw to a
different kind of courage
in Lisbon, these tales
span the world and the
range of human life.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Nina Porter seems to have
it all: husband, home,
family and security. But
her life turns upside
down when a marital row
over truthfulness sets
her thinking. Isn't she
dishonest herself,
always playing the good
wife? The perfect mother
and daughter? The
supportive friend? Should
she, instead, try to
live without the little
white lies that support
us all?
Her
husband thinks it can't
be done. But he goes away
on a business trip. And
when a glamorous few days
of research in Venice are
suddenly on offer, there
seems no reason for Nina
to refuse them. Or to
resist the attentions of
the handsome Italian who
wants to show her the
city.
As Nina
entangles herself in a
web of deceptions, it
starts to look as though
honesty might not always
be the best policy...
Mavis Cheek's
sparkling new novel is
about shaking your life
up, striking out and
learning to be true to
yourself. It's told with
all the brio and humour
that her readers have
come to
love.
Availability: In Stock
£10.79
Available
-
Life changes in an
instant. On a foggy beach
in San Francisco, Abby
Mason - photographer,
fiancée,
soon-to-be-stepmother -
looks away from
six-year-old Emma for an
instant. By the time she
looks back, Emma has
disappeared.
Devastated
by guilt, haunted by her
fears about becoming a
mother, Abby refuses to
believe that Emma is
dead. Now, as the days
drag into weeks, as the
police lose interest and
fliers fade on telephone
poles, Emma
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Available
-
It is June 1962. In a
hotel on the Dorset
coast, overlooking
Chesil Beach, Edward and
Florence, who got
married that morning,
are sitting down to
dinner in their room.
Neither is entirely able
to suppress their
anxieties about the
wedding night to come
Availability: In Stock
£13.49
Available
-
For the young Richard
Bolitho the spring of
1778 marked a complete
transformation for
himself and his future.
It was the year in which
the American War of
Independence changed to
an all-out struggle for
freedom from British rule
- and the year when
Bolitho took command of
the Sparrow, a
small, fast and
well-armed sloop of
war.
As the pace
of war increased, the
Sparrow was called
from one crisis to
another - and when the
great fleets of Britain
and France convened on
the Chesapeake, Bolitho
had to throw aside the
early dreams of his first
command to find maturity
in a sea battle that
might decide the fate of
a whole
continent.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
One of his most admired
works, LOVING describes
life above and below
stairs in an Irish
country house during the
Second World War. In the
absence of their
employers the Tennants,
the servants enact their
own battles and conflict
amid rumours about the
war in Europe; invading
one another's provinces
of authority to create an
anarchic environment of
self-seeking behaviour,
pilfering, gossip and
love.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
Barney Fugleman has two
major preoccupations in
life: sex and literature.
He is obsessed by the
life and work of a man
hailed by many as a
genius of the nineteenth
century - and by Barney
as a 'prurient little
Victorian ratbag'. This
curious propulsion drives
him out of Finchley, and
out of the life he shares
with Sharon and her
'rampant marvellings',
to Cornwall. There he
offends serious ramblers
with his slip-on
snakeskin shoes, fur
coat and antagonism to
all things green and
growing as he stomps the
wild Atlantic cliffs on
long, morbid walks,
tampering with the truth,
tangling with the
imperious Camilla - and
telling a riotous tale.
Availability: In Stock
£8.44
Available
-
The Lathams seem to have
it all: health, wealth
and a vibrant family
life.As Mary Beth Latham
contemplates a life built
around home, friends and
community, she has every
reason to feel fulfilled
and content.
Then,
for one of her sons, a
process of unravelling
begins. Mary Beth starts
to focus on him, only to
find that the comfortable
life she has spent years
carefully constructing is
shattered in a single
moment.Forced to confront
her own demons, Mary
Beth realises how the
inconsequential moments
we all share - and one
shameful act she has
hidden from everybody -
may have contributed to
her fate.
Every
Last One is a
mesmerising and
devastating portrait of
family life, and a
testament to the power of
a
mother
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
It is June 1962. In a
hotel on the Dorset
coast, overlooking
Chesil Beach, Edward and
Florence, who got
married that morning,
are sitting down to
dinner in their room.
Neither is entirely able
to suppress their
anxieties about the
wedding night to come
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
Danny Callaghan is having
a quiet drink in a Dublin
pub when two men with
guns walk in. They're
here to take care of a
minor problem - petty
criminal Walter Bennett.
On impulse, Callaghan
intervenes to save
Walter's life. Soon, his
own survival is in
question. With a troubled
past and an uncertain
future, Danny finds
himself drawn into a
vicious scheme of
revenge.
Dark
Times in the City
depicts an edgy city
where affluence and
cocaine fuel a ruthless
gang culture, and a
man
Availability: In Stock
£17.09
Available
-
Now Is the Hour is
the first major novel by
Tom Spanbauer since
The Man Who Fell
Availability: In Stock
£16.19
Available
-
Something Special was
previously unpublished
except in a 1950s
anthology and in Japan,
and rediscovered after
her death. It is the only
short story that Iris
Murdoch ever wrote for
publication.Set in
Dublin, against the
vividly recognisable
backdrop of the writer's
native city in the late
fifties, Something
Special is the story of
Yvonne, an ordinary,
bold young Irish woman
who believes there's more
to life than marriage to
Sam, the respectable
young man who's courting
her. Written with verve
and characteristic sly
humour, it moves to a
surprising climax and
conclusion - a poignant,
strangely haunting story
about the incompatibility
of dreams and desires.
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
Now Is the Hour is
the first major novel by
Tom Spanbauer since
The Man Who Fell
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
For the young Richard
Bolitho the spring of
1778 marked a complete
transformation for
himself and his future.
It was the year in which
the American War of
Independence changed to
an all-out struggle for
freedom from British rule
- and the year when
Bolitho took command of
the Sparrow, a
small, fast and
well-armed sloop of
war.
As the pace
of war increased, the
Sparrow was called
from one crisis to
another - and when the
great fleets of Britain
and France convened on
the Chesapeake, Bolitho
had to throw aside the
early dreams of his first
command to find maturity
in a sea battle that
might decide the fate of
a whole
continent.
Availability: In Stock
£8.26
Available
-
Four teenagers find the
mutilated corpse of a
young girl stuffed into a
dumpster in an Edinburgh
alleyway. Who is she?
Where did she come from?
Who killed her and why?
Above all, where is the
baby to which she has
obviously recently given
birth? Inspector Rob
Brennan, recently back
from psychiatric leave,
is still shocked by the
senseless shooting of his
only brother. His
superiors think that the
case of the dumpster girl
will be perfect to get
him back on track. But
Rob Brennan has enemies
within the force, stacks
of unfinished business
and a nose for trouble.
What he discovers about
the murdered girl blows
the case
Availability: In Stock
£12.20
Available
-
A powerful and tragicomic
blend of politics and
personal destiny, Black
Box records in a series
of letters the wrecked
marriage of Ilana and
Alex. Seven years of
silence following their
bitter divorce is broken
when Ilana writes to Alex
for help over their
wayward and illiterate
son, Boaz, and old
emotional scars are
reopened.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
In the stinking mud of a
great tidal river, a
body lies half submerged.
Sir Tommy Best, adored
British actor, has
fallen to his death
through a hole in the
walkway above. The
saintly Sir Tommy was
friend to the starving
and penniless, to kings
and stars. He was also
totally blind and reliant
on his brilliant guide
dog, Suzy. But she is
nowhere to be found. It
seems unimaginable that
Suzy would have led him
into danger, so is it
murder? And where is she?
When she finally turns
up, it is only to deepen
the mystery. She is
stressed and tense and
soon Chief Superintendent
'Fatso' and Detective
Chief Inspector Ned
realise that only one
person in the force can
possibly help. Kate,
police dog handler
extraordinaire, known
affectionately as the Dog
Tart, suggests they find
Nick Parsons, who
trained Suzy, in the
hope that he can get the
dog to lead them to the
truth. The search for
Nick Parsons culminates
in a highly unusual plan,
in which Ned will become
blind for one night and
with Suzy the guide dog,
re-enact Sir Tommy Best's
last fateful walk. The
truth which they uncover
is utterly horrible.
Availability: In Stock
£12.25
Available
-
SOMETIMES COMING TO
TERMS WITH THE FUTURE
MEANS LETTING GO OF THE
PAST...
For
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
In her latest collection
of stories, Janice
Galloway turns her
unflinching gaze on
relationships: the
struggle to love against
the odds, the
overpowering yearning to
communicate, and the
extraordinary epiphanies
where the World falls
away leaving only the
lovers. Love is, of
course, where you find
it, and it is here in an
evening walk across a
London bridge, a
chip-shop pizza, Derek's
mouth, or ham sandwiches
cut into hearts. A
brilliant observer of
human frailty and
tenderness, Janice
Galloway examines the
moments where lives split
like a stone, where
people are healed or
broken by a word or the
touch of a hand. Savagely
accurate, vivid and
unsentimental, these are
painstakingly crafted
stories: engaging,
caustic, funny and
terrifyingly true.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
In the English town of
Ennistone hot springs
bubble up from deep
beneath the earth. In
these healing waters the
townspeople seek health
and regeneration,
rightousness and ritual
cleansing. To this town
steeped in ancient lore
and subterranean
inspiration the
Philosopher returns. He
exerts an almost magical
influence over a host of
Ennistonians, and
especially over George
McCaffrey, the host of
Ennistonians, and
especially over George
McCaffrey, the
Philosophers old pupil,
a demonic man desperate
for redemption.
Availability: In Stock
£9.18
Available
-
Based on three Elizabeth
Gaskell novels The
Cranford Chronicles
follows the small
absurdities
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
How legitimate is it to
impersonate Adolf Hitler
at an office Christmas
party? It is a question
that German student
Andreas Honig is forced
to confront when he falls
into a job as a lookalike
in order to pay his way
through university in the
UK. Before he knows it,
Andreas has been swept
into a crazy world where
ordinary people make
their living by
pretending to be famous.
And, despite his
reservations, he is kept
there by his adoration
for Rose, booking agent
supreme and possibly the
tallest woman in England.
As Rose struggles to make
light of her
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
When the partially
dismembered body of a
young man is found in the
Florida Everglades,
Deborah Jones, star
reporter for the Miami
Herald, finds
herself caught up in a
story that has
ramifications far beyond
anything she could have
ever imagined.
The
victim had contacted
Deborah anonymously just
the day before,
promising her top secret
government documents if
she
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
The woman's body lay
between a silver Escort
and a dark-blue Lancia.
Concealed by a shroud of
dirty brown velvet, it
looked like a heap of
rags.In the desolate
subterranean Barringdean
Shopping Centre, Reg
Wexford had been too
preoccupied to notice
anything out of the
ordinary, just the time
and a red car driving
past him too fast.Burden
called him home at with
the grim news later that
evening. The woman had
been attacked from
behind, perhaps with a
thin length of cord wire.
Before Inspector Wexford
can delve deeper into the
curious homicide, he,
too, faces death. And
Burden, for a while
conducting the
investigation without the
help of his chief's
instinctive analytical
genius, will blunder
down a number of blind
alleys.
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Available
-
The previous volume of
the Vampire Chronicles,
Memnoch the Devil, was
called 'a modern Paradise
Lost' by the Washington
Post. Taking the Vampire
Lestat from fiction into
legend, it left him
lying in a New Orleans
convent, at the edge of
death. Magnificent and
electrifying, this new
volume in the Vampire
Chronicles returns to the
glittering story of
Armand, mesmerizing
leader of the vampire
coven at the
eighteenth-century
Theatre des Vampires in
Paris (seductively played
by Antonio Banderas in
the film of Interview
with the Vampire).
Snatched from the steppes
of Russia as a child,
and sold as a slave in
Renaissance Venice,
Armand's story sweeps
through several hundred
years, to New Orleans at
the end of the twentieth
century, where Lestat
lies waiting for
immortality, and the
legend continues to
grow.... .
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
On a hot midsummer
morning, after sixteen
years of marriage, Jane
saw her husband fifty
feet away and did not
recognise him. Alan has
changed because he's
injured his back. Pain
has altered his
appearance, but he has
also changed in other
ways: he has become glum
and demanding. Jane has
to do everything for him
- fetching, carrying,
shopping, cooking, even
dressing and undressing
him. When she longs for
escape, her mother
accuses her of
selfishness - of course
she can't abandon a man
so handicapped and needy
- Meanwhile Henry cares
in a different way for
his self-centred wife,
Delia, a writer and
researcher specialising
in fairytales, who in
her own estimation is a
'Great Artist'. He tends
the flame, making
certain Delia gets
everything she desires
including spectacular
doses of adulation. Can
sexy Delia, with her
trailing scarves and lacy
shirts, coax Alan out of
his grumpiness? Can Henry
stop Jane feeling guilty?
Can the couples swap
roles?
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
It is London in the late
1930s, and into a
coterie of rather grand
early-middle-aged people
the sixteen-year-old
orphan Portia is plunged
beyond her depth.
Disconcertingly
vulnerable, Portia is
manifestly trying to
understand what is going
on around her and looking
for something that is not
there. Evident victim,
she is also an
inadvertent victimiser -
her impossible lovingness
and austere trust being
too much for her admirer
Eddie, who is himself
defensive and
uncomfortable in this
society which has managed
to bring them together.
In the midst of the
rising tension is set
perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's
most brilliant piece of
social comedy, when, at
a seaside villa full of
rollicking young people,
Portia experiences at
least temporary relief
from the misery Eddie
seems determined to bring
her.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
SOMETIMES COMING TO
TERMS WITH THE FUTURE
MEANS LETTING GO OF THE
PAST...
For
Availability: In Stock
£9.18
Available
-
Four teenagers find the
mutilated corpse of a
young girl stuffed into a
dumpster in an Edinburgh
alleyway. Who is she?
Where did she come from?
Who killed her and why?
Above all, where is the
baby to which she has
obviously recently given
birth? Inspector Rob
Brennan, recently back
from psychiatric leave,
is still shocked by the
senseless shooting of his
only brother. His
superiors think that the
case of the dumpster girl
will be perfect to get
him back on track. But
Rob Brennan has enemies
within the force, stacks
of unfinished business
and a nose for trouble.
What he discovers about
the murdered girl blows
the case
Availability: In Stock
£9.89
Available
-
Henry and Cato is the
story of two prodigal
sons. Henry returns from
a self-imposed exile in
America to an unforeseen
inheritance of wealth and
land in England. He is
also returning to his
mother. His friend Cato
is struggling with two
ambiguous intermingled
passions, one for a God
who may or may not exist,
the other for a petty
criminal who may or may
not be capable of
salvation. Cato's father
and his sister Colette
wait anxiously to welcome
Cato back to sanity after
his dubious escapades.
Henry meanwhile confronts
his mother, the
unappeased furies of
childish resentment, and
various possibilities of
revenge. Henry's cool
mother watches, Cato's
impetuous sister
intervenes. Can love here
become a saving force,
or is it condemned to be
possessive and demonic?
Blackmail and violence
take a hand, and both
Henry and Cato return
home at last.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
Life changes in an
instant. On a foggy beach
in San Francisco, Abby
Mason - photographer,
fiancée,
soon-to-be-stepmother -
looks away from
six-year-old Emma for an
instant. By the time she
looks back, Emma has
disappeared.
Devastated
by guilt, haunted by her
fears about becoming a
mother, Abby refuses to
believe that Emma is
dead. Now, as the days
drag into weeks, as the
police lose interest and
fliers fade on telephone
poles, Emma
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
Miles Green wakes up in a
mysterious hospital with
no idea of how he got
there or who he is. He
definitely doesn't
remember his wife, or
his children's names. An
impossibly shapely
specialist doctor tells
him his memory
nerve-centre is connected
to sexual activity, and
calls in the even
shapelier Nurse Cory to
assist with treatment...
In the most unorthodox of
hospital rooms we
eavesdrop on the serious
discourse, virulent
abuse and hilarious
mockery of the erotic
guerilla war that is
Mantissa.
Availability: In Stock
£8.44
Available
-
Now Is the Hour is
the first major novel by
Tom Spanbauer since
The Man Who Fell
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Renowned gamester, and
the first to own that he
is untroubled by a
romantic disposition,
Max Ravenscar regards all
eligible females with
indifference. But when he
learns that his young
cousin Adrian is bent on
marrying Deborah
Grantham, beautiful
mistress of her aunt's
gaming house, he meets
an opponent in whom all
his experience of risk
and gambles finds him
unprepared.
Availability: In Stock
£7.50
Available
-
A wholly unexpected,
hugely entertaining work
of fiction from one of
the greatest actors of
our time. Anatole 'Annie'
Doultry is in his early
50s, a man of imposing
physical presence and a
reputation on the high
seas from the Philippines
to Shanghai. In 1927, he
is serving six months in
a hellish Hong Kong
prison when, on a whim,
he saves the life of a
Chinese prisoner.-The
prisoner's employer
happens to be Madame Lai
Choi San: beautiful,
ruthless and shrewd, she
is one of the most
notorious gangsters in
Asia.
When Annie
gets out of prison, she
thanks him with an offer
of inconceivable wealth
if he will join her in
the biggest act of piracy
of her career. Madame Lai
is a seductive and
powerful ally, but Annie
is about to discover that
she can be an even more
powerful-and
dangerous-enemy.-With his
longtime collaborator,
screenwriter and director
Donald Cammell, Brando
worked on this story for
years. The result is a
rollicking,
swashbuckling delectable
romp of a novel - the
last surprise from an
ever-surprising
legend.
Availability: In Stock
£15.29
Available
-
When Rosie, a successful
radio presenter, hears
that her father has had a
stroke, her life is
thrown into disarray and
she finds herself making
reckless decisions that
make little sense to
those around her. As she
strives towards building
some kind of future for
herself and her father,
he quietly plots his own
death...
Set on
the east coast of
Scotland, the novel
covers events in the
weeks following the
stroke and the lives of
this small cast of
captivating but very real
characters. Exploring the
impact of memory and
conscience, it tackles a
dysfunctional family at a
time of crisis, delving
into the complexities of
emotions and family
history with compassion,
humour and grace. In
subtle, distinctive
prose, alive with wit
and verve, Sue Peebles
has written a
captivating, lovable and
unusual novel - a
domestic canvas where
every stroke
counts.
Availability: In Stock
£11.69
Available
-
Silent and lethal, USS
Seawolf, the US Navy's
most up-to-date stealth
submarine, is on an
ultra secret mission --
to spy on China's
brandnew,
hugely-improved Xia-Class
submarine. When it
ventures dangerously into
the forbidden waters of
the China Sea, Seawolf
is caught in a shocking
accident and is captured
by the Chinese. The
repercussions of the
disaster could cause the
biggest confrontation
between Washington and
Beijing in more than
forty years. Knowing they
are on the brink of a
third world war, Admiral
Arnold Morgan orders
SPECWARCOM to send in the
Navy SEALS to rescue the
captive seamen at all
costs. It becomes a
desperate race against
the clock as the wounded
American Eagle struggles
against the stirring
Chinese dragon.. .
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
Yambo, a sixty-ish rare
book dealer who lives in
Milan has suffered a loss
of memory; not the kind
of memory neurologists
call 'semantic' (Yambo
remembers all about
Julius Caesar and can
recite every poem he has
ever read), but rather
his 'autobiographical'
memory: he no longer
knows his own name,
doesn't recognize his
wife or his daughters,
doesn't remember anything
about his parents or his
childhood.
His wife,
who is at his side as he
slowly begins to recover,
convinces him to return
to his family home in the
hills somewhere between
Milan and Turin. Yambo
promptly retreats to the
sprawling attic,
cluttered with boxes of
newspapers, comics,
records, photo albums
and adolescent diaries.
There, he relives the
story of his generation:
Mussolini, Catholic
education and guilt,
Josephine Baker, Flash
Gordon, Cyrano de
Bergerac. As he recovers
his memory, two voids
remain shrouded in fog: a
terrible event he
experienced during the
resistance, and the
vague image of a girl
whom he loved at sixteen,
then lost.
But a
relapse occurs. Now in a
coma, his memories run
wild, and life racing
before his eyes takes the
form of a graphic novel.
Yambo struggles through
the frames to find at
last the face of the girl
he loves: she descends
the stairs of their high
school and morphs into a
Dante-esque promise (or
threat) of the afterlife,
as he struggles harder
to capture her simple,
innocent, real-life
image - the schoolgirl he
never forgot.
Copiously illustrated
throughout with images
from comics, book
jackets, record sleeves
and other printed
ephemera, The
Mysterious Flame is a
fascinating and hugely
entertaining new novel
from the incomparable
Umberto
Eco.
Availability: In Stock
£16.19
Available
-
In a snowbound village in
the German mountains, a
young woman discovers an
extraordinary secret.
Before she can reveal it,
she disappears. All that
survives is a picture of
a mysterious medieval
playing card that has
perplexed scholars for
centuries.
Nick
Ash does research for the
FBI in New York. Six
months ago his girlfriend
Gillian walked out and
broke his heart. Now
he
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Available
-
A powerful and tragicomic
blend of politics and
personal destiny, Black
Box records in a series
of letters the wrecked
marriage of Ilana and
Alex. Seven years of
silence following their
bitter divorce is broken
when Ilana writes to Alex
for help over their
wayward and illiterate
son, Boaz, and old
emotional scars are
reopened.
Availability: In Stock
£8.26
Available
-
He's a doctor with a
past...He's a hit man
with a conscience...And
he's got 24 hours to beat
the reaper.
Meet
Peter Brown, a young
Manhattan hospital intern
with an unusual past that
is just about to catch up
with him. His morning
begins with the quick
disarming of a would-be
mugger, followed by the
steamy elevator encounter
with a young female
pharmaceutical rep,
topped off by a visit
with a new patient - and
from there Peter's day is
going to get a whole lot
worse and a whole lot
weirder. Because that
patient knows Peter from
his other life, when he
had a different name and
a very different job. The
only reason he's a doctor
now is thanks to the
Witness Protection
Program - and even that
can't protect him from
the long reach of the New
Jersey Mob. Now he's got
to buy some time to do
whatever it takes to keep
his patient - and himself
- alive.
Beat
the Reaper is an
intensely clever,
imaginative novel that
thrills on every page and
is one of the most
audacious and outrageous
debuts of the
year.
Availability: In Stock
£11.69
Available
-
Bob Slocum was a
promising executive. He
had an attractive wife,
three children, a nice
house, and as many
mistresses as he desired.
His life was settled and
ordered; he had conformed
and society demanded he
be happy - or at least
pretend to be, But the
pretence was becoming
more and more difficult,
as Slocum's discontent
grew into an overwhelming
sense of desolation,
frustration and fear. And
then something
happened....
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
A woman vanishes in the
fog up on 'the Hill', an
area locally known for
its tranquillity and
peace. The police are not
alarmed; people usually
disappear for their own
reasons. But when a young
girl, an old man and
even a dog disappear no
one can deny that
something untoward is
happening in this quiet
cathedral town. Young
policewoman Freya
Graffham is assigned to
the case, she's new to
the job, compassionate,
inquisitive, dedicated
and needs to know -
perhaps too much.
She
and the enigmatic
detective Chief Inspector
Simon Serrailler have the
task of unravelling the
mystery behind this
gruesome sequence of
events.
From the
passages revealing the
killer's mind to the
final heart-stopping
twist, The Various
Haunts of Men is an
astounding and masterly
crime debut and is the
first in a magnificent
series featuring Simon
Serrailler.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Jimmy Rabbitte is
unemployed and rapidly
running out of money. His
best friend Bimbo has
been made redundant at
the company where he has
worked for many years.
The two old friends are
out of luck and out of
options. That is, until
Bimbo finds a dilapidated
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
Fran Benedetto's husband
beats her. What began as
a trusting marriage is
now shadowed by abuse and
Fran escapes by
disappearing with her
young son. With the help
of an underground support
organisation for abused
wives, Fran begins life
afresh in Florida,
gaining in confidence as
she gradually realises
that she has found a safe
haven. However, a
fairground accident draws
Fran back into the
spotlight, and her fears
that her husband is
pursuing her return.
Tense, powerful,
suspenseful, Anna
Quindlen's new novel is
exceptional in it's
insight into love,
marriage and pain.
Exploring the bonds
between mother and son
and the delicate line
between love and cruelty,
Black and Blue is
unputdownable and
extraordinarily moving in
its portrayal of a woman
on the run from her own
life.
Availability: In Stock
£7.50
Available
-
AD 71: Germania Libera:
dark dripping forests,
inhabited by bloodthirsty
barbarians and legendary
wild beasts, a furious
prophetess who terrorises
Rome, and the ghostly
spirits of slaughtered
Roman legionaries.
Enter Marcus
Didius Falco, an
Impreisal agent on a
special mission: to find
the absconding commander
of a legion whose loyalty
is suspect. Easier said
than done, thinks
Marcus, as he makes his
uneasy way down the
Rhenus, trying to forget
that back in sunny Rome
his girlfriend Helena
Justina is being hotly
pursued by Titus Caesar.
His mood is not improved
when he discovers his
only allies are a
woefully inadequate bunch
of recruits, their
embittered centurion, a
rogue dog, and its
innocent young master;
just the right kind of
support for an agent
unwillingly trying to
tame the Celtic
hordes.
Availability: In Stock
£7.50
Available
-
The farmhouse was
called The Beacon and
they had been born and
reared there, May,
Colin,
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
When Rosie, a successful
radio presenter, hears
that her father has had a
stroke, her life is
thrown into disarray and
she finds herself making
reckless decisions that
make little sense to
those around her. As she
strives towards building
some kind of future for
herself and her father,
he quietly plots his own
death...
Set on
the east coast of
Scotland, the novel
covers events in the
weeks following the
stroke and the lives of
this small cast of
captivating but very real
characters. Exploring the
impact of memory and
conscience, it tackles a
family at a time of
crisis, delving into the
complexities of emotions
and family history with
compassion, humour and
grace. In subtle,
distinctive prose, alive
with wit and verve, Sue
Peebles has written a
captivating, lovable and
unusual novel - a
domestic canvas where
every detail
counts.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Robert, a young
traveller, finds himself
in the small Ontario town
of Sunshine, in the
middle of a party at the
town's wildlife park. A
stranger he picked up on
the way has given him a
dirty yellow notebook and
told him to give it to an
Alice Pedersen. But Alice
Pedersen disappeared two
years ago. Six months
before Robert's arrival,
human remains have been
recovered from the local
shoreline. Stoddart
Fremlin has been arrested
on suspicion of murder.
Daniel Barrie, who was
having an affair with
Alice and who left for
England immediately after
her disappearance, has
unexpectedly returned. At
the same time, Rocket de
Witt, one of the last
people to see Alice
alive, has left town.
And amid all this, there
is a tiger on the loose.
The mystery of Alice's
disappearance slowly
unravels, at the same
time revealing the dark
and murky secrets of the
inhabitants of Sunshine.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
The old submarine-chaser
USS Hibiscus, re-fitting
in Hong Kong dockyard
before being handed over
to the Nationalist
Chinese, is suddenly
ordered to the desolate
island group of Payenhau.
For Captain Mark Gunnar -
driven by the memory of
his torture at the hands
of Viet Cong guerrillas -
the new command is a
chance to even the score
against a ruthless,
unrelenting enemy. But
Payenhau is very
different from his
expectations, and as the
weather worsens a crisis
develops that Gunnar must
face alone.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
A sexual predator is at
large on the streets of
Imperial Vienna. The
killer is no ordinary
'lust murderer' but an
entirely new phenomenon,
his deviance revealing
the darker preoccupations
of the age.
Detective
Inspector Oskar
Rheinhardt appeals to his
friend, psychoanalyst
Dr. Max Liebermann, for
assistance. But to
understand the killer's
behaviour, Liebermann
must make a journey into
uncharted regions of the
human mind, tracking a
monster whose modus
operandi combines both
exquisite precision and
savage cruelty.
As
the investigation
continues, Liebermann
and Rheinhardt find
themselves drawn into the
worlds of art and
couture, worlds in which
glamorous appearances
mask the most sinister of
secrets...
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Miss Elizabeth Mapp
reigns supreme over the
village of
Tilling...until the
advent of Mrs Emmeline
Lucas, or 'Lucia' to her
friends. No one could
compete, surely, with
Lucia's formidable
armoury: her duchesses,
her Italian, her
financial speculations,
her celebrated recipe for
Lobster à la
Riseholme. But Mapp
will not relinquish her
supremacy in local
society so easily, and
battle is joined between
these two indomitable
queens and their rather
fickle allies.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
The Little Nugget
(1913) is one of the
novels in which Wodehouse
found his feet, a
Availability: In Stock
Available
-
In the stinking mud of a
great tidal river, a
body lies half submerged.
Sir Tommy Best, adored
British actor, has
fallen to his death
through a hole in the
walkway above. The
saintly Sir Tommy was
friend to the starving
and penniless, to kings
and stars. He was also
totally blind and reliant
on his brilliant guide
dog, Suzy. But she is
nowhere to be found. It
seems unimaginable that
Suzy would have led him
into danger, so is it
murder? And where is she?
When she finally turns
up, it is only to deepen
the mystery. She is
stressed and tense and
soon Chief Superintendent
'Fatso' and Detective
Chief Inspector Ned
realise that only one
person in the force can
possibly help. Kate,
police dog handler
extraordinaire, known
affectionately as the Dog
Tart, suggests they find
Nick Parsons, who
trained Suzy, in the
hope that he can get the
dog to lead them to the
truth. The search for
Nick Parsons culminates
in a highly unusual plan,
in which Ned will become
blind for one night and
with Suzy the guide dog,
re-enact Sir Tommy Best's
last fateful walk. The
truth which they uncover
is utterly horrible.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
The previous volume of
the Vampire Chronicles,
Memnoch the Devil, was
called 'a modern Paradise
Lost' by the Washington
Post. Taking the Vampire
Lestat from fiction into
legend, it left him
lying in a New Orleans
convent, at the edge of
death. Magnificent and
electrifying, this new
volume in the Vampire
Chronicles returns to the
glittering story of
Armand, mesmerizing
leader of the vampire
coven at the
eighteenth-century
Theatre des Vampires in
Paris (seductively played
by Antonio Banderas in
the film of Interview
with the Vampire).
Snatched from the steppes
of Russia as a child,
and sold as a slave in
Renaissance Venice,
Armand's story sweeps
through several hundred
years, to New Orleans at
the end of the twentieth
century, where Lestat
lies waiting for
immortality, and the
legend continues to
grow.... .
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
Brought up in a
mixed-race community -
part Scots, part Native
American - in the forests
of North Carolina in the
mid-nineteenth century,
Rhoda is the first of her
family to be able to read
and her parents have
plans for her. But the
coming of the Civil War
brings labour
conscription for her
brothers, who become
outlaws, unwilling to
fight for the
Confederacy; and when
Rhoda falls in love with
the outlaw leader Henry,
her mother fears the
relationship can only
lead to
disaster-Beautifully
written and stunningly
observed, Nowhere Else
on Earth takes the reader
into the backwaters of
the American South and
the chaos and anarchy of
civil war, in the
heart-breaking story of
one of the most appealing
heroines of recent
fiction.
Availability: In Stock
£8.99
Available
-
The
Decameron
(subtitle: Prencipe
Galeotto) is a
collection of 100
novellas
Availability: In Stock
Available
-
Beware Imitations! Mark
Watson walks the
tightrope of good taste
in this deviously
brilliant spoof of the
seamier side of the
'entertainment
industry'.
Rose
and Andreas make an
exceedingly odd couple in
1980s Cambridge: she is
the fifth tallest woman
in Britain and he is a
penniless post-grad from
Germany. But together
they set up a lookalike
agency with bizarre, and
ultimately fatal,
results.
Twenty
years on, and Andreas is
in prison. His days
aren
Availability: In Stock
£10.79
Available
-
With her mother dead and
her father currently in
prison awaiting trial for
her murder, a pregnant
Frankie is blamed for the
tragedy and forced to
live with her wideboy
fiance, Jed O'Hara, in
a trailer on his parents'
land. Frankie struggles
to adapt to their gypsy
way of life, but when
her daughter, Georgie,
is born, things go from
bad to worse. Jed's
mother is a loud,
brazen, domineering
woman, who has always
yearned for a daughter
herself, and she begins
to take over her baby
granddaughter. Meanwhile
Frankie's family and
friends know that Jed is
cheating on her, but
blinded by love and a
sucker for his charm,
Frankie refuses to
believe them.
Then one day the
unthinkable happens. Sick
to the stomach at her
discovery, Frankie for
once sees Jed for what he
really is. She realises
that the man she loves is
not only heartless, but
also violent and
dangerous. Petrified for
the safety of herself and
her family, Frankie
plots the ultimate
revenge. But can she
actually go through with
it?
Availability: In Stock
£11.94
Available
-
The long title story is
about a man whose life,
in a sense, is a book.
There are shelves in
every room, packed with
titles which Ambrose
Ribbon has checked
pedantically for mistakes
of grammar and fact. Life
for Ribbon, without his
mother now, is lonely
and obsessive. He still
keeps her dressing table
exactly as she had left
it, the wardrobe door
always so that her
clothes can be seen
inside, and her pink
silk nightdress on the
bed. There is one book
too that he associates
particularly with her -
volume VIII of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Piranha to Scurfy. It
marked a very significant
moment in their
relationship.In the other
stories, Ruth Rendell
deals with a variety of
themes, some macabre,
some vengeful, some
mysterious, all
precisely observed. The
second novella, High
Mysterious Union,
explores a strange,
erotic universe in a
dream-like corner of
rural England, and
illustrates very
atmospherically what
range Ruth Rendell has as
a writer.
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Available
-
It is pig stealing time
in Shropshire. After
winning the Fat Pig
competition for two years
in a row with Empress of
Blandings, Lord
Emsworth's ascendancy at
the Agricultural Show is
threathened by Sir
Gregory Parsloe's new
sow, Queen of
Matchingham. Always keen
to help, Lord Emsworth's
brother Galahad plots the
theft of the Parsloe pig.
In retaliation, Sir
Gregory's pigman, George
Cyril Wellbeloved,
snaffles the Empress.
While these momentous
events are under way, a
romantic comedy unfolds
at Blandings Castle
whither Jerry Vail her
pursued Penny Donaldson.
But Penny is engaged to
Orlo Vosper who pines for
Gloria Salt who is
engaged to Sir Gregory
who rediscovers Maudje
Stubbs who has charmed
Lord Emsworth, who is
Jerry's employer.
Availability: In Stock
Available
-
Miss Elizabeth Mapp
reigns supreme over the
village of
Tilling...until the
advent of Mrs Emmeline
Lucas, or 'Lucia' to her
friends. No one could
compete, surely, with
Lucia's formidable
armoury: her duchesses,
her Italian, her
financial speculations,
her celebrated recipe for
Lobster à la
Riseholme. But Mapp
will not relinquish her
supremacy in local
society so easily, and
battle is joined between
these two indomitable
queens and their rather
fickle allies.
Availability: In Stock
£8.44
Available
-
Barney Fugleman has two
major preoccupations in
life: sex and literature.
He is obsessed by the
life and work of a man
hailed by many as a
genius of the nineteenth
century - and by Barney
as a 'prurient little
Victorian ratbag'. This
curious propulsion drives
him out of Finchley, and
out of the life he shares
with Sharon and her
'rampant marvellings',
to Cornwall. There he
offends serious ramblers
with his slip-on
snakeskin shoes, fur
coat and antagonism to
all things green and
growing as he stomps the
wild Atlantic cliffs on
long, morbid walks,
tampering with the truth,
tangling with the
imperious Camilla - and
telling a riotous tale.
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
Magnificent and
electrifying, The
Vampire Armand tells
the tale of the
mesmerising
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Tim is mad about Tigers,
he's crazy about them,
he's wild about them. And
what's more he wants to
be one! So when his teeth
get pointier, his
toenails get longer and
stripy fur starts growing
out of his pyjamas, it
looks as though his
dream's come true.
Availability: In Stock
£4.49
Available
-
Affairs of honour between
bucks and blades, rakes
and rascals; and affairs
of the heart between
heirs and orphans,
beauties and bachelors;
romance, intrigue,
escapades and duels at
dawn: all the gallantry,
villainy and elegance of
the age that Georgette
Heyer has so triumphantly
made her own are
exquisitely revived in
these eleven stories of
the Regency.
Availability: In Stock
£7.50
Available
-
The first girl had a bite
mark on her neck. When
the tabloids got hold of
the story, they
immediately called the
killer 'The Rottweiler',
and the name stuck. The
latest body was
discovered very near Inez
Ferry's antique shop in
Marylebone. Someone
spotted a shadowy figure
running away past the
station, but couldn't
say for sure if it was a
man or a woman. There
were only two other
clues. The murderer
seemed to have a
preference for strangling
his victims and then
removing something
personal - like a
cigarette lighter or a
necklace... Since her
actor husband died, too
early into their
marriage, Inez
supplemented her modest
income by taking in
tenants above the shop.
The unpredictably
obsessive activities of
'The Rottweiler' would
exert a profound
influence on this
heterogeneous little
community, especially
when the suspicion began
to emerge that one of
them might be a homicidal
maniac.
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA
GOLD DAGGER AWARD
2009
Danny
Callaghan is having a
quiet drink
Availability: In Stock
£10.79
Available
-
It is the blazing summer
of 1981 and Catherine is
laid low by childhood
illness. Stuck inside her
family's sprawling
Victorian mansion at the
foot of a Highland
mountain, she can only
look down into the garden
and observe the goings-on
upon the lawn.
Sam
and Rosa, her elder
teenage cousins, have
come to spend the school
holiday in this seemingly
idyllic setting, and
Catherine savours the
brief visits Sam makes to
her room. But when Rosa
falls in love with
Humberto, a young
Spanish man camping in
the grounds of the house,
and Catherine witnesses
a violent attack on Sam's
beloved dog, the events
of that summer take on a
darker hue. While
Catherine
Availability: In Stock
£13.49
Available
-
The long title story is
about a man whose life,
in a sense, is a book.
There are shelves in
every room, packed with
titles which Ambrose
Ribbon has checked
pedantically for mistakes
of grammar and fact. Life
for Ribbon, without his
mother now, is lonely
and obsessive. He still
keeps her dressing table
exactly as she had left
it, the wardrobe door
always so that her
clothes can be seen
inside, and her pink
silk nightdress on the
bed. There is one book
too that he associates
particularly with her -
volume VIII of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Piranha to Scurfy. It
marked a very significant
moment in their
relationship.In the other
stories, Ruth Rendell
deals with a variety of
themes, some macabre,
some vengeful, some
mysterious, all
precisely observed. The
second novella, High
Mysterious Union,
explores a strange,
erotic universe in a
dream-like corner of
rural England, and
illustrates very
atmospherically what
range Ruth Rendell has as
a writer.
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
It is January 1819, and
Captain Adam Bolitho,
newly married, makes
haste to ship out from
Falmouth and leave his
beautiful wife, Lowenna,
once again. Bound for
Freetown, on the old the
slave coast of Africa,
H.M.S. Onward
carries sealed orders
in the strongbox below
deck. But why all the
secrecy and apparent
urgency? And why
Onward, so soon
after the Mediterranean,
and that bloody action
with Nautilus?
Mission
completed, yet Adam
cannot and will not
leave. On their way into
port, the crew of the
Onward spy the
debris of an allied
frigate, destroyed as if
taken by surprise. There
are bodies strewn among
the shark-infested waters
and no enemy in sight. A
single word frozen on the
lips of the dead. Mutiny.
The men begin to question
who is friend and who is
foe.
All is not
well aboard the
Onward; envy and
hunger for power consume
some of the crew, but
they must band together
and risk their lives
together, in the name of
the King. A searing and
gripping tale of trouble
on the high seas, and of
the weakness of the human
spirit, In the
King
Availability: In Stock
£17.83
Available
-
'Who ends up in the
kitchen,
Gabe?'
'Misfits,
' he said, 'psychos,
exiles,
Availability: In Stock
£16.19
Available
-
In a small village at the
foot of the Italian
Dolomites, the gardens
of a deserted farmhouse
have lain untouched for
decades. But the new
owner, keen for
renovations to begin, is
summoned urgently to the
house when his workmen
disturb a macabre
grave.
Wild
animals have done their
grisly work and the human
corpse is badly
decomposed. Then a
valuable signet ring is
found close by,
providing the first vital
clue. It leads
Commissario Guido
Brunetti right to the
heart of aristocratic
Venice, to a family
still grieving for its
abducted son.
..
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
The stunning new novel
from the New York Times
bestselling author of
Open House and
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
To fifteen-year-old Anne
the woods that lie beyond
her house are a temporary
refuge from her noisy,
chaotic family, until
one day she gathers her
courage and steps into
the woods, never to
return. Slowly, she
makes a new life for
herself, learning to
forage and to hunt, to
build a house from the
bounty of the woods and
to listen to the voices
of the trees. As she
endures her first,
terrible winter she
develops the strength of
character that will carry
her through the dangers
of her unconventional
life and the bitter
beauty of falling in
love, but as the outside
world encroaches on her
secret existence Anne
faces a terrible tragedy.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
When young Charles
Dickens was commissioned
to write the text for a
series of sporting
illustrations in 1836,
no one could have
suspected that this
journeyman task was to
turn in to one of the
great comic novels in
English literature. After
the premature death of
the original illustrator,
Dickens took charge of
the project, which was
published in monthly
parts. The result is a
brilliant panorama of
English life in the
1830s, a cornucopia of
stories and vignettes
featuring dozens of
vividly drawn characters.
Chief among them are Mr
Pickwick himself, a
later day Don Quixote
travelling about the
country righting wrongs;
and his Sancho Panza,
Sam Weller, whose pithy
sayings and bizarre
anecdotes immediately
became and remained part
of national mythology.
With The Pickwick Papers
Dickens established
himself at a single
stroke as a major
creative artist,
revealing the depth of
his human sympathies,
the breadth of his
interests and his
extraordinary linguistic
virtuosity. His first
novel, published when he
was 25, is his first
masterpiece. The Everyman
edition includes 43
illustrations by Seymour
and 'Phiz' which
accompanied the original
edition and also reprints
the 1907 preface by G. K.
Chesterton.
Availability: In Stock
Available
-
The Minister for Defence
is blown to smithereens
in his car on a lonely
road in the Brecon
Beacons, where he has a
weekend hideaway. DI Ned
Bale is on the crime
scene within seconds,
but neither he nor
forensics can work out
how on earth the crime
was committed, let alone
who did it, or with what
motive.
That is
until one fingerprint is
found on one tiny
fragment of the explosive
timing device. The
fingerprint of Ned Bale's
closest ally in the
Force, dog handler Kate
Baker. But how on earth
could her fingerprint be
on a terrorist's bomb.
Far away on bomb disposal
duty in Afghanistan,
Kate has to be
questioned.
But
Kate herself has become
involved with someone
extremely plausible,
attractive and dangerous.
The mystery which
unravels through this
gripping thriller is
completely
unexpected.
Availability: In Stock
£9.89
Available
-
Henry and Cato is the
story of two prodigal
sons. Henry returns from
a self-imposed exile in
America to an unforeseen
inheritance of wealth and
land in England. He is
also returning to his
mother. His friend Cato
is struggling with two
ambiguous intermingled
passions, one for a God
who may or may not exist,
the other for a petty
criminal who may or may
not be capable of
salvation. Cato's father
and his sister Colette
wait anxiously to welcome
Cato back to sanity after
his dubious escapades.
Henry meanwhile confronts
his mother, the
unappeased furies of
childish resentment, and
various possibilities of
revenge. Henry's cool
mother watches, Cato's
impetuous sister
intervenes. Can love here
become a saving force,
or is it condemned to be
possessive and demonic?
Blackmail and violence
take a hand, and both
Henry and Cato return
home at last.
Availability: In Stock
£8.26
Available
-
The Gulag, the Stalinist
labour camps to which
millions of Russians were
condemned for political
deviation, has become a
household word in the
West. This is due to the
accounts of many
witnesses, but most of
all to the publication,
in 1962, of One Day in
the Life of Ivan
Denisovich, the novel
that first brought
Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn to
public attention. His
story of one typical day
in a labour camp as
experienced by prisoner
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov
is sufficient to describe
the entire world of the
Soviet camps. The
original text was first
published in the Soviet
journal Novy Mir, during
the Khrushchev 'thaw'.
However, in the rush to
bring out the first
translation, the novel
was significantly
diminished. The
idiosyncratic language of
the protagonist - a man
of peasant origins and no
formal education - the
colloquialisms and
prison-camp slang were
inadequately rendered;
dense, elliptical syntax
was smoothed over; earthy
dialogue vanished into
euphemism. Moreover, the
novel, published in the
Soviet Union for avowedly
political reasons, was
received abroad almost
exclusively as a
political sensation. With
this new translation,
however, the full
measure of the work's
artistic achievement can
finally be gauged.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
The world of Calvino is a
world of fable, but he
uses its mechanisms to
focus with unerring
precision on human
reality. Nature in these
stories has a magical
quality in the flight of
a crow, the iridescent
track of a snail, the
sideways leap of a stray
cat - but the magic can
encompass both
enchantment and terror.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
This collection of
playful, deadly febles
is populated with waifs
and strays, a gluttonous
thief and a mischievous
gardener. The grimly
comic story The
Argentine Ant moved
Gore Vidal to declare 'if
this is not a masterpiece
of twentieth-century
prose writing, I cannot
think of anything
better'.
Availability: In Stock
£8.44
Available
-
As 1794 draws to a close
Richard Bolitho,
commanding the old
seventy-four-gun ship of
the line Hyperion,
leaves Plymouth to join
a squadron blockading the
rising power of
Revolutionary France.
After six months of
repairs his ship is ready
to fight again, but her
company is mostly raw and
untrained.
Unfortunately,
Bolitho finds himself
under a commodore who is
no match for the French
admiral, Lequiller,
whose powerful squadron
uses guile and ruthless
determination to elude
him and vanish into the
Atlantic.
Hyperion, as part
of a small British force,
gives chase, the
desperate voyage taking
them from the Bay of
Biscay's squall to the
heat of the Caribbean -
and for each mile sailed
and every battle fought
Bolitho finds himself
being forced into the
ever more demanding role
of strategist and
squadron
commander.
Availability: In Stock
£8.26
Available
-
This moving story is
recounted by Margaret,
the daughter of a
Yorshire miner, who
falls in love with a
married teacher and goes
to live with him in a
room in Camden Town,
London. Many critics have
observed and almost
lawrentian fidelity in
the descriptions of their
love-making and the
intricacies of their
emotional responses to
one another. But in the
end family ties prove too
strong for an ambiguous
relationship which begins
to disclose a chasm of
emptiness and bitterness.
Availability: In Stock
£6.56
Available
-
Real life and fiction
meet as Angelica Garnett
vividly evokes what it is
to grow up in the shadow
of artists. Her family
appear in different
guises in the stories,
but at the centre of each
one is Garnett herself.
She is naà ve and foolish
as Bettina, desperately
seeking acceptance into
the grown-ups circle (
Availability: In Stock
£13.78
Available
-
Following the death of
his parents in a car
crash, eleven-year-old
Alex Dove is torn from
his life on a remote farm
in Tasmania and sent to
school in England. When
he returns to Australia
twelve years later, the
timeless beauty of the
land and his encounter
with a young woman whose
own life has been marked
by tragedy, persuade him
to stay. They marry, and
he finds himself drawn
into the eccentric,
often hilarious dynamics
of island life.
Longing for children,
the couple open their
home to a disquieting
guest, a teenage
castaway, whose presence
in their home begins to
unravel their tenuously
forged happiness.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
A journey to the green
inferno of the African
jungle brings one man
face to face with his
macabre past. Every year
the storks would set off
on their astounding 12,
000-mile migration from
Northern Europe to the
remote Central African
Republic. One year,
inexplicably, puzzling
numbers of them fail to
return. At the invitation
of a Swiss ornithologist,
Louis Antioch agrees to
investigate the mystery
of the birds'
disappearance. Before he
can set off on his quest,
however, his patron is
found dead in bizarre
circumstances.
Jean-Christophe Grang-'s
uncompromising narrative
develops at a nightmare
pace from a Bulgarian
gypsy encampment to a
kibbutz in the Occupied
Territories, to the
African jungle, to
Calcutta, where an
appalling and gruesome
truth emerges: the end of
a mission that began with
the Flight of the Storks-
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
At the end of Chéri the
young Chéri left his
aging mistress Léa on
the eve of his marriage.
Having served in the army
during the war Chéri
returns to Paris haunted
by memories of his
carefree youth and the
bounty of his benevolent
mistress. In the post-war
1920's he finds it
impossible to settle down
to a new life with his
efficient and
entrepreneurial wife and
friends.As his looks and
his reputation begin to
deteriorate Chéri's life
is thrown into crisis as
he attempts to recapture
the contentment and
companionship of his
luxurious youth. As
Chéri and Léa confront
each other, and the
changes a decade has
wrought on their lives
and their looks, Colette
displays the incredible
sensitivity and insight
for which she is justly
famous
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
The Coming of Bill
(1920) is the nearest
Wodehouse ever came to a
serious novel, although
Availability: In Stock
Available
-
In his most dazzling and
brilliant novel since
An Instance of the
Fingerpost, Iain
Availability: In Stock
£11.94
Available
-
Michael Wolf felt he had
escaped his past -
Stillriver, the small
town in Michigan where he
grew up, his troubles
with his father, the
petty jealousies and
competitiveness of his
younger brother, and
most of all the disaster
that ended his
relationship with Cassie,
the love of his life. As
the book opens, Michael
is forced to return to
Stillriver when he is
told of his father's
brutal murder. He finds
the town's new prosperity
only partly masks old
hurts and humiliations.
But when he discovers
that Cassie has also
returned to Stillriver,
he is thrown into total
turmoil while trying to
solve the mystery of his
father's death. A
powerful love story,
Stillriver, is also a
novel about family
relationships and the
tensions of life in a
small close-knit
community.
Availability: In Stock
£6.29
Available
-
Vaclav and Lena seem
destined for each other.
They first meet as
children in an
English-as-a-second-
language class in
Brighton Beach,
Brooklyn. Vaclav, who
dreams of becoming a
famous magician, is
precocious and verbal.
Lena, struggling with
English, takes comfort
in the safety of his
adoration, his noisy,
loving home, and the
care of Rasia, his
big-hearted mother.
Vaclav imagines their
story unfolding like a
fairy tale, but among
the many truths to be
discovered in Haley
Tanner
Availability: In Stock
£11.69
Available
-
Safe houses and secret
message drops, double
crosses and defections -
it sounds like the stuff
of sophisticated
espionage, but the
agents are only
schoolboys engaged in
harmless play. But John
Creevey doesn't know
this. To him, the
messages he decodes with
painstaking care are the
communications of
dangerous and evil men,
and as he comes face to
face with the fact of his
beloved wife Jennifer's
defection, he begins to
see a way to get back at
the man she left him for.
And soon the schoolboys
are playing more than
just a game.
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
A twentieth-century
adventure that will
plunge you into the heart
of Africa with three
intrepid adventurers, in
a desperate bid to find
the fabulous diamonds of
the Lost City of Zinj. In
it you will encounter the
Kigani cannibals,
flaming volcanoes,
ferocious gorillas, and
Amy. Cuddly, fluent in
sign language, and fun
to be with: in a tight
situation she's the
smartest gorilla you're
ever likely to meet....
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
The lives of three women
intersect in this
delicate and surprising
novel about memory and
loss, prejudice and
unrequited love - not to
mention literature and
cooking as cures for
heartbreak. Their stories
criss-cross between Paris
in the 1890s at the
height of the Dreyfus
affair, France in 1942,
and present-day Canada.
Marie Pr-vost is a
contemporary Canadian who
sets off for Paris to
research Proust and
escape a failed romance -
finding instead Mme
Proust's 'unpublished
diary' in the archives.
Sarah Bensimon is a young
Parisian Jew whose
parents spirit her out of
occupied France, and who
ends up in Toronto.
Marrying into an orthodox
family, she takes refuge
in her kitchen,
recreating a kosher
version of classic French
cuisine. The third woman
is Madame Jeanne Proust
herself, fragments of
whose 'diaries' are
recreated with impeccably
researched detail - as
she worries about Marcel,
his late-night habits,
his diet and his
unsuitable friends. All
these strands are bought
poignantly together - the
new world and the old,
the Seine and the St
Lawrence, mothers and
sons, outsiders and
insiders - in this
intelligent and
beautifully judged debut
novel.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
Introduced to the joys of
bare-bottom discipline by
lustful ladies, naval
cadet Philip Demesne,
posted to the Far East,
painfully learns true
submission from the
voluptuous dominatrix
Galena, aboard her
private carriage on the
Trans-Siberian
Express.
Escaping
from her lash, he is
kidnapped to serve in an
English School of female
domination, transplanted
to the emptiness of
Siberia to escape
do-gooding restrictions
on corporal punishment.
His male arrogance
utterly crushed, Philip
gladly submits to total
enslavement by women with
unlimited flagellant
discipline.
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Denmark