Taipei Story
£22.00First love. Second language. Final goodbyes.
For Lily, mastering Chinese means connection:
To her family
Her heritage
To herself
But what if waiting for perfection means it's too late to get the answers she wants most?
Showing 1–16 of 567 resultsSorted by latest
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The Disappearers
£20.00Kingston, Jamaica, 1988: When eight gay men meet for the first time, answering the casting call for an openly queer play, they are already taking a big risk. But that is nothing compared to what rains down on them when a mob descends on one of their rehearsals. By the end of this night, one man is dead, all are injured, and two subsequently disappear. As the survivors heal, each man finds he must confront the bigotry and homophobia that the attack laid bare. Some try to forget; some embrace their rage; and some simply vanish – but all are forever scarred. Epic and intimate, violent and forgiving, ‘The Disappearers’ is an unflinching portrait of the hatred and shame faced by gay men in a society which refuses to accept them, and a deeply human story of acceptance and insight.
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Picture Imperfect
£9.99Dolphin Westward spent her childhood as the supporting character in the story of her beautiful, wild, volatile mother Marigold. Now 33, she’s painfully aware that not much has changed. She lives in a tiny bedsit, works in a tattoo shop by day and collects her illustrated mum from police stations by night. Dol yearns to climb out of the rut she is stuck in, but has no idea where to begin. Could gardener Lee and his daughter Ava be her chance for a wholesome family life? Or maybe a steamy romance with roguish actor Joel is just what she needs. And what about the offer from her sister Star, now a successful doctor, to move to Scotland and live with her young family? As the choices threaten to overwhelm her, will Dol fall into the role of extra in someone else’s story once again – or find the strength to forge a brand new path of her own?
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Life of M
£18.99The film star M is one of the most recognizable faces of our time. Her image is everywhere. It has been like that since she was a child. With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. M may live in the same places as real people. She may meet her friends or collect her children from school or walk her dogs as they do. But it seems the rules of reality have melted away. Now, a writer has decided to pay close attention to M’s life, in the hope of understanding who she really is.
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Sophie, Standing There
★ STAFF PICK!£20.00
Selected by AudeStaff Pick!
Aude says…
“Can one encounter really change your life? Is Sophie descending into madness? Is this the fantasy we all dream to live? They say never meet your heroes… But what happens if you do?
All these are the questions that popped into my head while reading Sophie, standing there. I usually avoid novels set in the book world but I really enjoyed this dark but hopeful story and I look forward to going back and discovering more of Meg Mason’s work.”
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A sharp and funny reflection on obsession and loneliness from the award-winning author of Sorrow and Bliss
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Big Little Truths
£22.00It has been a decade since the ill-fated quiz night at Pirriwee High, where a man died and accusations of murder ran wild. For mothers and best friends Madeline, Celeste and Jane, the fallout still feels fresh. Their children are now moody teenagers, and life remains as demanding as ever. Madeline is busy planning her 50th birthday, unaware she’s about to be upstaged. Jane is content in her marriage to Tom – perhaps too content to notice its cracks. Celeste, still haunted by her husband’s death, fears what her formidable mother-in-law might do next. When the school receives an anonymous package containing a severed finger, amid reports of a suspicious man near students, suspicion spreads quickly. Is it a prank, a threat, or something far darker? As secrets surface, the truth proves as dangerous as ever.
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Dream Count
£9.99'Magnificent' SUNDAY TIMES
‘Extraordinary’ NEW STATESMAN
'The return of a literary titan' TELEGRAPH
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Claws Out!
£20.00'Such wicked fun. A darkly delicious mystery and sharply observed satire in one wildly entertaining package. Bella Mackie has outdone herself' LUCY FOLEY
'Bella Mackie's books are salacious, gripping and very funny' JOE LYCETT
Meet Diana Leyland. Widowed three times, but let's not blame the woman now…
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The Nine Lives of a Bookshop Cat
£14.99In his third life, Kinnosuke belonged to a famous author. Now, in his ninth, he wants nothing more to do with humans, who bring nothing but trouble and suffering. Drawn to the city in search of food, he comes across the Hokuto-do Bookshop, owned by a curious woman who has already given a home to four contented cats. Soon Kinnosuke begins to notice the shop’s quirks: there are few customers, but it never goes out of business. No stock is ordered, but it never runs out of books. And the other cats also belonged to famous authors in previous lives. If he wants to know more of its secrets, he will have to reveal his own about the life he shared with the author .At first, he is reluctant, but when a young aspiring writer faces tragedy, Kinnosuke is drawn into her struggle, confronting the bookshop’s hidden past to help keep her dream alive.
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The Stray Dogs
£9.99Since his marriage ended, Desmond Leaks has been stuck in rut. But living alone does have some upsides – for one, there’s no one to tell him that he’s ‘not allowed’ chocolate spread on his toast. And for Leona Lennox, a fresh start might just mean she can finally open that rescue centre for abandoned dogs she’s always dreamed of. That’s if she can learn to let people in occasionally – and accept help. Take this Desmond guy, he’s so nice that he’s offering to get his old band back together to play some fundraising gigs for the rescue centre. If only Leona could say yes, just this once. The Stray Dogs might actually be decent, right? But the band haven’t played together in years, and if they have any chance of making this work, Desmond will have to track down charismatic frontman Darcus McGuire. But how do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found?
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And I Am the Arrow
£12.99Chatterjee Mansion is a 1940s art-deco house in Calcutta with floors of polished marble and rooms filled with lies and omissions. In this house, late on a rain-soaked night, the turn of a single key unlocks a story that throws its women on a journey across the worlds of the living and the dead, and shatters all they know to be true. ‘And I Am The Arrow’ is a kaleidoscopic tale of flight and survival, of forbidden love and wasted ambition, and secrets that hide in plain sight. Trying to make sense of this world is Mishu, a young woman recently returned to India, just as Niyoti, her grandmother and the family matriarch, falls into a coma. As Mishu, her mother Ira, and their servant Bani wait to see if Niyoti wakes or leaves them forever, long-buried truths come to the surface, revealing a rich and dramatic story of India’s social and political struggles entwined with the family’s gains and sacrifices.
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Girl Dinner
£9.99From the internationally bestselling author of The Atlas Six, Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake is a twisted, biting standalone about wealthy moms and sorority girls practicing a hot new wellness trend: cannibalism.
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Last Night in Montreal
£10.99The debut novel from the bestselling author of Station Eleven, a thrilling literary crime novel about a life on the run, and what we sacrifice to keep moving.
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Can Nothing Save Us?
£20.00Molly and George Warburton are used to living life their own way. Now, in the ferocious heat of Sin City, the couple are facing up to their failures and final years. They announce that their grandson Luke – college dropout, aspiring writer, electronic dance music aficionado – will inherit their millions. It is sudden news that leaves their daughter Gina hell-bent on revenge. Yet Luke’s good fortune will not last. When a strange newcomer to the neighbourhood insinuates himself into the Warburtons’ world, it is the beginning of a chain of chilling events that could split the family permanently and put all their lives at risk.
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Where Are the Kings
£16.99Jack is just twelve years old when he rushes down the hill after his mother’s car on his bike, desperate to reach her before she reaches the lake. What happens next cannot be undone. Jack’s life changes just at the moment he is entering those dizzying years when he will transition from boy to man; when nothing makes sense at the best of times. Yet Jack is not alone. Enveloped as he is by his extended family – his ferociously loving Nana; Grandad, given to sudden bursts of rage; his earthy uncles Haulie and Theo who want to show him what it means to be a man, and the irascible JJ who resents him deeply. Then there is beautiful aunt Rose, whose mere presence ignites every atom in his changing body. But how can a boy with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, understand the person he is becoming? Without his mother to ground him on the earth, will he spin off into the stars?
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I Give You My Silence
£20.00One evening, Toño Azpilcueta, a Peruvian folk music journalist, witnesses a performance that changes his life. Toño becomes obsessed with hearing the virtuoso guitarist Lalo Molfino play again, but the next he hears, Molfino is dead. So begins a quest to uncover the story of this unforgettable musician. Toño tracks down the priest who rescued Molfino from a rubbish heap and raised him, the musicians who played with him and the girl who claimed to love him. Toño decides that he will write a book that will not only immortalize the hero of the Creole vals but will establish the music he loved as a unifying symbol for his fractured country. But the more Toño writes, the more he struggles to keep control of his story. As his savings dwindle and his paranoia rises, it becomes clear that writing a masterpiece is more complicated and consuming than he had realised.