Modern & contemporary fiction

Showing 209–224 of 668 resultsSorted by latest

  • Endling

    £10.99

    Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men – not for love, but to fund her work – entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides untainted by feminism. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species.

  • The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

    £16.99

    Mitch, a passionate bookseller, is arrested one morning for committing an unthinkable crime: selling books that have been banned. After five years in prison, all Mitch wants to do is to regain his freedom and settle back into his bookshop. But fate has other plans. On the same day Mitch crosses paths with the man who put him behind bars, he also encounters Anna, a woman who could well be the love of his life. From that moment on, Mitch finds himself caught between an irresistible desire for revenge and an irresistible desire for love.

  • The Elements

    £10.99

    Human life is governed by the elements – water, earth, fire and air. They are fundamental to our existence. They sustain us, but they also challenge us. In ‘The Elements’, John Boyne has created a vivid kaleidoscope to reflect that contradiction: a quartet of intertwined narratives, each providing a different perspective on cause and effect from the points of view of the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. From a mother on the run from her past, to a young football star on trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and finally a father on a transformative journey with his son, the four strands weave together to form a tapestry of intersecting lives.

  • Enough

    £22.00

    Etta’s got just one day. One day to tell her family her secret. One day to bring them back together. One day to put the finishing touches on her plan. One day to tell the world enough is enough. Because this one day will rewrite Etta’s story.

  • John of John

    ★ STAFF PICK!
    Selected by Mia
    £20.00

    Staff Pick!

    Mia Says…

    Each time I think I’ve gathered everything I need to know about a character in John of John, something entirely new and unexpected comes along. I absolutely loved this. Who do we belong to?

    __________________

    From Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a stunning new novel, John of John.

  • The Calamity Club

    £20.00

    Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ big girls at the town’s orphanage where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed. When she meets Birdie, a young woman set on confronting the socialite sister who believes she’s left her impoverished family behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister’s charmed life is balanced precariously upon a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women. But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have conse

  • Walking on the Ceiling

    £9.99

    The mesmerizing debut novel by the author of The Anthropologists set in Paris and Istanbul, about a young Turkish woman grappling with her past and her complicated relationship with a famous British writer.
     

  • The Cormorant Hunt

    £18.99

    Disheartened CIA officer Ari Falk, now hiding in the Republic of Georgia, is hailed as a hero by some and branded a traitor by others after blowing the lid off a massive conspiracy. But his quiet exile is shattered when a mission arises – one perfectly suited for someone as jaded and unpredictable as him. This stand-alone sequel thrusts us into a modern era of geopolitical conflict, where a hot war in Europe and shadowy political schemes set the stage for danger at every turn. Enter Asha Tamaskar, a brilliant, neurodivergent CIA officer with her own secrets, and Felix Burnham, a chilling antagonist with radical alliances that could change the global balance of power.

  • Love Forms

    £9.99

    Trinidad, 1980: Dawn Bishop, aged 16, leaves her home and journeys across the sea to Venezuela. There, she gives birth to a baby girl, and leaves her with nuns to be given up for adoption. Dawn tries to carry on with her life – a move to England, a marriage, a career, two sons, a divorce – but through it all, she still thinks of the child she had in Venezuela, and of what might have been. Then, forty years later, a woman from an internet forum gets in touch. She says that she might be Dawn’s long-lost daughter, stirring up a complicated mix of feelings: could this be the person to give form to all the love and care a mother has left to give?

  • I Want You to Be Happy

    £14.99

    Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He’s in his mid-thirties; she’s twelve years younger. He’s long-abandoned his ambition of being a novelist, and works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. ‘Lead copywriter,’ he corrects himself. Joey’s living paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages, and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck’s luxury flat-a world away from Joey’s cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey’s imagining a future between them and Chuck’s moving on from a major change in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.

  • The Silver Thread

    £18.99

    Spanning three cities, two women and one hundred years, this is a sweeping story of a patient and everlasting love – and the moments that tie people together forever.

  • One of Us

    £9.99

    ‘Intelligent, darkly humorous and brilliantly written’ STANLEY TUCCI

    ‘This is Elizabeth Day's writing at its finest’ DOLLY ALDERTON

    ‘A tantalising portrait of privilege and power’ THE TIMES

  • The Midnight Train

    £20.00

    For Wilbur it was his time with Maggie, the love of his life. Their honeymoon in Venice. Before he threw it all away. Years later, on the brink of his own death, a train arrives. It can take Wilbur back in time. To relive his most important moments. Soon he realises just how much he would have changed.

  • Fieldwork as a Sex Object

    £16.99

    I download the video. I mute the audio before replaying it frame by frame, in dread, in desperation. I watch it four times. It is not me. It is my face. Amrita Chaturvedi goes by Amy. Amy identifies as a communist on Twitter (her bio omits a cameo on reality TV and millionaire daddy who runs the show at Delhi High Court). When a deepfake porno of her ‘forwarded many times’ by WhatsApp aunties goes viral, the truth finally catches up. On her birthday, Amy and allies – a Dalit, a consenting adult code-named the Child Solider and white trustafarian India – battle a stoning in the digital town square that could cancel even Kim Kardashian. Her executioners? An unhinged cartel of virgins styling themselves after V for Vendetta – except these anonymous keyboard warriors are on a merciless crusade to eradicate desi jezebels and Make India Hindu Again.

  • Dream State

    £10.99

    When Charlie asks Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate, Cece can’t imagine anyone less appropriate for the task. Garrett doesn’t believe in love, much less marriage. But as she spends time with him and his gruff mask slips, her long-held expectations for her life with Charlie begin to crumble, leading to an impulsive decision that will alter the three friends’ lives forever – the events of that July reverberating through marriage, parenthood and across generations.

  • Before I Knew I Loved You

    £14.99

    The sixth book in the unstoppable, multi-million bestselling Japanese series; four guests with four poignant stories get another chance at lasting happiness.