Modern & contemporary fiction

  • Dogs and monsters

    £20.00

    Weaving together ancient Greek fables with more recent dystopian narratives, Mark Haddon jump starts the heart of these legends told and retold for millennia, and demonstrates their lasting relevance again, in new and unexpected forms.

  • The life impossible

    £20.00

    When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past. Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

  • The jaguar’s children

    £9.99

    Hector is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Hector finds a name in his friend Cesar’s phone: Annimac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message Cesar has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through? Over four days, as water and food run low, Hector tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca – its rich culture, its rapid change – to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Hector fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world.

  • Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat

    £16.99

    Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. Situated at the heart of rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, it’s a haven of peace and reflection for many locals. And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd. But there is a darker story behind the notebook, and before long the laundromat’s regulars are teaming up to solve the mystery and put the world to rights.

  • The Full Moon Coffee Shop

    £16.99

    Based on the Japanese myth of cats returning favours to humans who are kind to them, ‘The Full Moon Coffee Shop’ is the name of a peculiar cake cafe that is run by talking cats, which has no fixed location and instead materialises unpredictably on the night of a full moon. The protagonists of this story – a successful female scriptwriter in crisis, a heartbroken TV director, and two male entrepreneurs – all end up there in the middle of the night, in a semi-dream-like state, and receive life-changing advice on love, work, and relationships from a charismatic tortoiseshell cat who interprets his guests’ astrological chart. The Western horoscope comes into play, as well as the life phases, one for each planet, that guide what lessons we have or haven’t allowed ourselves to learn. Meanwhile, the customers are served a selection of drinks and sweet treats tailored perfectly to their needs.

  • Shy creatures

    £20.00

    Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor. One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A 37-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

  • Blue Hour

    £9.99

    What is motherhood in the midst of uncertainty, buried trauma and an unravelling America? What it’s always been – a love song….

  • Death at the sign of the rook

    £22.00

    Welcome to Rook Hall. The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. In his sleepy Yorkshire town, ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off boredom, his only case the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another and soon Jackson has uncovered a string of unsolved cases, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

  • The lantern of lost memories

    £14.99

    A charming and uplifting story from Japan about our most cherished memories, time travel and what life is all about.

  • Astraea

    £9.99

    It’s the early 19th century and a small sailing ship with a cargo of convict women and their children is crossing the ocean to a penal colony.

  • Snow Road Station

    £10.99

    A novel, witty and wise, about thwarted ambition, unrealized dreams, the enduring bonds of female friendship, and love’s capacity to surprise us at any age. By the Giller Prize-winning author, Elizabeth Hay.

  • Silken gazelles

    £16.99

    In their small, mountainside village, Ghazaala and Asiya love each other like sisters, until tragedy strikes, and Asiya is forced into exile. Ghazaala is haunted by Asiya’s absence; a wound that never quite heals. When Ghazaala falls in love with a handsome violinist, everything changes. In Muscat, she tries desperately to balance university and the demands of a new wife. Then she meets Harir, whose life, unbeknownst to Ghaazala, has also been changed by Asiya and the mystery of her fate.