Narrative theme: Sense of place

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  • The glassmaker

    £9.99

    ‘Spellbinding’ ELIF SHAFAK

    ‘Ingenious’ THE TIMES, Book of the Year

    ‘Sparkling’OBSERVER

    ‘A triumph’ PHILIP PULLMAN

    ‘As finely wrought as a dazzling Murano bead’ INDEPENDENT

    ‘Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon’ PHILIPPA GREGORY

    ‘A spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game’ SPECTATOR

  • Table for two

    £10.99

    Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, ‘Table for Two’ is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

  • There are rivers in the sky

    £9.99

    This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water. In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur’s only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: ‘Nineveh and Its Remains’. In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy sit of Lalish in Iraq. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people.

  • All the colours of the dark

    £9.99

    Late one summer, the town of Monta Clare is shattered by the abduction of local teenager Joseph ‘Patch’ Macauley. Nobody more so than Saint Brown, who is broken by her best friend’s disappearance. Soon, she will eat, sleep, breathe, only to find him. But when she does: it will break her heart. Patch lies in a pitch-black room – all alone – for days or maybe weeks. Until he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and, though they cannot see each other, she takes him from the darkness and paints their world with her words. In this hopeless place, they fall in love. But when he escapes: there is no sign she ever even existed. To find her again, Patch charts an epic search across the country. And, to set him free, Saint will shadow his journey: on a darker path to hunt down the man who took them. Even if finding the truth means losing each other forever.

  • James

    £9.99

    An immensely powerful and bitingly satirical retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s friend, the enslaved Jim.

  • The list of suspicious things

    £9.99

    Sometimes the strongest connections are found in the most unlikely of places. ‘The List of Suspicious Things’ is a tender and moving coming of age story about family, friendship and community.

  • The vaster wilds

    £9.99

    Part of a loose trilogy based on the end of empire, ‘The Vaster Wilds’ is the story of a young girl who is servant to a minister and his young mistress, and in charge of their young daughter Bess. On an epic voyage across the Atlantic, ship-wrecked, far from home and fighting for survival, the protagonist of Lauren Groff’s extraordinary novel must endure but also find meaning in the journey.

  • The fury

    £10.99

    One spring morning, reclusive ex-movie star Lana Farrar invites a small group of her closest friends for a weekend away, on her small private island, just off the coast of Mykonos. Beneath the surface, old friendships conceal violent passions and resentments. And in forty-eight hours, one of them will be dead. But that was just the beginning.

  • Orbital

    £9.99

    Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the Earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from Earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it.

  • August blue

    £9.99

    ‘If she was my double and I was hers, was it true that she was knowing, I was unknowing, she was sane, I was crazy, she was wise, I was foolish? That summer, the air was electric between us as we transmitted our feelings to each other across three countries’. Elsa M. Anderson is a classical piano virtuoso. In a flea market in Athens, she watches an enigmatic woman buy two mechanical dancing horses. Is it possible that the woman who is so enchanted with the horses is her living double? Is she also looking for reasons to live? Chasing their doubles across Europe, the two women grapple with their conceptions of the world and each other, culminating in a final encounter in a fateful summer rainstorm. A vivid portrait of a long-held identity coming apart, ‘August Blue’ expands our understanding of the ways in which we seek to find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.

  • The last devil to die

    £9.99

    You’d think you would be allowed to relax over Christmas, but not in the world of the Thursday Murder Club. On Boxing Day, a dangerous package is smuggled across the English coast. When it goes missing, chaos is unleashed. The body count starts to rise – including someone close to the Thursday Murder Club – as our gang face an impossible search and their most deadly opponents yet. With the clock ticking down and a killer heading to Cooper’s Chase, has their luck finally run out? And who will be ‘the last devil to die’?

  • Before we say goodbye

    £10.99

    The fourth novel in the sensational ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’ series featuring cafe regulars, with the same time-travelling offer, back in the Tokyo cafe – if customers follow the rules.

  • Happy place

    £9.99

    Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year for the past decade, they have run away from their lives to drink far too much wine and soak up the sea air with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth. Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone. But this is the last time they’ll all be together here. The cottage is for sale, and since they can’t bear to break their best friends’ hearts, they’ll fake it for one more week. But how can you pretend to be in love in front of the people who know you best?

  • Before your memory fades

    £10.99

    The third novel from the author of the phenomenon Before the Coffee Gets Cold: tales from a little cafe in Hakodate, Cafe Donna Donna, where customers may travel through time – if they obey the rules. For fans of The Guest Cat and If Cats Disappeared from the World.

  • The bullet that missed

    £9.99

    It is an ordinary Thursday, and things should finally be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A local news legend is on the hunt for a sensational headline, and soon the gang are hot on the trail of two murders, ten years apart. To make matters worse, a new nemesis pays Elizabeth a visit, presenting her with a deadly mission: kill or be killed. While Elizabeth grapples with her conscience (and a gun), the gang and their unlikely new friends (including TV stars, money launderers and ex-KGB colonels) unravel a new mystery. But can they catch the culprit and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

  • The Paris Apartment

    £10.99

    *The brand new thriller from Lucy Foley – THE MIDNIGHT FEAST – is available to buy now*

    *The No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller*

    Discover the electric thriller from the No.1, million-copy bestseller, Lucy Foley