City Life

Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, divorces her husband, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop....

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘I loved this book’ RICHARD OSMAN ‘Funny, sharp, dark and twisted’ JOJO MOYES ‘Chilling, but also laugh-out-loud funny. Another corker’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH They say you can’t choose your family. But you can kill them. Meet Grace Bernard. Daughter, sister...

In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Kara McIntyre is supposed to be jetting off to her destination wedding in Hawaii. However, a last-minute hitch appears to have left her without a job, home and, more importantly, a fiancé.

Bristol 1942. Following the death of her controlling husband, Margaret Routledge is no longer the downtrodden church mouse she once was. Now she’s the talk of the Close, frequenting seedy pubs and clubs where men gather to pick up good-time girls...

The pretty little streets of Montmartre are abuzz with a rumour. Apparently a mystery matchmaker, known only as ‘Paris Cupid’, has somehow helped the city’s most famous bachelor find love.

Coco is having a hell of a month. She’s lost her boyfriend and her business, been forced to uproot her daughter to move back in with her parents in Paris, and now an infuriatingly handsome stranger is yelling at her for acting like a tourist… Right underneath the Eiffel Tower.

The first novel to articulate the rage and pain of life in "the other America," Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn is a classic of postwar American writing.

Detective Lola Harris is called to a local park where the body of a woman has been pulled out of the river. On the victim’s wrist is a tattoo. A dolphin and a heart. Lola knows who she is instantly – the woman half the Glasgow force have been searching for: missing juror, Kathryn Main.

Everything is changing for Gabe. His writing career is seeing some traction, his relationships are blossoming, and the time has come to move to a new, bigger house. Krystal and Liz are ready to commit to a new life living with and dating him.

Grace has what one might call a 'full and interesting life', which is code for not married and has no kids. Her life is the envy of her straight friends, but all this time she has been waiting in secret for love to hit her so hard that she would run out of breath....

Secure in their growing trust, Elise and Roy venture beyond the bedroom and into a world of forbidden excitement. The couple attends an exclusive underground sex club – a place Elise has visited before – where every secret desire is on display.

At what point does a group of strangers become a community? When young Bendigo Shafter and a ragtag bunch of travelers settle in the rugged Wyoming mountains, they quickly come to depend on a toughness and wisdom many of them never knew they possessed. Led by the beautiful and resourceful widow...

I may be a shy letter carrier, but when my beloved apartment building is threatened by a mysterious and reclusive billionaire, I’m willing to push the envelope....

Chris Wright has one shot at his dream. After years of late nights and countless revisions, an agent finally takes notice of Chris’s novel—but with one catch: he has a tight deadline to deliver a major rewrite. Then, fate throws him a curveball in the form of Mia.

When Will wakes up after a car accident, he’s lost three years of memory. All he wants is his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart, Gem, beside him. Instead, nothing is as he remembers.

Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people’s homes by his bullying older siblings, he’s also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum....

I ran from my Russian father to escape an arranged marriage and ended up handcuffed to an Italian mafia hitman … in his bed. He’s as intensely beautiful as he is ruthless. A dichotomy of callous yet kind that fascinates me, though I know it shouldn’t. The man’s a killer.

The girls of Dressmaker’s Alley are busier than ever and Lady Diane’s business continues to thrive. New recruit Janice Williams is one of the new seamstresses Miss Susie hires to cope with the work.

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE 2022 AKUTAGAWA PRIZE The power dynamics of the office are never more obvious than when it comes to food: mandatory lunches with the boss, the colleague who tries to curry favour with home-baked goods, discovering the discarded remnants of someone else's...

Als bei der Zwangsräumung der Wohnung seiner Mutter durch eine Verwechslung alles von Wert in die Müllverbrennungsanlage wandert, bleibt dem Erzähler wortwörtlich nur der Abfall der eigenen Familiengeschichte.

Alice Croydon has the perfect life: she has a large, close-knit family who loves her—even if they are sometimes a little too invested in her decisions—and she's about to marry her high school sweetheart Finn. Alice couldn't be happier....

Naomi Alderman's The Lessons reflects the truth that the lessons life teaches often come too late....

A collection of BBC Radio dramatisations of Elizabeth Gaskell's well loved novels - plus bonus material. Elizabeth Gaskell was one of Victorian England's pre-eminent female novelists. Admired by Charles Dickens, who described her as his 'dear Scheherazade', she mingled storytelling and social...

Detective Lola is heading back over the river from a rare night out when she spots a crowd of people looking over the parapet. Someone’s gone in. A young man called Cammy witnessed everything. He swears it’s the work of the Clyde Pusher, but is terrified of the police.

Over the course of twenty-four hours, four lives are about to change forever... On a freezing December morning, Caro sets out to uncover the truth: has her entire relationship with her father been built on lies? Cammy is planning the perfect proposal, until a missing ring threatens to unravel everything. Lila can't keep her secret any longer. Today, she'll confess the truth to her lover's wife. And after thirty years of silence, Bernadette is finally ready to walk away from her controlling husband, for good. In just one day, these lives will collide in unexpected ways.

Set against the luminous grit of Seattle’s neighborhoods and the raw beauty of the Pacific Northwest, The Man Who Fell in the Dark is a story of hard-won redemption, the capacity for change, and the families we find or make anew. For anyone who’s wondered whether grace can arrive through tragedy, Dylan’s journey offers an unforgettable answer.

The MacGregors don’t back down from a fight—and they never forget a grudge. Known across Glasgow as The Bloody MacGregors, the family built their empire with bare fists and broken rules. Virgil MacGregor walked away from it all. He wanted peace. A quiet life. No more blood on his hands. But trouble doesn’t care what he wants - and neither do his family. Now his brothers are working for Toni McVay, the ruthless Queen of Glasgow, and chaos is spilling onto Virgil’s doorstep.

In the summer of 1967, the Levitsky family convenes for a long weekend at their home in the suburbs—an idyllic holiday for the perfect family. But Nora has always known better. Growing up, she learned to tiptoe around her mother Lillian’s explosive temper. Her father did the same. Nora’s sole confidante was their housekeeper, Clara, and their bond has only strengthened through the years.

Inspired by one of the first real-life female columnists at the New Yorker, this enticing historical mystery follows Freddie Archer as she solves crimes while reporting on the glamorous world of the rich and famous in 1920s Manhattan. This writer just found her next scoop . . . and it’s deadly...

It's Queens, New York, and it's time for the Ball of Balls, and the Sinsational Delights Department of the (mostly) online mag Eat This! are all a twitter! Mimi (sexy fun columnist) and June (her dear friend and boss) are readying Mimi's column, A Bagel For Your Thoughts, to cover all things food and romance related leading up to the Ball. But Rutherford Smith, owner of the media conglomerate that publishes Eat This! has placed his douchey son Jake at the helm. Will Jake choose to close the department or give them a new life?

100 years ago and before there were Instagram Influencers, there was Lorelei Lee, a wily blonde from Little Rock, Arkansas, and her BFF Dorothy, who took New York and Europe by storm in 1925, reporting in her diary every detail of their quest to collect the greatest trove of jewels, gowns, men, and adventures imaginable.

Thee Champagne Earthquake follows three wine industry professionals in San Francisco — Edie, a bipolar wine rep desperately searching for love; Ernest, a depressed sommelier who attempts suicide after his mother's cancer diagnosis; and Sammy, a philosophical restaurateur seeking deep connection — as they navigate existential questions about purpose and belonging.

Javier Jimenez is on a glide path to college while his brother, Alex, has done a 180 and is heading for trouble. Neither, however, have any idea what's coming their way when George Jones sets in motion his plan for their neighborhood. It's a cataclysmic vision of urban renewal replete with manmade disasters, civil unrest, and a tsunami of ambitious Zoomers.

Would you take a second chance at love if an app matches you up? Would you take a second chance at love if an app matches you up? As teenagers, Kiana and Nirvaan were inseparable--until family expectations tore them apart. A decade later, despite having successful careers, their hearts are empty...

Nadia is an abstract thinker coming to terms with the harsh realities around her. She is a bookworm, a prankster, a wanderer, and a note-taker. She sees people gambling with life and soul for little apparent gain and wonders what she can do to make a difference. Progressively, her life is pulled apart by her family’s migration to Ukraine, a dubious courtship, the Chernobyl disaster, police surveillance, and an Afghan war. As Nadia comes of age, she finds that the bonds of family and friendship create an inseparable fate: to rescue one another or to drown.

Ich bin felsenfest davon überzeugt, dass wir die Menschen, die wir aufrichtig lieben, niemals verlieren. Wir treffen uns an einem anderen Ort wieder. Möglicherweise in einer anderen Gestalt oder Lebensform. In jedem Fall bleiben wir für immer zusammen. Spüren einander. Fühlen uns geborgen. Das ist der Himmel.

Para comemorar seu aniversário de quarenta e três anos, Tati decide organizar uma festa em seu apartamento, na rua Maranhão, em Higienópolis, bairro nobre de São Paulo. Durante a celebração, ela recebe uma mensagem preocupada de uma amiga contando que errou o endereço e foi parar em "um lugar medonho": o Largo do Maranhão, no Tatuapé, bairro onde Tati cresceu. O pavor da amiga desencadeia em Tati uma crise de pânico, o que a obriga a deixar a sala, os convidados e a certeza momentânea de seu pertencimento de classe...

Ryan Tanner is an average family man battling alcohol and the demons from his childhood, while struggling as a husband and a father. Drowning in a life that often makes no sense, he turns to an insightful, no-nonsense psychologist as a last resort to try and save his volatile, but altogether beautiful marriage with his beloved wife Tess.

Aurora nasce in un appartamento popolare a Roma Sud, mentre il Paese si prepara ad attraversare gli anni Settanta e il loro spegnersi nella strategia della tensione. Del resto il passato sembra aver lavorato per lei da prima che nascesse: la nonna, con la quale Aurora ha un rapporto d'amore profondo e privilegiato, era scampata per miracolo al bombardamento di San Lorenzo. Tutt'intorno, nel frattempo, la città respira come un organismo: abbraccia, tradisce, intreccia destini senza mostrarli.