Showing titles in City Life

Robert Doughten Savile, aka "Doughty," is the son of a once-wealthy, now hard-up family from Darien, Connecticut. Doughty lives in a perpetual cloud of delusion, convinced of his own genius and status. While he has little capacity to accurately assess his own abilities or prospects, he cruises through life on the sheer force of his own sense of entitlement, dropping out of college and landing in the early '90s in New York City, a place brimming with both prosperity and desperation.

When Gemma, Dan and Casey meet one scorching July, the connection is instant. Yet they’re all used to protecting themselves from heartbreak by keeping their distance. Now that fate—and a small scruffy terrier—have brought them together, can they find the courage to connect? A story of bravery in all its guises, Eva Carter's Owner of A Lonely Heart is about taking the plunge even when it frightens you—because it's never too late to find the people who make your world make sense.

London is gripped by terror as a mastermind recreates history's most gruesome murders—without ever dirtying his hands. Paramedic Tom Freedman recruits his killers from the shadows of the internet, manipulating the broken and desperate to carry out his deadly vision. Emotionally damaged criminologist Ethan Marshall is dragged into the case, tasked with stopping a predator who thrives on control and chaos. When Tom's twisted game turns personal, Ethan receives chilling taunts and watches as the killer tightens his grip, pulling him further into the nightmare.

Ally Hawkins has never had a Valentine’s Day date—but this is her year. She can feel it in her endlessly optimistic heart. So when she stumbles upon a love potion at a county fair, she figures…why not? It’s silly, it’s smelly, and she’s a grown woman. But then—bam—the very guy she’s been crushing on asks her to lunch. Coincidence? She thinks not.

First published in 1920, This Side of Paradise proved to be a best-selling novel in Fitzgerald’s own lifetime. The book follows the early life and education of Amory Blaine and is, in fact, a thinly disguised account of Fitzgerald’s own experience as an undergraduate at Princeton and as an aspiring writer. Brilliantly original in its experimental narrative, it comprises a series of contrasting styles and structures.

Eight-year-old TC skips school to explore the city’s overgrown, forgotten corners. Sophia, 78, watches with concern as he slips past her window, through the little park she loves. She’s writing to her granddaughter, Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world from TC - though the two children live less than a mile apart.

It’s 2022 and Helen is starting again. Newly single, dogged by grief, adrift in a hostile rental market, she finds a four-bedroom house flanked by apartment blocks that stare into the yard. Despite the lack of privacy, she fills its rooms with an unlikely group of residents looking for communal belonging: zine maker, activist, disaffected artist, part-time rugby league player – each looking to build a future, each haunted by their recent past. But if a rented house in Sydney could ever promise salvation, it would come with a coating of black mould.

It's just another Tuesday with Mercury in retrograde. Cue Nikolai Volkov. A devil in Armani with a body built for sin. Protective. Ruthless. Magnetic. Oh, and did I mention he's hot enough to melt Siberia? I should despise him for stealing my freedom. Instead, I'm playing house with the beast and melting every time he growls 'mine’. But as it turns out, this good girl has a knack for taming monsters.

Melbourne, 1945. Born into a well-to-do family, Maggie Johnson wants freedom from her parents' strict conservative beliefs and their unbending desire for her to marry the right sort of man. Instead, Maggie longs to forge her own path in life. Lil Kelly, who lives in the slums, works tirelessly to care for her mother and sister. Lil looks for contentment wherever she can find it, not daring to dream of more. When their paths cross during the exhilarating celebrations of Victory in the Pacific Day, they form a secret friendship.

It was supposed to be a romantic getaway to New York City. Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything – the train tickets, the sightseeing itinerary, the four-story Jersey City rowhouse with the gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline. But then Bree wakes up one morning and discovers recently missing dog-walker Janelle Beckett dead in the foyer. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #Justice4Janelle, Bree realises that the only way she can stay out of jail is if she finds out what really happened that night.

When Maybelle Crabtree, a God-fearing farm girl from Kentucky, has a chance encounter with a charismatic stranger, her life changes forever. With an invitation to join the infamous Alla Nazimova and her Sewing Circle, Maybelle’s eyes are opened to a life of decadence and glamour.

For as long as she can remember, Peppa Ryan has been guided by a benevolent voice in her head who she believes is Virginia Woolf. Though she’s an exceptionally bright twenty-year-old, she suffers from crippling low self-esteem and has barely left her parents’ ramshackle home in Queens, New York. Set at the turn of the millennium, Peppa defies her parent’s wishes and ventures out on her own to start a job at a Wall Street investment firm.

Brooklyn's Hasidic community of Lubavitchers is turned upside down when family tragedy strikes and everyday life changes forever for Zev Altshul. He is first placed into the care of the closed and close-knit community where he grew up, but soon realizes he can't stay. His saving grace is handball, his gift from God, and the one thing he can rely on as he is shuttled, chased, and abandoned by trusted elders, family, and friends. Even as Zev never fully escapes from the guilt of his choices, he sets course across the United States to discover where loyalty really lies and what it means.

Working for one of the most powerful publishers in the country, Rose spends her days doing PR for glossy magazines. There are tedious spreadsheets, fashion divas, and many A-list parties. It’s at one of those parties where she meets Milo Jax, the world-famous, globally adored, British pop sensation. An unlikely flirtation turns into an even more unlikely evening and then Rose wakes up, unable to piece it all together. What happens next changes everything.

I know I have to get myself out of this funk, but it feels impossible. My childhood best friend is dead and nothing in life is working out as I’d planned. Then Lottie leaves me a ‘jar of joy’ in her will – filled with instructions to visit places where we had our happiest memories. But with every happy memory, I also remember the things that tore us apart. Because Lottie was keeping secrets. And Jay – the man we both loved – keeps turning up at the same places. Even as I feel pieces of myself begin to heal, some wounds run too deep.

Fiona is set to tie the knot with her dashing captain, Archie Somersby. But, while Fiona is busy planning her happily ever after, side-kick Kitty Lane and a group of judo-chopping suffragettes are kicking up trouble at the Piccadilly Jujitsu Club. When Kitty is found unconscious in the locker room during a high-stakes competition, Fiona must forsake her bouquets and bridal gown to investigate. Her sleuthing leads to a posh lady’s luncheon where a mysterious death crashes Fiona’s wedding plans.

New York City, 1921. The war is over, the twenties are roaring, but in the depths of the city that never sleeps, Dorothy Parker is struggling to make her mark in a man’s world. She’s penniless, she’s unemployed and her marriage is on the rocks when she starts a bridge group with three extraordinary women—but will they be able to save her from herself? When tragedy strikes, and everything Dorothy holds dear is threatened, it’s up to Peggy, Winifred and Jane to help her confront the truth before it’s too late. Because the stakes may be life or death.

New York, 2015, a Monday in spring. Dylan, about to turn thirty-eight, walks out of a successful career in advertising, sublets her apartment and agrees to housesit for Anna, an artist she has never met. She doesn't mention these life changes to her friends, her parents back in England or to Matt, her boyfriend living on the West Coast. In Anna's loft Dylan has time to think, space to write and a chance to try on a new kind of life. When her neighbour Kate invites her to a party and introduces her to Gabe, Dylan tries on a new kind of romance.

When Liv finds herself locked in a shed with handsome stranger Ben (after they try to rescue a cat together), the instant connection they make feels like fate had a hand in it. Has Liv finally found her perfect match? But everything about the timing means there’s no way they can be together. Not least because Ben has a girlfriend and Liv is moving from London to Paris the next day. Over the coming years their paths weave in and out of each other’s lives – together, but always fleetingly. If only they could stop missing each other, who knows what fate may have in store for them.

When Margaret Hale is forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural South of England for the industrial Northern town of Milton, she finds herself in a very different country run by men, like mill owner John Thornton, with very different beliefs to her own. Margaret is sickened by the working conditions she witnesses and, sympathetic to the poor workers, clashes with their boss, Thornton.