Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

The instinct of the true Porterhouse man faced with a crisis is to reach for the bottle and then to fall back on the subtle tactical skills honed at Cambridge down the centuries: blackmail and kidnap. But will these be enough? Menaced on all sides - by the collapse of the Chapel, by the tentacles of organised crime, and by the hovering threat of the abominable Dog’s Nose Man - will Porterhouse be forced to unleash the most fearsome weapon in its armoury - the college food?

A riveting psychological drama that unfolds over the course of one Moscow winter, as a thirty-something Englishman’s moral compass is spun by the seductive opportunities revealed to him by a new Russia: a land of hedonism and desperation, corruption and kindness, magical dachas and debauched nightclubs: a place where secrets - and corpses - come to light only when the deep snows start to thaw...

A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie, who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots.

Manchmal kann die Idylle auch die Hölle sein. Wie das Dorf "Unterleuten" irgendwo in Brandenburg. Wer nur einen flüchtigen Blick darauf wirft, ist bezaubert von den schrulligen Originalen, die den Ort nach der Wende prägen, von der unberührten Natur mit den seltenen Vogelarten, von den kleinen Häusern, die sich Stadtflüchtige aus Berlin gerne kaufen.

It's the glittering 80s and Lucinda Cowper, Elizabeth Beaumont, and Flora Fielding feel happy and secure in the power and pleasure of wealth. Nothing could have prepared them for a devastating financial scandal, which turns the boom to bust. The crash takes away their hope, their self-respect, and for some, it destroys even more. Facing bleak futures, affairs begin, lies are spun, relationships are pushed to breaking point, and within the year someone will be dead. But who? And why?

Prague, 1938: Eva flies down the street from her sister. Suddenly a man steps out, a man wearing a hat. Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter. His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything, as war forces so many lives into small, brown suitcases. Prague, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip right under the heavy blanket that covers this city - the fear cannot touch him. Ludek is free. And he sees everything. The world can do what it likes.

The novel is set in Varanasi. Chetan Bhagat initiates the story through the central character of Gopal. It is through Gopal's narration of his life to the author that we are introduced to Raghav and Aarti. The story revolves around these three characters. While Gopal comes from a poor family, Raghav comes from a well-off family. Both set out to achieve success and realise their dreams.

Un grupo de jóvenes que se «educan» en una disciplina militar implacable y violenta, aprenden a sobrevivir en un ambiente que lleva muy arraigados los prejuicios raciales y las diferencias entre clases sociales y económicas; donde todos se muestran como no son en realidad y la transgresión de las normas parece ser la única salida.

In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age. By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.

Als Mikage ihre Großmutter verliert, ist sie vollkommen allein in der großen Wohnung. Nur in der Küche, wo das Brummen des Kühlschranks sie in den Schlaf wiegt, kommt sie zur Ruhe. Aus ihrer Einsamkeit holt sie Yuichi. Er schlägt ihr vor, zu ihm und seiner Mutter zu ziehen. Es entwickelt sich eine merkwürdige Wohngemeinschaft. Denn Eriko, die wunderschöne "Mutter" Yuichis, hat eine schillernde Vergangenheit.

Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's 'research' becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections?

Liza Miller never dreamed that anyone would be interested in her life, let alone buy a book about it. But everything changes when she publishes a thinly veiled novel called Younger about a woman posing as a millennial, which her old friend Kelsey wants to turn into a TV show. Liza is off to Los Angeles to help Kelsey write the pilot, leaving behind her on-again off-again boyfriend, Josh, her pregnant daughter, and her best friend, Maggie. But as she is swept up in the heady world of Hollywood, Liza finds herself thinking less and less of her life back home in New York.

Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a Greek god in the 21st century: Nobody believes in you any more, even your own family doesn't respect you, and you're stuck in a dilapidated hovel in North London with too many siblings and not enough hot water.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan, read by Stephen Hogan, Gerry O'Brien and Ramon Tikaram. Farouk’s country has been torn apart by war. Lampy’s heart has been laid waste by Chloe. John’s past torments him as he nears his end. The refugee. The dreamer. The penitent. From war-torn Syria to small-town Ireland, three men, scarred by all they have loved and lost, are searching for some version of home. Each is drawn towards a powerful reckoning, one that will bring them together in the most unexpected of ways.

Charming and heroic, there’s nothing about Gabriel Woodruff that Avery Burke doesn’t love. His warm brown eyes, his generosity, that small scar above his lip. The newspaper photo of him carrying her from a burning home only adds to the romance of it all. A fairytale beginning and a picture-perfect marriage practically guarantees Avery and Gabriel a ride into the sunset. But every relationship has flaws, and what they ignored while they were busy being flawless eventually surfaces. The unraveling begins with the smallest tug on the tiniest string.

Blaze exposes the new order of women and power in the cut-throat arena of up-market magazines. The idealistic baby boomers have been pushed aside and it's every woman for herself. An intimate look at four women coping with their private and public lives in the world where scheming and fox cunning seem to beat skill and talent, where sexism and ageism in office politics label women over 30 over the hill.

Four chronically homeless people - Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger - seek refuge in a warm movie theater when a severe Arctic front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world and, once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favor of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck.

Dora ist mit ihrer kleinen Hündin aufs Land gezogen. Sie brauchte dringend einen Tapetenwechsel, mehr Freiheit, Raum zum Atmen. Aber ganz so idyllisch wie gedacht ist Bracken, das kleine Dorf im brandenburgischen Nirgendwo, nicht. In Doras Haus gibt es noch keine Möbel, der Garten gleicht einer Wildnis, und die Busverbindung in die Kreisstadt ist ein Witz. Vor allem aber verbirgt sich hinter der hohen Gartenmauer ein Nachbar, der mit kahlrasiertem Kopf und rechten Sprüchen sämtlichen Vorurteilen zu entsprechen scheint.

走ることについて語りつつ、小説家としてのありよう、創作の秘密、そして「彼自身」を初めて説き明かした画期的なメモワール。

Gianluca's life is empty. His City job, his seven-figure income, his glossy girlfriends - all have long ceased to satisfy him. His marriage is over, and he barely knows his young daughters. In search of serenity and a deeper purpose, he flees to Italy. But life on the sun-drenched Amalfi coast is not as peaceful as Luca anticipates.