Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Camille, trente-huit ans et quart, a tout, semble-t-il, pour être heureuse. Alors pourquoi a-t-elle l'impression que le bonheur lui a glissé entre les doigts ? Tout ce qu'elle veut, c'est retrouver le chemin de la joie et de l'épanouissement. Quand Claude, routinologue, lui propose un accompagnement original pour l'y aider, elle n'hésite pas longtemps : elle fonce.

When a man and a woman get married, things can get complicated. When they have children from previous marriages, "complicated" can become the understatement of the year.

Nineteen-year-old Billy Lynn is home from war. Back in Texas, he has become a national celebrity. A Fox News crew filmed Billy and the rest of Bravo squad defeating Iraqi insurgents in a ferocious fire fight. Now Billy is a decorated soldier and Bravo's three minutes of extreme bravery under fire is a YouTube sensation. Seizing on this PR gift, the Bush administration has sent the surviving members of Bravo on a nationwide 'Victory Tour' to reassure the folks at home. Tomorrow, they must go back to war.

They say the Messiah is alive. He is living in New York. Sleeping with men. Impregnating women. Euthanasing the dying, healing the sick. Defying the government and condemning the holy. If you met him.... and he changed your life... would you believe?

For the whole of Rose's respectable married life, she had kept faith with two men. To Ned she was a perfect wife, mother of his son, and elegant hostess of Slepe. To Mylo, Rose was an impetuous and unconventional mistress, answering his erratic and impassionate calls throughout 50 years of tactful duplicity. After Ned's funeral Rose looks back on a life of dual constancy, passion, humour, and the ambiguities of love - and chooses her future.

As Jake Rayne travels through Idahaho in his classic '57 Thunderbird, a devastating accident is the catalyst for a journey he isn't expecting. Alone in the deep forest, with his body battered and broken, Jake calls out for help. And the help he finds changes not only his life but his whole reality.

Charlie Johnson is 13 and in her first year of high school. She loves her family, netball and Liam, the cute guy who sits next to her in Science - but most of all she loves horses and horse riding. Charlie's parents have leased her a horse, Tic Tac, from the local pony club, but one day they go out for a ride in the national park and only Tic Tac returns.... Four months later, long after the police and the SES have called off the search, Charlie is found wandering injured and filthy, miles from where she was last seen.

In 1796, a young cabin boy, Will Martin, goes on a voyage of discovery in the Tom Thumb with Matthew Flinders and Mr. Bass: two men and a boy in a tiny boat on an exploratory journey south from Sydney Cove to the Illawarra, full of hope and dreams, daring and fearfulness. Set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and spanning four centuries, Storyland is a unique and compelling novel of people and place which tells the story of Australia. All these characters are all connected—not only through the same land and water, but also by tendrils of blood, history, memory and property.

Melina Marchetta's brilliant, heart-wrenching new novel takes up the story of the group of friends from her best-selling, much-loved book Saving Francesca – only this time it's five years later and Thomas Mackee is the one who needs saving.

Shreya and her twin brother, Sushant, are attacked by a mysterious stranger with extraordinary powers. Fighting for their lives, and unable to hold out against him, Shreya falls back, in desperation, upon an ancient legend. But when an ancestor from deep antiquity unexpectedly appears in response to Shreya’s cry for help, the lives of the twins take an unexpected turn.

In den 1960er-Jahren schwirren viele Gerüchte über Kya Clark durch die ruhige Küstenstadt Barkley Cove. Isoliert lebt sie im Marschland mit seinen Salzwiesen, Sandbänken, Buchten. Sie kennt jeden Stein und Seevogel, jede Muschel und Pflanze. Zwei junge Männer werden auf die wilde Schöne aufmerksam, und Kya öffnet sich einem neuen Leben – mit dramatischen Folgen. Als einer der beiden tot aufgefunden wird, sind sich die Bewohner sicher: Das »Marschmädchen« ist schuld. Delia Owens erzählt intensiv und atmosphärisch davon, dass wir für immer die Kinder bleiben, die wir einmal waren.

Hell Unearthed charts Dante’s journey, guided by his hero, Virgil, through the underworld. In this modern version of Inferno, the cast of sinners Dante meets includes gangsters, dictators, pop stars, sports stars, princes and princesses. These characters’ stories will be familiar to many and they sit alongside sinners drawn from classical mythology as well as the heroes and villains from Dante’s contemporary medieval Tuscany. Characters are positioned in Hell according to the gravity of their sin and are tormented by weapons.

"My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called “a literary triumph” (The New York Times). Lucky Us is a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune.

Dans la lignée du monumental "1Q84", un roman somme, ambitieux, profond. Deux tomes pour une odyssée initiatique étrange, inquiétante, envoûtante, où le maître Murakami dévoile ses obsessions les plus intimes. Quand sa femme lui a annoncé qu'elle voulait divorcer, le narrateur, un jeune peintre en panne d'inspiration, a voyagé seul à travers le Japon. Et puis, il s'est installé dans la montagne dans une maison isolée, ancienne propriété d'un artiste de génie, Tomohiko Amada. Un jour, le narrateur reçoit une proposition alléchante : faire le portrait de Wataru Menshiki, un riche homme d'affaires.

Church minster village - picturesque, quaint, sleepy - OR NOT...A place where women know exactly what they want, and it's not cream tea with the vicar. A place where anything can happen . . . so be careful what you wish for. And a place where the men had better behave . . . because the ladies won't take it lying down (well, not unless they want to!)

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

Claire McIntyre has it all: an adoring husband, a bubbly best friend, a chic townhouse and a high-flying corporate career in the city. But somehow she's forgotten what really makes her happy. After receiving tragic news, closely followed by the loss of her job, Claire's world is thrown into turmoil. She is then forced to reconsider everything that matters to her. Claire soon finds herself back at the very place she's been running from - the family property.

The blood scent was fresh. Hunger ached in her belly. The lioness slid forward as close as she dared. The little boy seconds away from death was two, maybe three years old. He was lost in the vast, heat-soaked sand that was the Kalahari desert.... Toddler Alex Theron is miraculously rescued by a passing clan of Kalahari bushmen. Over the ensuing years the desert draws him back, for it hides a beautiful secret...diamonds. But nothing comes easily from within this turbulent continent and before Alex can even hope to realise his dreams he will lose his mind to love and fight a bitter enemy.

Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.

At St Oswald’s, a long-established boys’ grammar school in the north of England, a new year has just begun. For the staff and boys of the school, a wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork and Information Technology rule the world; and Roy Straitley, the eccentric veteran Latin master, is finally – reluctantly – contemplating retirement. But beneath the little rivalries, petty disputes and everyday crises of the school, a darker undercurrent stirs.