Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

Lucy, staying in a beautiful home overlooking Venice Beach, can find no peace from her misery - not in therapy, not in Tinder hookups, not in her sister's dog's unquestioning devotion, not in ruminating on the ancient Greeks. Yet everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer one night while sitting alone on the beach rocks....

In 1972, two seconds were added to time. It was in order to balance clock time with the movement of the earth. Byron Hemming knew this because James Lowe had told him and James was the cleverest boy at school. But how could time change? The steady movement of hands around a clock was as certain as their golden futures.Then Byron’s mother, late for the school run, makes a devastating mistake. Byron’s perfect world is shattered. Were those two extra seconds to blame? Can what follows ever be set right?

In the lucrative world of Wall Street finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are the ultimate high-flyers. Ruthlessly ambitious, they make billion-dollar deals and live lives of outrageous luxury. Getting rich is all that matters, and they'll do anything to get ahead.When the four of them become trapped in an elevator escape room, things start to go horribly wrong. They have to put aside their fierce office rivalries and work together to solve the clues that will release them. But in the confines of the elevator the dark secrets of their team are laid bare.

Following the death of her bullying husband, Etta Bancroft's selfish children move her to a village in the Cotswolds. One night, she discovers a filly, left to die in the snow. With help, Etta rescues the horse, and she and her friends form a syndicate to pay for her upkeep. As the horse recovers, she begins to show racing pedigree, so the syndicate enters her into a maiden hurdle - and are shocked at the result.

A silver brumby is special, but he will be hunted by man and horse alike, and must be stronger than both... Thowra's speed and courage have always saved him from the men who want to capture him - until now, when the men come on skis quickly and silently over the mountains. This time Thowra must protect his daughter from the hunters who prize the silver brumbies above any other horse.

Caroline Cliburn was to be married next Tuesday, and yet she suspected that gratitude was the wrong reason to become a bride. Perhaps that was why she and her younger brother Jody had taken the long drive north to Scotland in search of her missing brother Angus.... When a sudden spring blizzard leaves them stranded by the roadside, it is the snow that gives both her and a lonely young Scot one last chance to find the healing warmth of love.

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity, he can stay one step ahead of his past – and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love. But what if the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him?

In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life - the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. Anne Rice's compulsively readable novel is arguably the most celebrated work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker's Dracula which was published in 1897.

Once it had been the great forest of Lythe--a vast and impenetrable thicket of green. And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor, visited once by the great Gloriana herself. But over the centuries, the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees. The Fairfaxes have dwindled, too; now they live in Arden, at the end of Hawthorne Close, and are hardly a family at all.

「君はこれから世界でいちばんタフな15歳の少年になる」――15歳の誕生日がやってきたとき、僕は家を出て遠くの知らない街に行き、小さな図書館の片隅で暮らすようになった。

Queenie Hanlon has a perfect life. She's the mother of two adoring children, the wealthy owner of a thriving outback station, and the lover of handsome bushman TR Hamilton. Then one day when TR is seriously injured in a riding accident, Queenie's perfect life suddenly comes crashing down.

Alby's partner Harry is gunned down in a Double Bay coffee shop. By lunchtime Alby realizes someone wants him dead - and they want him dead now. All Alby wants is some pasta, a good bottle of wine and to know more about the mysterious Grace Goodluck. But he also has to figure out who shot Harry and who wants him dead. Unfortunately for Alby, the answer lies over the razor wire and past mines protecting a top-secret US military facility deep in the central Australian desert. Now that can really ruin your day.

Each of the four who travel this journey has a story to tell. An environmentalist fights to save the primitive and beautiful Pilbara coast from the careless ravaging of mining conglomerates; a Vietnam War veteran rises above crippling injuries to discover a talent that gains him an international reputation; and an ambitious geologist joins forces with a hard-core businessman to lead the way in the growth of Perth from a sleepy town to a glittering citadel.

Carrie White is no ordinary girl. Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis. To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie – the first step towards social acceptance by high school colleagues. But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her terrible gift on the town that mocks and loathes her...

Read by the critically acclaimed actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. When Esther Greenwood wins an internship at a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio's father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, now a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train upends Sami's visit and changes his life forever. Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic. Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the nuances of emotion that are the substance of passion.

At nearly 90, retired nature writer Hattie Bloom prefers the company of birds to people, but when a fall lands her in a nursing home, she struggles to cope with the loss of independence and privacy. From the confines of her 'room with a view' of the carpark, she dreams of escape. A fellow 'inmate', the gregarious would-be comedian Walter Clements, also plans on returning home as soon as he is fit and able to take charge of his mobility scooter.

When Justine Carmichael (Sagittarius, aspiring journalist and sceptic) bumps into her old friend Nick Jordan (Aquarius, struggling actor and true believer) it could be by chance. Or perhaps it's written in the stars. Justine works at the Alexandria Park Star - and Nick, she now learns, relies on the magazine's astrology column to guide him in life. Looking for a way to get Nick's attention, Justine has the idea of making a few small alterations to 'Aquarius' before it goes to print. It's only a horoscope, after all. What harm could changing it do?

Whether discovering that being dyslexic means delivering your lines to camera back to front in the midst of filming a TV series, or starting a new business and travelling the world, or dealing with life's more sober moments like the birth of a son or the loss of a father, Paul Carter is still the funniest man in the bar and the nicest alpha male you'll ever meet as he risks all for the sake of a good story.

Meg and Nina are two sisters living very different lives. Meg is super organised and possibly OCD; Nina is so depressed she is living like a homeless person in her own flat and feels as though she has lost control of her life. As a result, she has become estranged from her family. But when Meg's repeated attempts to make contact with her eventually succeed, Nina can't refuse her request to head north with her and their younger sister Amber, whose drug addictions have torn the family apart.