Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Literary Fiction

By the Booker-shortlisted author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour; a wittily observed slice of modern life as it plumbs the gulf between nostalgia and reality. Who is the Roundabout Man? He doesn't look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children's books. When Quinn's reclusive existence is invaded, he has to face his past, and the uncomfortable truth of who he really is.

Sophia awakes in her new apartment. She is glad to be there, glad to have broken free of the quiet suffocation of her parental home, and glad finally to have struck out on her own. And good fortune has brought her to this curious building - The Coralena - tucked away in the only part of the city that had survived the ravages of the last war. She is leaving her troubled past behind and life seems full of possibility. She awakes, full of these promises and sees, written in the morning condensation of the inside window, one word - rage.

Shuggie Boyle is a changed man. Which is why, after serving four years for armed robbery, he's skipped his licence and jacked a pensioner's car. He is heading back to his ex-girlfriend’s house to retrieve the stash from the robbery. Happiness for Shuggie is only a few grand and a few thousand miles away - the journey from California (in Falkirk) to California (in America).

He has nowhere to go. So he goes there. The narrator of The Society of Others is an alienated young man who sees no meaning in life. He doesn't even see the point of getting out of bed in the morning. To get his family off his back, he embarks on an aimless hitchhiking adventure around Europe. But his journey soon turns into an orgy of violence...

Brenton Brown is 16 years old. A mixed race youth, Brenton has lived in a children's home all his life. Being reunited with his mother is the best thing that has happened to Brenton. But a strange series of events soon push him to the edge...

Juliet is consumed with guilt knowing that her half-brother, Brenton, grew up in children's homes while she received all her mother's love. She marries Clayton, a successful banker, to please her mother. But secretly Clayton has always suspected that there is something between Juliet and her half-brother. Meanwhile, Juliet and Brenton try to stay away from what they know is a forbidden love...

Zambawi, a banana republic in sub-Saharan Africa, is on the verge of revolution. President Adini clings to power whilst his soldiers switch sides so often they don't know which uniform to wear. It is here that student teacher Jim Tulloh arrives to indulge in a spot of character building. Then Jim is kidnapped from his bush school by the rebel Black Boot Gang and his fate takes a very unexpected turn...

The message was short: "I want to see you now. I want you to come to me, it doesn't matter how late it is, and tell me exactly what you want from me." Like the world around him, at the dawn of the 21st century, Adam Kellas' life is showing distinct signs of cracking apart. Against his better judgement, Kellas - divorced, unstable, spurned by his lover and by the world of letters - accepts a war assignment from his newspaper.

Cecilia is obsessively in love with her teacher, Mr. Dahl. Yet she never guesses that what she dreams of could actually happen. Cecilia’s mother Dora wants the good life. She and her husband moved to Dartmoor so their children could run wild; free to make their own mistakes. But Dora discovers that there is more to the countryside idyll, and indeed her own marriage, than she assumed.

The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret. Unbeknown to all but his wife Millie, Joss was a woman living as a man. The discovery is most devastating for their adopted son, Colman, whose bewildered fury brings the press to the doorstep and sends his grieving mother to the sanctuary of a remote Scottish village. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, Trumpet by Jackie Kay is a starkly beautiful modern classic about the lengths to which people will go for love.

In Jackie Kay’s first collection of stories, ordinary lives are transformed by secrets. Her world might seem familiar – sex, death and family cast long shadows – but the roles of mothers, daughters and lovers are imagined and revealed in the most surprising of ways. Jackie Kay sees the extraordinary in everyday life, and lights it up with humour and generosity in a way that is uniquely her own.

When Jerry Delfont, a travel writer with writer’s block, receives a letter from an American philanthropist, Mrs Merrill Unger, with news of a scandal involving an Indian friend of her son's, he is sufficiently intrigued to pursue the story. Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs Unger, but the circumstances surrounding the scandal cause him to doubt the exact nature of her philanthropy.

Once upon a time Gabrielle Price wrote and published an extraordinary novel. But 20 years on her literary star has dimmed, her "work of genius" is all but forgotten, and no further novels have materialised. She now lives an unremarkable life: middle-aged, living alone in the sleepy village she grew up in, and working as a housekeeper for the local vicar. Her lonely existence is dominated by memories of her best friend Madeleine, who died young, in tragic and mysterious circumstances.

Emma Maria Rossini appears to be the luckiest girl in the world. She's the daughter of a beautiful and loving mother, and her father is one of the most famous film actors of his generation. She's also the granddaughter of a rather eccentric and obscure Italian astrophysicist. But as her seemingly charmed life begins to unravel, and Emma experiences love and tragedy, she ultimately finds solace in her once-derided grandfather’s theorem on the universe.

It’s the 1950s, and Lorrie is unimpressed when her family moves to the remote Scottish island where her grandad runs a whisky distillery. She befriends Sylvie, the shy girl next door: ‘The slightest smile from Sylvie was a fluffy elephant at the fair. It had to be won with a clear aim,’ writes Lorrie. Yet fun-loving Lorrie isn’t sure Sylvie’s is the friendship she wants to win.

Theo, an aging Parisian cartographer, is desperately searching for the woman he once loved before Alzheimer’s takes his memories of her. Elise, his estranged daughter, moves in to take care of him. She still blames him for the tragic loss of her mother and is struggling with this new forced intimacy. Nebay, an Eritrean refugee, becomes Theo’s carer and friend. Unbeknownst to Elise, Nebay does not have a visa for France and is working illegally in order to support his sister.

Spring, 1840. In the Dorset market town of Wimborne Minster, a young choirboy drowns himself. Soon after, the choirmaster - a belligerent man with a vicious reputation - is found murdered, in a discovery tainted as much by relief as it is by suspicion. The gaze of the magistrates falls on four local men, whose decisions will reverberate through the community for years to come. So begins the chronicle of Crow Court, unravelling over 14 delicately interwoven episodes.

Nadia needs help. Help getting out of her hospital bed. Help taking her pills. One thing she doesn’t need help with is remembering her sister. But she does need help finding her. Alone and abandoned in a London hospital, 70-year-old Nadia is facing the rest of her life spent in a care home unless she can contact her sister Simone...who’s been missing for 50 years. Despite being told she’s ‘confused’ and not quite understanding how wi-fi works, Nadia is determined to find Simone.

You can call me Ella. Whenever you come to a crossroads, I’m that perpendicular track. My bad rap comes from the fact that the choice I offer is always, unapologetically, carnal. After making the courageous decision to leave her abusive husband, Perdie and her three young children start over and finally find the safety and love they all deserve. But years later, when tragedy strikes, Perdie is left wondering if the choice she made to leave has led them to this moment. If she were given the opportunity to take it all back and stay, would she?

At the start of this dazzlingly inventive novel from Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Abbas, a world-famous photographer and estranged father to a young novelist also named Jonas Hassen Khemiri is standing on a luxurious rooftop terrace in New York City. He is surrounded by rock stars, intellectuals and political luminaries gathered to toast his 50th birthday. And yet how did Abbas, a dirt-poor Tunisian orphan and Swedish emigre, come to enjoy such success?