Showing titles in Literature & Fiction

Connie McColl is finally free to make her own decisions for the first time in decades. And when she meets glamorous Gill and downtrodden Maggie, at a rather dull flower arranging class, it seems that she’s not the only one dreaming of adventure. The three very different women all agree it’s about time they had a holiday to remember. So they make a pact for this summer to be their best yet - and drive off into the sunset together....

All Ellie Robertson has wanted to be since childhood is a painter: after all, that’s the easiest way to speak without actually having to say anything. But now she’s turning thirty, has had a major career win, and is only just realising that she might have let some minor things slide. Like, for instance, working out how to love another human being. So Ellie decides to do what any normal person would do: paint a portrait of each of her exes, from the childhood crush to the woman she may or may not still be madly in love with.

Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.

At dinner parties and over coffee, Rabih and Kirsten's friends always ask them the same question: how did you meet? The answer comes easily - it's a happy story, one they both love to tell. But there is a second part to this story, the answer to a question their friends never ask: what happened next? Rabih and Kirsten find each other, fall in love, get married. Society tells us this is the end of the story. In fact it is only the beginning.

Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by Poundland, and London, where frenzied riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change.

A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life - mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore.The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone - and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

Professional underachiever Dan Foster is finally taking a break. Sure, his life has been average at best and, yes, he has never has quite lived up to his potential. But after a few Bud Lites in paradise with his girlfriend Mara, things are starting to look up. Then the sun explodes. With the island suddenly plunged in darkness, the ultra-rich guests hijack the remaining supplies and declare themselves as the new ruling class.

Veronica McCreedy lives in a mansion by the sea. She loves a nice cup of Darjeeling tea whilst watching a good wildlife documentary. And she’s never seen without her ruby-red lipstick. Although these days, Veronica is rarely seen by anyone, because at 85, her days are spent mostly at home, alone. She can be found either collecting litter from the beach, trying to locate her glasses, or shouting instructions to her assistant, Eileen. But today...today, Veronica is going to make a decision that will change all of this.

As well as writing about his first love, cars, James has a go at political correctness, the endless rules and regulations of daily life, the internal combustion engine and traffic wardens. He discusses gastropubs, Jeremy Clarkson, and other trials of modern life. His highly entertaining observations from behind the wheel will have you laughing out loud, whether you share his opinions or not.

A dark comedy wrapped in a techno thriller's skin, Mal Goes to War provides a satirical take on war, artificial intelligence, and what it really means to be human.

Blind dates? Online dating profiles? Been there, done that. Georgia Cummings has zero luck with dating, and the era of the Internet is not her friend. No matter how fast she runs, how many corners she turns, she can't find her way out of this weird, alternate universe where men think dick pics are a replacement for small talk and getting to know a girl. One more crotch selfie and she might write men off for good. But why can't she stop fantasizing about him?

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. If only Flashman had got on with his dinner and ignored the handkerchief dropped by a flirtatious hussy in a Calcutta hotel....

Best-selling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.

Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.

This parody takes the dragon-riding, enemies-to-lovers tension and high-stakes brutality of the original and transforms it into a hilariously absurd adventure starring Vile Soreinbut and Xadence Marriott—two characters who seem designed specifically to challenge every trope they encounter.

The night after her father's funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn't know it, but it's not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink, even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces, something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.

Following on from the brilliant The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures of Mma Ramotswe, Botswana's only female private detective. It's going to take all her intuition and eminent sensibility for Mma Ramotswe to crack her hardest case yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari.

Former Met police officer Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is working a trial period as an auxiliary Detective Sergeant with the Penstowan police force. But living and working alongside DCI Nathan Withers – while still trying to grow her catering company – brings its own challenges, especially when Jodie’s attention is quickly taken up by the suspicious drowning of a local fisherman.

Meet Zoe and Greg Milton, a married couple who have let themselves go a bit. Zoe was a stunner in her college days, but the intervening decades have added five stone, and removed most of her self-esteem. Greg's rugby-playing days are well and truly behind him, thanks to countless pints of beer and chicken curry. When Elise, a radio DJ and Zoe's best friend, tells them about a new competition, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn their lives around.

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol.