Welsh Fiction

Opening in the late 1980s as rave culture is born and moving into the 1990s, Men In Love reunites the Trainspotting crew for a riotous new journey. Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie leave heroin behind and seek joy, and the hope of redemption, on the dance floor. Each wants to feel alive in the closing years of Thatcher’s Britain, and they fill their days with sex and romance and trying to get ahead. Taking in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris, the group charges towards an unexpected event: Sick Boy’s wedding day.

July 1284. King Edward has invited the nobility of England, Ireland, and Scotland to Nefyn, one of the most remote spots in Wales, for a Round Table—a tournament as in the tales of King Arthur to celebrate Edward's victory over the Welsh and his ascension to Arthur's throne. Not everyone sees the tournament as a friendly competition, however, and in short order, Rhys and Catrin are called to investigate the death of a knight in the retinue of the Earl of Gloucester.

August 1284. On the heels of King Edward's triumph over Wales, the high point of his reign thus far, he receives the worst news possible: his eldest living son and heir to the throne of England has died. Concerned that his victories in Wales, and even more the means by which he came by them, have brought the wrath of the Almighty down upon his house, King Edward sends Catrin and Rhys to Windsor Castle to investigate.

Captain Marryat's The Children of the New Forest is a wonderful tale in narrative, historically rich and quite fascinating. This story of adventure, treachery, and love takes place during the English Civil War, when fellow countrymen are found enemies, and are set against each other, Roundhead and Cavalier, Parliament and the King. Many hoped for the same thing: justice. But, for a long time, neither could find it. In the midst of all were the Beverlies, the family of a faithful Cavalier, who died in service of the king.

In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a 17-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.

September, 1284. Within moments of rejoining the king's company, Rhys and Catrin learn King Edward has not only melted down the silver seal of their murdered prince and turned it into a chalice, but the chalice itself has gone missing a matter of days before its intended consecration at Vale Royal Abbey.

Mark Renton has it all: He's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s.Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas.

Self Help was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism". Self Help sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles' death in 1904, it had sold over a quarter of a million. Self-Help elevated Smiles to celebrity status; almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru.

England has a new King. Henry is the young son of King John. Guided by a Council of regents and the Earl Marshal he has a divided England to heal. When William Marshal gives Sir Thomas, Earl of Cleveland, the responsibility of making the young King a warrior, he sets in motion a series of events which, although they might begin to heal the kingdom will bring pain to the Earl and his family.

Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman and Hall and first released on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

Rebecca Navarro, best-selling authoress of Regency romances, suffers a paralysing stroke. Assisted by her nurse, Rebecca plans her revenge on her unfaithful husband. Dave Thornton, soccer thug, has lost his heart to flawed beauty Samantha Worthington. Together they go in search of the man who marketed the drug that crippled her - in order to cripple him. Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance.

Plans for a town pantomime are thrown in the air after one of the actors is murdered. The victim is local gossip, nosy parker and aspiring manipulator Ivor Gladwin. Reviled by many and ignored by more, the list of people who could have wanted rid of him seems to grow by the minute. Despite having overstepped the mark in past cases, because of her familiarity with the individuals involved, ex police officer Fabia Havard is actually tasked by her boyfriend, and serving DCI, to look into the matter on the side.

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life - and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he's a fake and a con man while others see him as a genuine visionary. But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values.

Years on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realise his ambitions within the Adult industries, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton.

A rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug dealer, gonzo-porn star and taxi driver, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson finally met his match in Hurricane ‘Bawbag’?Can Terry discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison? Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star Ronald Checker?

Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge.

Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold them together into their 30s. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally, who seems to find catastrophe at every corner.

What do you do when the doctor says you could die at any moment? Well...after you’ve made a cup of tea, of course. Nathan James is young, successful and has the world at his feet. Unfortunately, he’s also about to die - which ruins things somewhat. And now he’s staring imminent death in the face, Nathan is having to rethink some of his life choices very hard. Then Nathan falls in love with a charming girl called Alison, which is a really stupid thing to do. Because how can you give your heart to someone when it might be about to stop?