Contemporary Fiction

Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback.She doesn't believe in …

You're trained to save the lives of others. How far would you go to protect your own?Ruthlessly ambitious Olivia, anxious perfectionist Laura and free-spirited risk-taker Anjali couldn't be more different.Yet their friendship, whi…

Clayton Stumper is an enigma.He might be twenty-five years old, but he dresses like your grandad and drinks sherry like your aunt.Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by the sharpest min…

'In my life, there are things that have happened to me, and things that I have done, that have proven to be moments that have a clear before and an after. One of those moments, perhaps in some ways the biggest, was the day that I …

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way... Marnie is stuck. Stuck working alone in her London flat, stuck battling the long afternoons and a life that often feels like it's passing her by.Michael is coming undone. Reeling …

Girlie, a thirty-something Filipinx-American, works a day job at a social-media moderation centre, flagging and removing the very worst that makes it on to the internet. She's good at it, too - dispassionate, unflinching, maybe be…

At fifty-seven, Julia Ames finds herself with an improbably lovely life. She has a husband she loves, two happy children and a contented existence in the suburbs. She's unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcem…

At sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, survivor – is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four…

'Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle; it didn't matter what'This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as …

On the Sunday of his eighteenth birthday, in 1975, Colin takes a walk on Box Hill, a biker hang-out. There he accidentally trips over Ray, a biker napping under a tree – and that’s where it all starts. This transgressive, darkly a…

Beautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to…

On an ordinary morning in an ordinary house, a woman discovers a secret her husband has been keeping.It is a secret that explodes their marriage. As Dolores grapples with her new reality, she unwillingly delves into her past to wo…

Covid-19 has arrived in London, and the entire world quickly succumbs to the surreal, chaotic mundanity of screens, isolation, and the disasters big and small that have plagued recent history. As our unnamed narratora classics pro…

The bestselling South Korean phenomenon, To the Moon is a bittersweet tale of wealth and class, female friendship, and the promise of the future when good fortune seems to be just around the corner. In Seoul, three young women mee…

Who would you choose to believe?Amos and Emerson have been friends for thirty years. Despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, the two men now form an enviable portrait of middle age: their wives are friends, their teenage…

A stunning new novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry, from the acclaimed author of Nightingale, Marina Kemp. When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday home of famed novelist Don Travers, she fe…

Your mother is not who you think she is… When the phone rings in Judy McVee’s Languedoc farmhouse, she knows her past has finally caught up with her. It’s her daughter, frantically asking why there are journalists on her London do…

It's the 1990's, and Jay is an artist tipped for greatness. Shortly after graduating from his London art school, a promising career is already taking shape before him. Despite the brutal end of his intense relationship with Alice,…

Mary is single, jobless, and on her way to Ibiza. There, at a party, she meets Tom, a brilliant chemist on the verge of launching a new drug that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life.Back in London after a heady trip, Mary …

The gorgeous, devastating must-read queer love story of the summer. 'It should be placed alongside modern love stories such as Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow'– CrackIT TOOK THREE CAR CRASHES TO KILL JAKEThe…

A medical crisis brings one man close to death – and to love, art, and beauty – in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell. A poet’s life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain.The pain brin…

Plucky fourteen-year-old Adunni is in Lagos, excited to finally enrol in school. But it's not so simple to run away from your past. On the night before she is due to join her new classmates, a terrible knocking at the front gate s…

Moving from West Belfast and County Monaghan to the streets of San Francisco, Timothy O’Grady’s exhilarating new novel is an epic portrait of art and war, authenticity and selling out, told through the fates of three men. Ronan Tr…

The first volume of the poetic, page-turning masterpiece about one woman's fall through the cracks of time. Tara Selter has slipped out of time. Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November.She no longer expects to wake up …

A portrait of the artist as a young woman in a Berlin that can’t escape its history: an electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of nightclubs, bad romance, and self-discovery‘Kaleidoscopic, full of …

From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel about intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means.Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Be…

An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge - for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan's Atonement. It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Is…

‘When my mother washed my hair she crooned, mamele, mamele, into my ear. Little mother, meaning little daughter, meaning you’re a good girl, Edie.’  Edie lives with her partner Joanna in a crumbling country house in Broadstairs. T…

Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruelties of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her…

Discover this breathtaking debut novel of family secrets and searing atmosphere set over one long, hot summer on the New Zealand coast.In the past, we had always spent our summer holidays in remote places. That had always been my …