Book Club Fiction

Vacca Vale, Indiana: recently voted number 1 on Newsweek's list of dying American cities. According to the developers, however, it's a city with a whole history of reinvention, one that 'buzzes with the American spirit.' Not every…

When you live on the edge of society, it only takes one step to fall between the cracks Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolat…

LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL is the story of two friends who ordinarily would remain uncelebrated. It finds a value and specialness in them that is not immediately apparent and prompts the idea that maybe we could learn from the people…

Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish, nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape.Flashbacks f…

Drawing on James Baldwin's own boyhood in a religious community in 1930s Harlem, his first novel tells the story of young Johnny Grimes.Johnny is destined to become a preacher like his father, Gabriel, at the Temple of the Fire Ba…

Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a…

After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John has finally found a man who returns his feelings. Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that his new unconventional marriage will bring freedom. United by a shared vision, they begin wor…

Searingly incisive, darkly funny and achingly poignant, Wet Paint is a novel about attempting to navigate the world as a twenty-something woman, exploring the highs and lows of friendship, love and loss. Since the death of her bes…

Joe Trace, door-to-door salesman, erstwhile devoted husband, shoots to death his lover of three months, 18 year old Dorcas. At the funeral, his determined, hardworking wife Violet tries to disfigure the corpse with a knife. Captur…

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate a…

'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man falsely charged…

Jean Rhys's masterpiece tells the story of Jane Eyre's 'madwoman in the attic', Bertha Rochester. Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who …

Now with added author content - a Map of Colombo as viewed from the afterlife + Dramatis Personae. A magical realism whodunnit set amid Sri Lanka's civil war.Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, …

Sylvia Plath is a major cultural icon who continues to inspire new generations of female readers. The Bell Jar is one of the defining novels of the 20th century.  Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer …

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped he…

Carrie Soto is the greatest player the world has ever seen. But six years after her last match, she watches a young British tennis player steal her world record - and Carrie knows she has to go back and reclaim her rightful place …

This is the story of Sam and Sadie. It's not a romance, but it is about love. When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one winter morning he is catapulted back to the brief time they spent playing together as chi…

In 1988 Karachi, two fourteen-year-old girls are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael.As Pakistan's dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of…

This is a small story about big questions. It's a story about family, community, life. It starts with a storm - and a death.But how does it end? Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has…

As host of radio show Brown Sugar, Kiki Banjo's mission is to protect her listeners from heartbreak. Which puts Whitewell College's newest student, handsome 'player' Malakai Korede, at the top of her hitlist. But when Kiki's dream…

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who…

Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us and all is well, for now. . . In her first novel for over a decade, Claire Kilroy takes us deep into the early days of motherhood.…

Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can.Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a litt…

I'm A Fan tells the story of an unnamed narrator's involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, Sheena Patel makes startling connections between power struggles at the heart of human …

1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and g…

When I was in eighth grade my sister helped kill another girl. For the Oliviera family - mum Carol, daughters Angel and Marie - autumn 2009 in the once-prosperous beach town of Ashaway, Rhode Island is the worst of times. Money is…

Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. Then, at a party, what was already unstable completely falls a…

Prepare your hearts, for Douglas Stuart is back. After the extraordinary success of Shuggie Bain, his second novel, Young Mungo, is another beautiful and moving book, a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow's hou…

When Mercy Garrett moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice. All she wants is space and silence. No clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond. But it turns out family life is impossible to escape - part…

1982. Northern Ireland. Nuala Malin is tied to a life she doesn't want by her daughter Sam and baby son PJ.An affair with a seventeen-year-old boy reminds her of a future she hasn't given up on, but it can't last, and when her ch…