Showing titles in Literary Fiction

In Victoria on a former prison colony, two exiled groups - the farmers of Shantih and the city dwellers - live in apparent harmony. All is not as it seems, however. While the peace-loving farmers labor endlessly to provide food for the city, the city bosses rule the Shantih with an iron fist. When a group of farmers decide to form a new settlement further away, the bosses retaliate by threatening to crush the "rebellion".

This is the story of a quiet man, destined to be a farmer but who becomes an academic. It is book in which nothing and everything happens and is possibly the greatest novel you've never read. William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English...

When recently widowed Deborah Maxwell is assigned by the Scottish Refugee Council to act as mentor to Abdi Hassan, a Somali refugee, the two are drawn into an awkward friendship. They must spend a year together, meeting once a month in different parts of Glasgow. As recently-widowed Deborah opens Abdi's eyes to her beloved city and its people, he teaches her about the importance of family – and of laying your ghosts to rest.

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

In the last and most complex of the Barsetshire novels, many of Trollope's best-loved characters appear, but the mood of the novel is darker and more uneasy than in earlier volumes. At the heart of the novel is the penniless Reverend Josiah Crawley, first encountered in Framley Parsonage, who in the opening of the book is accused of theft, creating a public scandal that threatens to tear the community apart.

King's brand new fiction title: a captivating collection of tales with dark - and light - twists from the master of this wonderful form. What would you do if your everyday world were turned upside down in an instant? Here are 12 riveting stories about relationships with unexpected twists. Be very careful what you wish for.

A Killing in November is an Oxford-set crime series of surprising twists, troubled pasts and a dynamic duo who are brought together by a mysterious murder investigation. Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective...

The instant Sunday Times besteller 'The work of a writer who has once again demonstrated complete command of his craft' - The Irish Times 'Short stories to astonish and delight' Financial Times 'Tales of quiet power' The Guardian In The News from Dublin, a beautiful collection of short stories...

Every marriage has two hearts, one light and one dark. Lisey knew it when she first fell for Scott. And now he's dead, she knows it for sure. Lisey was the light to Scott Landon's dark for twenty-five years. As his wife, only she saw the truth behind the public face of the famous author - that he was a haunted man whose bestselling novels were based on a terrifying reality.

The latest book in Alexander McCall Smith's entertaining and hilarious Professor von Igelfeld series Professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is not just any German professor - he is the author of that great work of scholarship, Portuguese Irregular Verbs. His eminence in language studies is widely...

THE ENCHANTING NEW NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 2022 WATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE FAIR BOTANISTS. A story of secrets, friendship and intrigue, set against the backdrop of subversive mid-19th century Glasgow, by the author of the critically acclaimed The Fair Botanists...

‘An absolute riot of a read' THE SCOTSMAN ‘A gleeful state-of-the-nation dystopia' DAILY MAIL A high NRG, whip-smart look at the state of modern Britain through the eyes of a disparate band of rave rebels, from the author of the acclaimed, bestselling debut The Young Team and one of...

It tells of the love affair between Anna and Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Russia, faith is challenged, bonds are broken, love dies and is reborn.

Ria and Marilyn have never met - they live thousands of miles apart, separated by the Atlantic Ocean: one in a big, warm, Victorian house in Tara Road, Dublin, the other in a modern, open-plan house in New England. Two more unlikely friends would be hard to find: Ria's life revolves around her...

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe An artist inherits a hundred years of...

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping new novel set in the universe of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker...

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst this destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still, they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world of utter devastation.

Brought to you by Penguin. Some stories are universal. They play out across human history. And time is the river which will flow through them. It starts with a family, a family which will mutate. For now, it is a father, mother and two sons. One with his father’s violence in his blood. One who...

'A moving and absorbing holiday read that pulls at the heartstrings' Evening Standard The acclaimed million-copy number one bestseller and winner of Richard & Judy's Summer Read 2006. Victoria Hislop tells a dramatic tale of four generations, illicit love, violence and leprosy, from the thirties...

Aspiring actor Robert is always on the look out for work, and isn’t too fussy about what he takes. Chauffeur, prison performer, children’s TV, part-time teacher - he’ll take it all, and one day he’ll be famous. Maybe the next job will be his big breaK. From the writer behind The Vicar of Dibley, this lively comedy stars John Gordon Sinclair, Caroline Quentin, Gary Waldhorn and Gina McKee.