Alan Paton

Alan Pattullo

Alan Pauls

Alan Pollock is a playwright, translator and screenwriter. His numerous plays include One Night in November, Pigs and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Alan Pollock

Alan Root was born in London in 1937 but moved to Kenya as a young boy. He dropped out of school at sixteen but soon found himself behind the camera. He married Joan Thorpe in 1961 and together they produced an array of award-winning wildlife films including Baobab: Portrait of a Tree, commissioned by David Attenborough, Safari by Balloon, The Year of the Wildebeest and Castles of Clay, which was nominated for an Oscar. Alan won over sixty awards during his career, including an Emmy, three Lifetime Achievement Awards an OBE. Alan Root died in August 2017.

Alan Root

Alan Rosenthal

Alan Ruddock

Alan Rugman

Alan Rusbridger

Alan Ryan

Alan S. Blinder

Alan Shearer CBE  grew up in Newcastle, leaving home as a  teenager to pursue a career in professional football with his first  team, Southampton. He went on to  reach football stardom, winning the Premier League with Blackburn in  1995, breaking the world transfer record by signing to Newcastle United  in 1996 and achieving international success as the Captain of England.  Alan also holds the record for most goals scored in Premier League history.

Alan Shearer

Alan Siegel

Alan Simpson

Alan Spence

Alan Stewart

Alan Taylor

Alan Tennant

Alan Thompson

Alan Titchmarsh MBE is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Love Your Weekend, Love Your Garden, Ground Force, Gardeners' World, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Spring Into Summer. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as twelve novels and three volumes of memoirs. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award.

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Unterman

Alan Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known for his expertise in Eastern philosophies including Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness.

Alan W Watts

Alan Warner is the author of eight novels: Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, The Sopranos, The Man Who Walks, The Worms Can Carry Me to Heaven, The Stars in the Bright Sky, which was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, The Deadman's Pedal and Their Lips Talk of Mischief. He is Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University.

Alan Warner

Alan Watts

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including the global bestseller The World Without Us, which has been translated into 34 international languages and was nominated for numerous awards. His writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and many other places. Alan has worked on all seven continent and reported from 58 countries, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Alan Weisman

Alanna Mitchell

Alasdair Fotheringham is a freelance journalist and writer based in Spain. He writes regularly on cycling for the ‘I’, The Independent.co.uk, The Express, ProCycling and Cyclingnews. He has been reporting on the Tour de France and other top road cycling events since 1992. His first book was The Eagle of Toledo, a biography of cycling’s greatest ever climber, Federico Martín Bahamontes. He has also written Reckless, a biography of the ill-fated Luis Ocaña, the 1973 Tour winner and considered Eddy Merck’s top Grand Tour rival, and The End of the Road, an account of the 1998 Tour de France.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Wickham

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Mr Blair and the Labour Party, including during subsequent election campaigns. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics in Britain and overseas, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign Time to Change. 
 
He lives in North London with his partner of thirty-five years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published six volumes of diaries, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller, The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, and three novels.

Alastair Campbell

Alastair Nathan Cook was born in Gloucester, December 1984. He is an English cricketer. He plays for Essex County Cricket Club and previously for England. Cook is the fifth highest Test scorer of all time. 
 
He is regarded as England's most successful batsman ever and now he is an icon and role model in sport. 
 
Outside of cricket, Alastair has written columns in the Telegraph and Metro, he is a talented saxophone player and donates his time to raising money for cancer charities and the David Randall Foundation. He is now married with three children.

Alastair Cook

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Lawrence Hill

'A beautiful, compelling artifice, spun from unspeakably savage facts . . . a fiction that faces the terrible truth about slavery' The Times 
 
WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH PRIZE FOR FICTION 
 
Based on a true story, Lawrence Hill's epic novel spans three continents and six decades to bring to life a dark and shameful chapter in our history through the story of one brave and resourceful woman. 
 
Abducted from her West African village at the age of eleven and sold as a slave in the American South, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom - and of finding her way home again. 
 
After escaping the plantation, torn from her husband and child, she passes through Manhattan in the chaos of the Revolutionary War, is shipped to Nova Scotia, and then joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing return odyssey to Africa. 
 
 
What readers are saying: 
 
***** 'Beautifully written ... an enlightening read' 
***** 'Since reading, this has become my favourite book ever' 
***** 'A powerful historical account of an incredible woman's journey'

The Book of Negroes

The award-winning classic bestseller

Susannah Waters

Two young people against the world . . . 
Tammy's kitchen table is tilting. 
 
Her house is sinking into the ground, and the sun just won't stop shining. 
 
But no one seems to notice. 
 
In Alaska, things are changing fast: the permafrost is melting, temperatures are soaring, and the snow doesn't come until Christmas. 
 
When Tammy's cousin George disappears, it is Tammy who discovers him, hiding away from the world. As their strange, erotic connection intensifies, it becomes clear that George is involved in something terrible and dangerous ... 
 
Susannah Waters' atmospheric tale of a young girl obsessed with the symptoms of global warming is set on a stunning landscape that highlights what we stand to lose. It tells of the passion between two young people who refuse to sit and watch the planet die.

Cold Comfort

Judy Astley

Let bestselling author Judy Astley sweep you away with this uplifting, laugh-out-loud romance. Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley. 
 
"Warm, funny, unerringly true to life" - Katie Fforde 
"A light, enjoyable read you won't be able to resist warming to" - Daily Mail 
"With sharp dialogue that will have you laughing out loud, and well drawn characters to boot, this is an enjoyable light read" - Sunday Mirror 
"Really enjoyable...very amusing" -- ***** Reader review 
"I loved it" -- ***** Reader review 
 
************************************************************ 
 
IS THERE LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE? 
 
When Melanie finds herself single again after years of being one half of a couple, her friends predict loneliness, frustration, disaster and her parents are convinced she's a failure in life. 
But Melanie is overwhelmingly excited to be able to do her own thing - she plans a programme of behaving badly, after a lifetime of behaving properly. 
 
With her daughter off to university and ex-husband Roger married off at last - to his lamentably young girlfriend - she has a Free House, and she intends to make the most of it. 
 
But is the single life quite all it's cracked up to be?

Unchained Melanie

The perfect, light-hearted, feel-good romance to settle down with

Paolo Giordano

A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found. 
 
These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface. 
 
A meditation on loneliness and love, The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks, can we ever truly be whole when we're in love with another?

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Rhys Thomas

Craig Bartlett-Taylor was always trying to kill himself, but when he took an overdose at the back of Mrs Kenna's classroom, Richie thought he'd finally succeeded: it was a real-life Worst Case Scenario. But then the new kid, Freddy, steps in and saves Craig's life, and for Richie the lure of this mysterious newcomer is irresistible. 
 
Freddy is like nobody Richie has ever met. Dark, sardonic and dangerous, he gives flight to Richie's imagination, introducing him to a way of life he'd never thought possible. But when a night-time prank goes gut-wrenchingly wrong, Richie begins to question Freddy's motives, and all too soon he finds himself committed to a sinister pact, with inescapably tragic consequences. It's true that Freddy saved a life - but could he take one, too? 
 
With great wit and an unflinching eye for the muddle and drama of adolescence, The Suicide Club is a pitch-perfect portrait of teenage disaffection that sets boy against boy, imagination against reason - and, ultimately, life against death.

The Suicide Club

Dennis Lehane

1918. Boston. A city in turmoil as soldiers return home from World War One, bringing with them an epidemic of Spanish influenza. 
 
Danny Coughlin is the son of one of Boston's most powerful police captains. An undercover cop, he is hunting for revolutionaries and anarchists who, in the aftermath of war, are pledged to overthrow the city's ruling classes. But Danny soon finds his ideals compromised as, drawn into the conflict, his family starts to question where his loyalties really lie. 
 
Luther Lawrence is on the run. Having survived a murderous confrontation with a crime boss, he lands a job in the Coughlin household. But it isn't long before his dangerous past and his tenuous present are on a life-threatening collision course. 
 
As the city goes into meltdown, Danny and Luther must confront the storm of violence that threatens to engulf them if each is to survive...

The Given Day

Cecilia Samartin

It is 1955 and two cousins, Nora and Alicia, are growing up in Cuba, where the sea is a beguiling turquoise and at night the lights glitter like stars along Havana's shoreline. But revolutionary storm clouds are gathering, and as Fidel Castro comes to power, banks are closed, religion outlawed, and food shortages begin. Nora and her family emigrate to California; Alicia and hers stay behind. 
 
But Nora has left her heart in Cuba with her cousin. As the years pass and she becomes a woman, Alicia writes of her marriage to Tony, the birth of her daughter, and the terrible privations ordinary Cubans are suffering. 
 
When Tony is arrested for anti-revolutionary behaviour, and Alicia and her daughter's survival becomes increasingly hand-to-mouth, Nora knows she must leave her privileged life in America and return to help them. But Cuba, and Alicia's life as a single parent, is like nothing she has ever imagined...

Ghost Heart

Natasha Farrant

Deep in the English countryside, Marshwood has always been much more than just a house. It has been a place to escape to and a trap, the backdrop for elegant parties and a wartime hospital, an idyllic escape from trauma and unhappy marriages. When the roof starts to cave in and the money runs out, eighty-year-old Bella resists the pressure to sell and instead begins to peel back the layers of the past. 
As this imposing house gives up its secrets of marriage, war and forbidden love, patterns begin to repeat themselves when Bella's granddaughter's childhood sweetheart returns from the war in Bosnia. Like so many before him, Jack comes seeking solace. But he also wants Isla, who is - who really should be - unavailable to him. 
And as all three characters explore whether you can ever truly go back, the past and the present collide with shattering consequences . . .

Some Other Eden

Eleanor Bailey

Idioglossia: A secret language between a few people, a private language; a lalallation; the babble of babies or the murmur of lunatics. 
 
Bolshy, demanding, eccentric, Great Edie is a Jewish immigrant whose aspirations have always been dampened by reality and whose talents she obscures behind a bristling exterior. Her daughter Grace has been incarcerated in an asylum for most of her adult life following a tragedy from which she never recovers. As a result, Maggie, her only child, is brought up by an alcoholic father on board a cruise liner where, like him, she earns her keep as an entertainer of sorts. Her own daughter, Sarah, is truly dispossessed and, through promiscuous sex, seeks the affection denied to her as a child. 
 
Though disparate, their lives have a curious symmetry: four generations of women who have all been touched by a legacy of madness which they must, in one way or another, confront if they are to achieve fulfilment. Idioglossia is a rich and rewarding novel written with a sparklingly original voice and is destined to establish Eleanor Bailey as one of the most exciting writers of her generation.

Idioglossia

Samuel Shem

Welcome to Mount Misery psychiatric hospital, home of the crazed, the suicidal, the Machiavellian and the wicked. And that's just the doctors. For Dr Roy Basch, proudly starting his residency there, it is a bewildering and nightmarish experience. The different disciplines appear to compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce the patients to gibbering wrecks. As he immerses himself in the system, he discovers that the process of treating the patients has less to do with making them better and more with maintaining the flow of insurance company money. Basch believes that he can find meaning here, but in an enclosed world which has lost its head, he soon finds that survival, not meaning, is the most valuable lesson he will learn. 
 
Mount Misery is hilarious, provocative and terrifying. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, it is an absorbing and authentic report from within the crumbling fortress of psychiatry and tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a sight funnier too.

Mount Misery

Certain to raise a smile and warm your heart; escape for an afternoon with this gem from Judy Astley. Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley... 
 
'Warm, funny and unerringly true to life' - Katie Fforde 
'Frothy fun from an author worth noting' - DAILY EXPRESS 
'A real page-turner' -- ***** Reader review 
'An excellent read, worth indulging' -- ***** Reader review 
'Highly entertaining with dry humour and hilarious situations' -- ***** Reader review 
************************************************************************************* 
 
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER, RIGHT? 
 
Sara's mother told her that she shouldn't marry Conrad - that the twenty-five-year age gap between them would tell in the end. The end is now (apparently) approaching fast. 
 
Conrad, a famous painter, has decided that it would be good to die before he gets seriously old and so spends his time sorting out his chaotic life. Sara, teaching art at a local college, finds that she has plenty of male company - other people's husbands, ones she tells Conrad all about, who are just good friends to her. 
 
But there's one she, somehow, doesn't get round to mentioning...

Other People's Husbands

an uplifting and hilarious novel from the ever astute bestselling author Judy Astley

Catherine Ryan Hyde

A story of love, growth, fight and hope from Richard &amp; Judy bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Mitch Albom and Alice Sebold, this is a moving novel that packs a hefty punch. 
 
'A heroic, superbly crafted novel worth reading again and again and again' -- The Denver Post 
'Ryan Hyde spins her tale so effortlessly that the reader closes the book with a 
quiet sense of elation' -- San Francisco Chronicle 
'Very moving, and long after I finished it I couldn't stop thinking about it' -- ***** Reader review 
'Lovely story and wonderful characters. Can't get enough of this author' -- ***** Reader review 
'This lady is amazing. The stories she tells, weaving your emotions into the plot. I've yet to find a book of hers that, once started, I could bear to put down' -- ***** Reader review 
'One word....fantastic' -- ***** Reader review 
 
*********************************************************************** 
 
THE MAGICAL STORY OF A YOUNG BOY'S SEARCH FOR BELONGING... 
 
When Nathan McCann discovers a newborn baby boy half buried in the woods, he assumes he's found a tiny dead body. But then the baby moves and in one remarkable moment, Nathan's life is changed forever. 
 
The baby is sent to grow up with his grandmother, but Nathan can't forget him and is compelled to pay her a visit. He asks for one simple promise - that one day she will introduce the boy to Nathan and tell him, 'This is the man who found you in the woods.' 
 
Years pass and Nathan assumes that the old lady has not kept her promise, until one day an angry, troubled boy arrives on his doorstep with a suitcase . . .

When I Found You

a wonderful novel that is both heart-breaking and heart-warming from Richard & Judy bestseller Catherine Ryan Hyde

Julia Widdows

Carol has always resented her family - her mother, endlessly knitting, her father and his obsession with next door's encroaching garden hedge, and her brother, ever silent and scheming. 
 
So when she is invited to meet the vibrant, bohemian family next door in their messy house full of books and paintings and empty of rules, Carol soon begins a secret double life over the much-hated garden hedge. Here Carol voices her greatest fantasy and tells her first major lie...that she is adopted. 
 
But on her 16th birthday Carol receives the shock of her life when her wish comes true. And as, years later, Carol frenetically narrates her story from a psychiatric unit, we realise how it affected her and those around her in the darkest of ways...

Living In Perhaps

Robert Edric

It is December 1922 and the aftershocks of the First World War continue to make themselves felt. Ex-soldier, poet and composer Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid schizophrenia, is transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford. 
 
Neglected by the military and by his own family, and abandoned by all but a notable handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him. 
 
Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney's capabilities - in his 'wayward genius'. For a brief period, it seems that he might find some calm and ease in his life, and thus achieve the status so many consider him capable of.

In Zodiac Light

Jim Cartwright

Sitting among the rows of tills in Supersafe supermarket in the North of England, the fortunes of a young checkout girl are on the brink of change ... 
 
 
Linda works the tills at Safeshop. It's what everyone does. The grammar school girls get the careers; the comp girls get the two-bit college courses and the low wage jobs. But when model agent Rafe brings his disposable razors to Linda's till, he recognises the raw talent that could transform both their lives. Almost overnight, Linda becomes Crystalline, a supermodel catapulted onto the international stage. But in the blur of first class flights and flashy restaurants, will she begin to forget where Crysatline ends and Linda begins? 
 
 
 
The bittersweet story of a young checkout girl's rise to fame, this is prize-wining playwright Jim Cartwright's first novel. Bearing the hallmarks of his best-loved play, THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE and ROAD, this rollicking debut takes the reader on a journey from which there is no going back.

Supermarket Supermodel

John Boyne

Pickpocket John Jacob Turnstile is on his way to be detained at His Majesty's Pleasure when he is offered a lifeline, what seems like a freedom of sorts - the job of personal valet to a departing naval captain. Little does he realise that it is anything but - and by accepting the devil's bargain he will put his life in perilous danger. For the ship is HMS Bounty, his new captain William Bligh and their destination Tahiti. 
 
From the moment the ship leaves port, Turnstile's life is turned upside down, for not only must he put his own demons to rest, but he must also confront the many adversaries he will encounter on the Bounty's extraordinary last voyage. Walking a dangerous line between an unhappy crew and a captain he comes to admire, he finds himself in a no-man's land where the distinction between friend and foe is increasingly difficult to determine...

Mutiny On The Bounty

Andrea Busfield

For fans of THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hossein and Yasmin Khadra's THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL, a devastating tale of forbidden love between an Englishwoman and a Kabul warlord. 
 
The Taliban have disappeared from Kabul's streets, but the long shadows of their brutal regime remain. In his short life eleven-year-old Fawad has known more grief than most: his father and brother have been killed, his sister has been abducted, and Fawad and his mother, Mariya, must rely on the charity of family to eke out a hand-to-mouth existence. 
Then Mariya finds a position as housekeeper for a charismatic western woman, Georgie, and Fawad dares to hope for an end to their struggle. He soon discovers that his beloved Georgie is caught up in a dangerous love affair with the powerful Afghan warlord Haji Khan, a legendary name on the streets of Kabul. At first resentful of Haji Khan's presence, Fawad learns that love can move a man to act in surprising ways, and an overwhelming act of generosity persuades him of the warlord's good intentions. 
But even a man as influential as Haji Khan can't protect Fawad from the next tragedy to blight his young life, a tragedy so devastating that it threatens to destroy the one thing Fawad thought he could never lose: his love for his country.

Born Under a Million Shadows

Stephen Clarke

Paul West has just received an offer he can't refuse: 
_________________ 
 
Two weeks in the sun. 
 
All expenses paid. 
 
With a beautiful blonde called Gloria Monday. 
 
But it soon becomes obvious that Gloria, or M as she likes to be known, has bigger fish to fry. 
 
Meanwhile Paul is asked to cater his best friend’s wedding. Cooking for the French is a risky assignment at the best of times, but Paul assures the bride that nothing can go wrong. 
 
Or can it? 
 
When Paul discovers that M's real target is the French president, and that he's coming to Elodie's wedding, he realises that the merde is about to hit the fan...

Dial M For Merde

How to cook for the French president

Lawrence Goldstone

Philadelphia, 1889 
 
In the morgue of the city hospital, physicians uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. 
 
Within days, one of the surgeons, Ephraim Carroll, strongly suspects that he knows the woman's identity. His investigations take him from the bloody and brutal medical world in which he practices and into the drawing rooms of Philadelphia's high society where he soon learns that nothing - and no one - is what they seem. 
 
Plunged into a maze of deception and deadly secrets, Carroll is forced to choose between exposing a killer, undoing a terrible wrong, and, quite possibly, protecting the future of medicine itself. 
 
Set in a world in which aspirin had not been invented, abortion was illegal, and pregnancy could result in agonising death, The Anatomy of Deception is an intriguing and richly atmospheric blend of history, early forensic science and knife-edge suspense.

The Anatomy Of Deception

Susan Barker

BY THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF THE INCARNATIONS AND SAYONARA BAR 
 
Malaya 1951, a jungle resettlement camp: young colonial adventurer Christopher Milnar falls passionately in love with a Chinese nurse Evangeline - a fierce flame that ends in tragedy when their camp is attacked by Communist guerrillas and Christopher is violently beaten up. 
 
London: half a century later the ghosts of that time return to haunt Christopher, triggering vivid memories of colonial misconduct and lost love. Forced to confront his past, Christopher agonises over the fate of his beloved Evangeline and the disappearance of their daughter. 
 
Moving from present day London to the heart of the Malayan jungle in colonial times, THE ORIENTALIST AND THE GHOST is a stunning portrayal of human frailty and lost love.

The Orientalist And The Ghost

Mogue Doyle

Rural Ireland in the 1960s: if you were a boy, you listened to Luxembourg on the wireless, went to the pictures, went hurling up the fields with your best friend, thought about what the big boys got up to with the girls, and in particular what your brother did with his girlfriend, Minnie. Your mam ruled the house and you watched out for your father - the old lad - who was liable to fly into rages and give you a right ringer when you weren't expecting it. Most of all, you knew everything about the village where you lived, and everyone there. And Tony did; he was one smart boy, ready for anything - at least he thought he was until the day he saw his father with Mrs Rourke and was involved in an accident that changed everything. 
 
Dancing with Minnie the Twig is Tony's story. It is a haunting and very special novel as, on the day of his funeral, he watches his family, friends and the rest of the community arrive at the church and prepare for the service to mark the end of his short life. In terms of its rural setting and its focus on a small community that, even in Ireland, has long since ceased to exist, the book has real echoes of Dancing at Lughnasa. It's Irish in the best sense of the word; the characters step out of the pages to meet you, and although Tony is dead, his narrative voice blazes with life. Very funny in parts, the novel is overlaid with a melancholy for times past that lingers long after the final page has been turned.

Dancing With Minnie The Twig

Jane Davis

When Tom Fellows proclaims that a Venn diagram is a far better way of illustrating modern family ties than a traditional tree, his young daughter Andrea has no idea that he is referring to their own situation.It is only when she loses both parents in a shocking car accident that she takes an interest in her own genealogy and begins to realize that her perfect upbringing was not all that it seemed... 
 
Half-truths &amp; White Lies is a beautifully crafted, thought-provoking novel that questions the influence of the people who are missing from our lives. It examines the thin line between love and friendship, looking at our complex emotional needs. It also explores how one woman's life is dictated by her desire for children, whilst another's is shaped by her decision not to have them.

Half-truths & White Lies

Debbie Carbin

Beth Sheridan likes her life the way it is. OK, so her job's a little dull and her social life leaves a lot to be desired. But none of that really matters because Beth is in love with Richard. And one day they will be together. Yes, there are a few teeny obstacles, like the fact that Richard has been Beth's boss for eight years and that he is currently living in Portugal with another woman. But these are just minor details because Beth just knows that one day, the scales will fall from Richard's eyes and he will realise that it is Beth that he has always wanted. 
 
Beth's feisty flatmate Vini doesn't harbour any such illusions and decides that Beth needs to give up on Richard and find love elsewhere. Reluctantly Beth agrees to Vini's (at times extreme) plan of action. Following a puppeteers convention, a speed dating event, a chance encounter in a shopping mall and some pretty flirtatious email banter, Beth is suddenly dealing with three new men. There's the lovely down-to-earth Brad, who she just can't quite pin down, and the charming, millionaire Rupert. She's never actually met Rupert but judging from his emails, he seems to just get her. What's more, there's also sleazy Sean from the office who's suddenly seeming not-so-sleazy ... 
 
And just when things couldn't get more complicated, the gorgeous Richard waltzes back into her life. What's a girl to do?

Three Men and a Maybe

Afsaneh Knight

What makes a father violent? It takes a brave man to find out . . . 
 
As a volunteer at St Margaret's Hospice, eager and helpful Meryl is looking for a role in life. The arrival of Jamie, the son of a patient, may be just what she is after. He is good-looking, young and, above all, troubled. 
 
Jamie's father has only a few days to live, but between father and son is a lifetime of misunderstanding and unhappiness. Could the most powerful legacy Jamie faces be an inability to love? With well-meaning Meryl hovering in the background, Jamie embarks on his long dark night of the soul, facing the secrets, lies and heartbreaks behind his father's life. 
 
Meanwhile his dying father, seemingly unconscious to it all, relives his extraordinary history, from the triumphs of his life as a boxer, to the onset of a crippling illness he doesn't understand. And in the quiet of the night, he receives strange visitors of his own....

Slaughterhouse Heart

Mary Doria Russell

Dreamers Of The Day

Matt Beaumont

Friends, family, workmates. The woman you see at the bus stop every morning; the man who reaches for the last newspaper just before you get to it. Everyone you meet, and some you nearly meet, will have an impact on the way your day goes. 
 
Small World is the story of a group of men and women, living and working in a city, who are connected through love, work, friendship, or simply by virtue of proximity. We connect with the hearts and minds of characters including an all-coping housewife, a stressed out working mother, a put-upon nanny, a long-suffering journalist, an Indian waiter who dreams of stardom, a grieving shop assistant, a stand-up comic and a psychotic policeman - all of whom speak directly to us about their innermost thoughts, fears and desires in a series of interwoven first-person narratives.

Small World

Anne Fine

Guilt is in the eye of the beholder ... 
 
When her cold and indifferent husband vanishes, so does Lois's old life. Now she is ready to take her chances again. There's only one fly in the ointment: Janie-Gay, ex-partner of the son Lois lost to drugs, and spiteful mother of the small, neglected child she can't get out of her mind. 
 
Caring's not something one can lay aside, and Lois is soon tangled in webs of deceit. Worse, she is on a collision course with a remorseless society that claims to support and protect. Now, more than ever, she could use the skills of her once frozen heart...

Fly in the Ointment

David Ebershoff

Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime. 
Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. 
Bold, shocking and gripping, The 19th Wife expertly weaves together these two narratives: a pageturning literary mystery and an enthralling epic of love and faith.

The 19th Wife

The gripping Richard and Judy bookclub page turner

Joanna Trollope

Fans of Erica James, Elizabeth Noble and Amanda Prowse will love this enthralling novel from the pen of multi-million copy bestselling author Joanna Trollope. With her customary acute observation and expert characterisation, Trollope makes her readers not only identify with her characters but also become deeply attached to them. You will not be able to put this book down! 
 
'Trollope, as ever, can be relied upon to deliver a good read' -- Mail on Sunday 
'An entertaining novel' -- Independent on Sunday 
'Hits a right and ringing note and keeps hitting it' -- Independent 
'Excellent gripping to the end' -- ***** Reader review 
'This, for me, was a "can't put down" type of book!!' -- ***** Reader review 
'Best Trollope book I have read so far!' -- ***** Reader review 
'Pure pleasure' -- ***** Reader review 
 
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THEY WOULDN'T LET ANYTHING - OR ANYONE - GET IN THE WAY OF THEIR FRIENDSHIP, WOULD THEY? 
 
Friday nights, the best night of the week, the night they all looked forward to more than they cared to admit - talking, drinking, laughing and crying together. 
 
 They were six female friends, different in age and circumstances, but with one common need: the warmth and support of their Friday nights. It was a time to share secrets and fears, triumphs and tragedies and, above all, to feel safe in the company of women friends. 
 
But things never stay the same forever, especially when a man is introduced into the mix...

Friday Nights

an engrossing novel about female friendship – and its limits – from one of Britain’s best loved authors, Joanna Trollope

This thought-provoking, compulsive novel shows how a simple story has the power to move you in the most extraordinary ways. From Richard & Judy bestselling Catherine Ryan Hyde, perfect for fans of Mark Haddon, Mitch Albom and Alice Sebold. 
 
'This gritty love story is compelling reading' -- Sun 
'Surprisingly wonderful' -- Mirror 
'Couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
'Riveting' -- ***** Reader review 
'Engrossing page turner' -- ***** Reader review 
'Pure escapism from beginning to end' -- ***** Reader review 
'A wonderful, wonderful read' -- ***** Reader review 
************************************************************************** 
A CHANCE MEETING ON A TRAIN, AND TWO LIVES CHANGED FOREVER... 
 
Sebastian, at 17, has never eaten pizza, never been to school, never even hung out with other kids. He rides the subway at night to escape his father's strict, possessive parenting. 
 
Maria, 22 and mother to two young children, has just lost her job. Afraid to confess to her violent boyfriend, Maria resorts to riding the subway when he thinks she's at work. 
 
And then one night, on an empty train, Sebastian and Maria make eye contact . . .

Chasing Windmills

a compelling and deeply moving novel from bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde

Five Minute Mum

Flaptastic

Fluffy

Folk Art

Football Academy

Football Skills

Forbidden Spaces Trilogy

Foul Play

DICK FRANCIS was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys and author of forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), the biography of Lester Piggott and his own autobiography (The Sport of Queens). He was rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world. 
 
 Since his death, his son FELIX FRANCIS has taken over the literary reigns from his father and Dick's legacy lives on through the Dick Francis novels. The Francis flair is clear for all to see in these national treasure thrillers, and readers will appreciate the sporadic reappearance of beloved series characters Sid Halley and Jeff Hinkley.

Francis Thriller

Frank Behr

Once a Detective Inspector in the Nottinghamshire Force, Frank Elder has retired to an isolated cottage in Cornwall, and is trying to live the quiet life. The past, however, is never far behind him.

Frank Elder

Fred

Free Collars Kingdom

Jean Plaidy combines imagination with facts to bring the French Revolution alive in this dynamic historical fiction series. From Louis XV’s debauchery to Marie Antionette’s demise, it is clear there was only one way this was going to end.

French Revolution

French Vintage Classics

Frieda Klein

Fright Club

From Scratch

Frontline Nurses Series

Frostheart

Fun With Ladybird

Funnybones

G.F. Newman’s The Corrupted

Gabriel's Inferno

The Roman grip on Britain is growing weaker and Druids are on the rise. Emperor Nero has turned away. Boudicca is preparing to lead tribes to war. 
 
Standing in her way is Gaius Valerius Verrens, commander of the veterans legion. In this battle he earns the accolade of Hero of Rome - but where will that title lead him next?

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