Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Liane Moriarty

The Delaney family love one another dearly - it's just that sometimes they want to murder each other ... Joy Delaney and husband Stan have done well. Four wonderful grown-up children. A family business to envy. The golden years of retirement ahead of them. So when Joy Delaney vanishes - no note, no calls, her bike missing - it's natural that tongues will wag. How did Stan scratch his face? And who was the stranger who entered and suddenly left their lives? What are they all hiding? But for the Delaney children there is a much more terrifying question: did they ever know their parents at all?

Apples Never Fall

Nick Hornby

Lucy married just the sort of man you might expect: a university graduate who runs his own business. Unfortunately he turned out to have serious dependency issues. 
 
Joseph is shaking off the memory of his last date, a girl who ticked all the right boxes and also drove him up the wall. 
 
On an average Saturday morning in a butcher's shop in North London, Lucy and Joseph meet on opposite sides of the counter. She is a teacher and mother of two, with a past she is trying to forget; he is an aspiring DJ with a wide-open future that maybe needs to start becoming more focused. Lucy and Joseph are opposites in almost all ways. Can something life-changing grow from uncommon ground? 
 
Nick Hornby's brilliantly observed, tender and brutally funny new novel gets to the heart of what it means to fall headlong in love with the best possible person - someone who may not be just like you at all.

Just Like You

Beryl Bainbridge

Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. 
 
Joseph decides to take his mistress and son, together with a few friends, to stay in a cabin in deepest Wales for the weekend - with absolutely disastrous results. Beryl Bainbridge's gift for deadpan dialogue and spare narrative, and her darkly comic vision of the world, are all in evidence in this early novel.

Another Part of the Wood

Alex George

This is the story of the Meisenheimer family, told by James, a third-generation American living in Beatrice, Missouri. It's where his German grandparents - Frederick and Jette - found themselves after journeying across the turbulent Atlantic, fording the flood-swollen Mississippi, and being brought to a sudden halt by the broken waters of the pregnant Jette. 
 
A Good American tells of Jette's dogged determination to feed a town sauerkraut and soul food; the loves and losses of her children, Joseph and Rosa; and the precocious voices of James and his brothers, sometimes raised in perfect harmony . . . sometimes in discord. 
 
But above all, A Good American is about the music in Frederick's heart, a song that began as an aria, was jazzed by ragtime, and became an anthem of love for his adopted country that the family still hears to this day.

A Good American

Nicholas Searle

Francis O'Neill is an IRA terrorist - and he will kill for the cause. 
 
 Gentleman Joe is his boss - and he wants power. 
 
 Liam is his brother - and he wants money. 
 
 Richard is the British intelligence officer - and he wants to recruit him. 
 
Bridget is his wife - and she wants to get out. 
 
A Traitor in the Family is the story of a man who remains devoted to a cause, while everyone around him gives in to temptation...

A Traitor in the Family

Richard Powers

'There is no contemporary American writer quite like Richard Powers ... It is rare to find a novel as intellectually and emotionally engaging as this' GUARDIAN 
 
'Formidable ... rewarding' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'An astonishing performance' NEW YORK TIMES 
 
Jonah, Ruth, and Joseph are the children of mixed-race parents who aspire to raise them beyond the constraints of time and identity, immersing them in a world of song. However, they cannot shield them from the realities of the outside world forever. 
 
Jonah, a talented young tenor, finds that the opera world remains preoccupied with his race. Ruth, rejecting classical music, disappears instead into a life dedicated to activism and a new relationship. Over the years, Joseph - the middle child, a pianist, and our narrator - struggles not only to stay connected to his siblings but also to carve out a future on his own. 
 
A powerful story of a tragedy of race in America, The Time of Our Singing is an enthralling, harrowing novel about the lives of choices of one family at the crossroads of identity.

The Time of our Singing

Caryl Lewis

**WINNER OF THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023** 
**WATERSTONES WELSH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022** 
 
 
'Truly beautiful and haunting, and an incredible feat of storytelling' DONAL RYAN 
 
'A tender, unusual and gorgeously wrought love story' RACHEL JOYCE 
 
'In times of war, Lewis finds resilience, redemption and hope...DRIFT feels perfectly judged' OBSERVER 
 
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEBUT FROM THREE-TIME WINNER OF WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR CARYL LEWIS: A STORY OF LOVE, MAGIC AND THE IRRESISTIBLE LURE OF THE SEA. 
 
Nefyn has always been an enigma, even to her brother Joseph with whom she lives in a small cottage above a blustery cove. 
 
Hamza is a Syrian mapmaker, incarcerated in a military base a few miles up the coast. 
 
A violent storm will bring these two lost souls together - but other forces will soon try to tear them apart... 
 
Moving between the wild Welsh coast and war-torn Syria, Drift is a love story with a difference, a hypnotic tale of lost identity, the quest for home and the wondrous resilience of the human spirit. 
 
'A truly magical and transformative novel. I loved it.' KIRSTY CAPES, author of CARELESS

Drift

Winner of the Wales Book of the Year

Adam Haslett

Michael is a bright kid: funny, likable, obsessed with books and music. His sister Celia is the practical one, sensible, far tougher than her brothers. And then there's Alec, the most ambitious of the three but also the most sensitive, growing up in the shadow of his older siblings. The children are still living at home when their father walks into the woods alone one day and takes his own life. Years later, one of them will follow him. 
 
Weaving together the voices of five family members, Adam Haslett imagines how a single tragedy can define many lives.

Imagine Me Gone

Justin Quinn

Declan and Sinead Boyle are pillars of society - born into prosperous families, educated at Dublin's finest schools, dwellers in a fine house in a leafy suburb. So why are they in so much trouble? 
 
 Mount Merrion, the dazzling debut novel by Justin Quinn, tells the story of the Boyles from Declan and Sinéad's first meeting, in the late fifties, through decades of success, failure and tragedy. Set against the brilliantly realized backdrop of a changing Ireland, it is a page-turning drama, a biting satire and a lovingly detailed portrait of a marriage and a family.

Mount Merrion

Marian Keyes

Stella Sweeney is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life with her husband Ryan and their two teenage kids in Dublin. She works with - or really for - her terrifyingly ambitious sister Karen in their beauty salon. Nothing to get excited about here. Nothing to make her particularly unhappy. Or happy . . . No one would be interested in stealing her life. 
 
But then things started to happen . . . 
 
Suddenly Stella has a life. A thrilling, glamorous one. A life that other people might start to covet . . .

The Woman Who Stole My Life

British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022

Malorie Blackman

'The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing story-telling could be' - Stormzy 
 
Sephy is a Cross: she lives a life of privilege and power. Callum is a nought: he's considered to be less than nothing - a blanker, there to serve Crosses. 
 
They've been friends since they were children, and they both know that's as far as it can ever go. Noughts and Crosses are fated to be bitter enemies - love is out of the question. Then - in spite of a world that is fiercely against them - these star-crossed lovers choose each other. But this is love story that will lead both of them into terrible danger . . . and which will have shocking repercussions for generations to come.

Noughts & Crosses

25th Anniversary Special Edition

Fran Littlewood

Alex, Nancy and Eva Fisher. Three grown-up sisters, loved equally by their parents, Vivienne and Patrick. 
 
Or so they thought. 
 
Until, during a family holiday, Patrick lets slip that he has a favourite. While they try to gloss over it, this sets in motion the unravelling of everything the sisters thought they knew - including their much treasured family bond. 
 
But will it take falling apart to bring them closer together?

The Favourite

Amanda Peters

One family’s deepest pain. Another’s darkest secret. Who will they be when the truth comes out? 
 
On a hot day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields, while their family, Mi’kmaq people from Nova Scotia, pick fruit. That afternoon, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. As the last person to see her, Joe will be forever haunted by grief, guilt, and the agony of imagining how his life could have been. 
 
In an affluent suburb nearby, Norma is growing up as the only child of unhappy parents. She is smart, precocious, and bursting with questions she isn’t allowed to ask – about her missing baby photos; her dark skin; the strange, vivid dreams of campfires and warm embraces that return night after night. Norma senses there are things her parents aren’t telling her, but it will take decades to unravel the secrets they have kept buried since she was a little girl. 
 
The Berry Pickers is an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and the power of family – even in the face of grief and betrayal.

The Berry Pickers

Nominated for the Costa Children's Book Award 
 
'The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing story-telling could be' STORMZY 
 
'Malorie's Noughts & Crosses series is the first time I saw myself in a book . . . they were pacey, exciting, rich. What Malorie Blackman has always done so brilliantly is put the minority front and centre, both in society and politics.' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS 
 
'The most original book I've ever read' BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH 
 
'Malorie Blackman is absolutely amazing ... [Noughts & Crosses] really spoke to me, especially as a woman of dual heritage.' ZAWE ASHTON 
 
'Crossfire is searing, political and furious. Malorie's world building is sublime and the way the Noughts & Crosses series holds a mirror up to society is unrivalled' JUNO DAWSON 
_____ 
 
A sudden frisson of awareness crackled through me like a static shock. 
‘Hello, Callie. What’s what?’ 
The baritone voice made my head snap up. 
Tobey Durbridge. 
 
Years have passed since the love between Sephy - a Cross - and Callum - a Nought - destroyed their world and changed their families and society forever. 
 
Society appears to be very different now. For the first time ever, a Nought Prime Minister - Tobey Durbridge - is in power. Race and class don't divide people anymore. But things are never really that easy. 
 
Because Tobey's just been framed for murder, and the only way to free himself is to turn to his oldest friend - Callie-Rose. 
 
Their families divisions run deep, and when two young people are kidnapped, their lives and everything they've fought for are put in the firing line. 
 
And when you're playing a game as dangerous as this one, it won't be long before someone gets caught in the crossfire... 
 
Voted as one of the UK's best-loved books, Malorie Blackman's Noughts & Crosses series is a seminal piece of YA fiction; a true modern classic.

Crossfire

Anita Brookner

The latecomers are Hartmann and Fibich, brought over to England as children to escape Nazi Germany, now living close to each other in London in their 60s, and still friends. Yet they could not be more different, each having adopted different strategies to reconcile themselves with their past and to cope with an uncertain world.

Latecomers

Cyprian Ekwensi

'"Forget all your fears now. Have a fling this night"' 
 
Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins stories and breaks hearts in this rollicking story set in the 'sensational city' of 1960s Lagos. 
 
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Glittering City

Elif Shafak

'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten' 
 
And so begins the story of Esma, a young Kurdish woman in London trying to come to terms with the terrible murder her brother has committed. Esma tells the story of her family stretching back three generations; back to her grandmother and the births of her mother and Aunt in a village on the edge of the Euphrates. 
 
Named Pembe and Jamila (meaning Pink and Beautiful rather than the names their mother wanted to call them, Destiny and Enough), the twin girls have very different futures ahead of them, all of which will end in tragedy on a street in East London in 1978. 
 
Honour is a powerful, brilliant and moving account of pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that can tear any family apart.

Honour

Kit de Waal

A STUDENT EDITION 
 
It’s 1981, a year of riots and royal weddings. Amid tumult and change, nine-year-old Leon tries to find his place. He and his little brother Jake have gone to live with Maureen. They’ve lost one home, but have they found another? 
 
Maureen feeds and looks after them. She has wild red hair and mutters swearwords under her breath when she thinks they can’t hear. She claims everything will be okay. But will they ever see their mother again? Who are the couple who secretly visit Jake? Between the street violence and the street parties, Leon must find a way to reunite his family . . . 
 
This education edition includes teacher-designed guided reading questions. For more information, including interviews with author Kit de Waal and activities related to studying My Name is Leon, visit https://www.penguin.co.uk/lit-in-colour/teaching-resources 
 
WINNER OF THE IRISH NOVEL PRIZE 
 
‘Startlingly funny. Balances the gritty with the feel good’ Observer

My Name Is Leon

GCSE Education Edition

David Bezmozgis

'Terrific ... Combines comic brilliance with a poignant portrait of a family trapped between two worlds' Sunday Times 
 
In the summer of 1978 the Krasnansky family - bickering, tired and confused - arrive in Rome. Alongside thousands of other Soviet Jewish refugees they await passage to a new home in the West. But escaping Communism is not so easy, especially when some of the Krasnanskys insist on bringing it with them. It is harder still when their American sponsor lets them down and they find they're stuck. 
What follows is a tragic yet comic tale of reckless brothers and long-suffering sisters, ailing parents and innocent children, of love affairs and criminal liaisons, of a wonderfully troubled family and a perpetually wandering people, and their epic search for a home...

The Free World

J. D. Salinger

Franny Glass and Lane Coutell are the perfect campus couple: beautiful, intelligent, their whole lives ahead of them. But on the weekend of the big game, when Franny comes to visit, something goes wrong and tensions begin to surface. 
 
Franny's older brother is Zooey. They come from a sophisticated and highly eccentric family: all seven Glass siblings are former child stars, each in their own way charismatic and yet damaged. And when Franny's anxiety spirals into a more serious breakdown, Zooey is the only one who might be able to reach her. 
 
A novel in two intertwining stories, Franny and Zooey brilliantly captures the emotional strains and ruptures of entering adulthood. Enduringly resonant, incisive and expansive in both sense of that word, it is unmistakeably the work of a master.

Franny and Zooey

Sinéad Moriarty

Sophie and Mandy, Anna and Laura - two daughters and two mothers and a story about the bond of motherly love. 
 
Sophie is a happy 18-year-old living in London with Anna, her Irish mother. Anna has devoted her life to Sophie. It may be just the two of them - no father nor grandparents, no uncles nor aunts - but Anna has more than enough love to give. Sophie has everything she could ever need. 
 
Laura is a not-so-happy artist. She too has a daughter, Mandy. But Laura is haunted by the loss of her first child, Jody. Happy-go-lucky as she is, Mandy lives in Jody's shadow and wonders why her mother can never let go. 
 
Both mothers carry secrets in their hearts and cannot forget the day their paths crossed. But a chance discovery is about to bring everything into the open and mothers and daughters, love and lies, past and future, will spectacularly collide . . .

This Child of Mine

Taiye Selasi

Meet the Sais, a Nigerian-Ghanaian family living in the United States. A family prospering until the day father and surgeon Kweku Sai is victim of a grave injustice. Ashamed, he abandons his beautiful wife Fola and their little boys and girls, causing the family to fracture and spiral out into the world - New York, London, West Africa, New England - on uncertain, troubled journeys until, many years later, tragedy unites them. Now this broken family has a chance to heal - but can the Sais take it?

Ghana Must Go

Michael Magee

Sean is back. Back in Belfast and back into old habits. Back on the mad all-nighters, the borrowed tenners and missing rent, the casual jobs that always fall through. Back in these scarred streets, where the promised prosperity of peacetime has never arrived. Back among his brothers, his ma, and all the things they never talk about. Until one night Sean finds himself at a party – dog-tired, surrounded by jeering strangers, his back against the wall – and he makes a big mistake.

Close to Home

Rebecca K Reilly

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 
 
'Delightfully confident . . . a total pleasure' TIMES 
 
'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic' ALICE SLATER 
 
'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime' JULIA ARMFIELD 
 
'Lovable and joyful' NEW YORK TIMES 
A BROTHER. A SISTER. A LOT OF EMOTION IN ONE APARTMENT. This is the story of Greta and Valdin: twenty-something brother and sister with a near-unpronounceable surname, a sprawling Maori-Russian-Catalonian family and questionable taste in partners.While Valdin can’t seem to get over his ex-boyfriend who fled the country, Greta has an unrequited crush on fellow English tutor Holly, who uses her for admin support. But all hope is not lost for these lovelorn siblings. Through the misadventures and mess of modern adulthood, at least they still have each other — unless drama gets in the way.From bad dates to family feuds and embarrassing karaoke nights, this acclaimed bestseller from New Zealand is a fresh, heartwarming and hilarious story about the trials and tribulations of love in its many forms.

Greta and Valdin

Nell Frizzell

After Nancy’s father dies, she is faced with two life-changing revelations. 
 
One: She has a half-brother she knew nothing about. 
 
Nancy’s world is punched inside out at the discovery of a mysterious new sibling. But she can’t help but feel curious about Oliver, this stranger who shares her DNA. Her sister Rita, on the other hand, is furious and wants nothing to do with their ‘cuckoo’ brother. 
 
Two: She’s pregnant. 
 
The father – Nancy’s not-quite-boyfriend from her not-quite-relationship – doesn’t want to commit any time soon. He isn’t even in the same continent as her right now. And with her mother and sister in shock about Oliver, Nancy’s struggling to find someone to turn to for support. 
 
In a tumult of grief, fear and hope, Nancy pushes herself into an uncertain future as she rethinks what really makes a family. But there’s one more thought in the back of her head… 
 
Is there space in her family for two more?

Cuckoo

John Steinbeck

'Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place.' 
 
George and his large, simple-minded friend Lennie are drifters, following wherever work leads them. Arriving in California's Salinas Valley, they get work on a ranch. If they can just stay out of trouble, George promises Lennie, then one day they might be able to get some land of their own and settle down some place. But kind-hearted, childlike Lennie is a victim of his own strength. Seen by others as a threat, he finds it impossible to control his emotions. And one day not even George will be able to save him from trouble. 
 
Of Mice and Men is a tragic and moving story of friendship, loneliness and the dispossessed.

Of Mice and Men

Colm Tóibín

'I imagined lamplight, shadows, soft voices, clothes put away, the low sound of late news on the radio. And I thought as I crossed the bridge at Baggot Street to face the last stretch of my own journey home that no matter what I had done, I had not done that.' 
 
In the captivating stories that make up The Empty Family Colm Tóibín delineates with a tender and unique sensibility lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals, often willingly, cast adrift from their history. 
 
From the young Pakistani immigrant who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town to the Irish woman reluctantly returning to Dublin and discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence each of Tóibín's stories manage to contain whole worlds: stories of fleeing the past and returning home, of family threads lost and ultimately regained.

The Empty Family

Stories

Nadine has always wanted her daughter Maud to be married and off her hands. When the two women are staying at Nadine's sister's house near Meaux, they become part of a sophisticated, wordly group into which neither Maud nor Edward Harrison, a young visitor from England, seem to fit. 
 
Maud is swept off her feet by David Tyler, a stylish, irresponsible young man who robs her of her innocence and disappears. Edward, forced into adulthood by his inheritance of a bookshop, and thus a career, takes Maud into his care. But for both of them the shadow of Tyler is always there, illuminating their feelings of inadequacy, disappointment and loss.

Incidents in the Rue Laugier

California's fertile Salinas Valley is home to two families whose destinies are fruitfully, and fatally, intertwined. Over the generations, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of the First World War, the Trasks and the Hamiltons will helplessly replay the fall of Adam and Eve and the murderous rivalry of Cain and Abel. 
 
East of Eden was considered by Steinbeck to be his magnum opus, and its epic scope and memorable characters, exploring universal themes of love and identity, ensure it remains one of America's most enduring novels.

East of Eden

John Updike

Owen Mackenzie's life story abounds with sin and seduction, domesticity and debauchery. His marriage to his college sweetheart is quickly followed by his first betrayal and he embarks upon a series of affairs.  His pursuit of happiness, in a succession of small towns from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, brings him to the edge of chaos, from which he is saved by a rescue that carries its own fatal price.

Villages

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