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Jennifer Close

The Coffey siblings are having a rough year. 
 
Claire has broken up with her fiancé and is hiding from her debts. Martha’s in a career crisis and even her therapist is losing patience with her. And Max, the baby of the family in his final year of college, is keeping a life-altering secret. Before long, all three of them have moved back home. 
 
But things aren’t so easy the second time around. Martha and Claire regress to fighting over the shared bathroom while their mother continues to plan Claire’s thwarted wedding (unbeknownst to Claire). But it’s only a matter of time before Max’s secret comes out and changes all of their lives…

The Smart One

Margery Allingham

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
A baker’s dozen of cases, each putting Albert Campion through his paces. In this miscellany of villainy, our unconventional sleuth must contend with misbehaving debutantes, sinister smuggling rings, a Dowager Countess who’s not all that she seems, an SOS message daubed in lipstick, a beleaguered New York socialite, and an elderly Egyptologist indulging in some bad behaviour…

Mr Campion & Others

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
First, there is a skeleton in a dinner jacket. Then a corpse in a golden aeroplane. After another body, private detective Albert Campion nearly makes a fourth... 
 
Both the skeleton and the corpse have died with suspicious convenience for Georgia Wells, a monstrous but charming actress with a raffish entourage. Georgia's best friend just happens to be Valentine, a top couturière and Campion's sister. In order to protect Valentine, Campion must unravel a story of blackmail and ruthless murder. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

The Fashion In Shrouds

Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
Private detective Albert Campion sets out to plumb the secrets of Saltey, an ancient hamlet on the Essex marshes. Once the haunt of smugglers, it now hides a secret rich and mysterious enough to trap all who enter - and someone in the village is willing to terrorise, murder and raise the very devil to keep that secret to themselves. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion

Cargo Of Eagles

Margaret Forster

To Penelope Butler the family was all, the sole ambition of her adult life. Three of her four daughters, however, had different ideas. Rosemary rejected it; Jess was destroyed by it; Celia found it eluded her. Only Emily pursued her mother's ideal, with disastrous results. 
 
Penelope begins to record their family story as it unfolds. But when Rosemary discovers these private papers she is enraged by her mother's distortions of the truth and proceeds to tell the story from her perspective. From D-Day on into the turbulent post-war years, a picture emerges not only of a single family in all its complexities, but also of the changing world that shaped their lives.

Private Papers

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
Private detective Albert Campion's glorious summer in Pontisbright is blighted by death. Amidst the preparations for Minnie and Tonker Cassand's fabulous summer party a murder is discovered and it falls to Campion to unravel the intricate web of motive, suspicion and deduction with all his imagination and skill. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

The Beckoning Lady

Marjorie Leet Ford

A romantic comedy with a delightfully biting literary edge, it's the story of Melissa, a sharp-eyed American abroad. Fired by her San Francisco ad agency, she cancels her wedding but soon regrets her next impulsive move - across the Atlantic, as au pair to a minorly aristocratic British family, with the mother from hell, an ineffectual, sweet-natured father, and three children, one of them deaf. 
 
From freezing farmhouses and island castles in Scotland, to a faded house at a smart London address, Melissa observes the natives in their classic habitats, with their bizarre manners and surprisingly gorgeous, death-defying food. Urged to 'try to speak as we do' she resists the effete charm of the British bourgeoisie but succumbs to the lure of lemon shortbread, and the sexy appeal of a lean and hungry Englishman.

The Diary of an American Au Pair

Isamay's unusual name comes from her two very different grandmothers, Isa and May, who were both present at her birth and who have both formed and influenced her whole life in very particular ways. Now almost thirty, Isamay is trying to write a thesis about grandmothers in history but is instead constantly ambushed by the startling secrets her own family has been keeping. When disturbing truths are revealed that force Isamay to examine her own certainties, will her grandmothers be able to build a bridge across the generations?

Isa and May

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
Celebrated detective Albert Campion awakes in hospital accused of attacking a police officer and suffering from acute amnesia. All he can remember is that he was on a mission of vital importance to His Majesty's government before his accident. On the run from the police and unable to recognise even his faithful servant Lugg or his own fiancée, Campion struggles desperately to put the pieces together while the very fate of England is at stake. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

Traitor's Purse

Richard Russo

Jack and Joy Griffin are back on Cape Cod - where they spent their hope-filled honeymoon - for a wedding. Cracks are begining to show in Jack's peaceful family life and thirty-four year marriage. He's driving round with his father's ashes in an urn in the boot of his car, haunted by memories of bittersweet family holidays spent at the Cape, while his acerbic mother is very much alive and always on his mobile. He's spent a lifetime trying to be happier than his parents, but has he succeeded? 
 
A year later, at a second wedding, Jack has a second urn in the car, and his life is starting to unravel.

That Old Cape Magic

Anne Tyler

***The Sunday Times bestseller*** 
 
‘Just relishable. Thank God for the balm of good writing’ NIGELLA LAWSON 
‘A wise, wonderful book’ OBSERVER 
'Razor sharp on family, love and marriage' DAVID NICHOLLS 
'I devoured it in one long lazy afternoon - I laughed and cried' VICTORIA HISLOP 
 
Weddings aren't just about the happy couple… A funny, touching, hopeful story of love, marriage and second chances 
 
It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. 
 
First thing, she loses her job (or quits, depending who you ask). Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door looking for somewhere to stay. He doesn’t even have a suit. Instead, he’s brought memories – and a cat looking for a new home. 
 
Just as Gail is wondering what’s next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret which could throw the whole wedding into question… 
 
‘She is and always will be my favourite author’ LIANE MORIARTY 
 
'If Anne Tyler isn’t the best writer in the world, who is?' BBC R4 WOMAN'S HOUR 
 
‘She knows all the secrets of the human heart’ MONICA ALI 
 
‘My favourite writer’ NICK HORNBY 
 
'Anne Tyler really is the best' GRAHAM NORTON 
 
'Our greatest chronicler of family life' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Nobody does it better' VOGUE

Three Days in June

THE FIRST CAMPION MYSTERY 
 
'Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light' 
Agatha Christie 
 
A suspicious death and a haunted family heirloom were not advertised when Dr George Abbershaw and a groupof London's brightest young things accepted an invitation to the mansion of Black Dudley. 
 
Skulduggery is most certainly afoot, and the party-goers soon realise that they're trapped in the secluded house. 
 
Amongst them is a stranger who promises to unravel the villainous plots behind their incarceration - but can George and his friends trust the peculiar young man who calls himself Albert Campion?

The Crime At Black Dudley

Lawrence Osborne

A tense, stunningly well-observed heist novel from 'the bastard child of Graham Greene and Patrica Highsmith' (Metro) 
 
Sarah Talbot Jennings, a young American living in New York, has fled to Bangkok to disappear. Armed with a suitcase full of cash, she takes up residence at the Kingdom, a glittering complex slowly sinking into its own twilight. There, against a backdrop of shadowy gossip and intrigue, she is soon drawn into the orbit of the Kingdom's glamorous ex-pat women. But when political chaos and a frenzied uprising wrack the streets below, and Sarah witnesses something unspeakable, her safe haven begins to feel like a trap. 
 
 From a master of atmosphere and suspense comes a brilliantly unsettling story of cruelty and psychological unrest, and an enthralling glimpse into the shadowy crossroads of karma and human greed.

The Glass Kingdom

Dani Shapiro

Are the parents always to blame? 
 
Rachel Jensen has it all: a husband she adores, fulfilling work in art restoration, a terrific teenage daughter and finally a new baby on the way. So when she worries about mysterious changes in her daughter Kate's behaviour, friends reassure her it's just normal teen angst. 
 
But then a terrifying accident involving Kate and her infant brother sets off a series of events that threaten to destroy everything Rachel has worked so hard to build. 
 
From the beloved author of SIGNAL FIRES and BLACK & WHITE, FAMILY HISTORY is a visceral, ferociously paced novel about one mothers nightmarish realisation that she cannot protect her own child. 
 
‘Riveting’ Harper's Bazaar 
‘Graceful’ Glamour 
‘A poised, absorbing book’ New York Times Book Review

Family History

Tessa Hadley

An improbable coincidence brings Clare back into contact with someone she once had sex with at a teenage party; complicatedly, he is now going out with her best friend, Helly. The encounter needn't have meant anything - it could just have been funny, or embarrassing - but it seems to have the power to shake up everything in Clare's life. Clare is married with three small children, she bakes her own bread and buys her clothes from the charity shop. Helly is an actress and has her golden curves pasted up on billboards ten foot high. And each of them seems to want what the other has. Clare's story is intertwined with other stories of her extended family. Her father has been married three times and left a trail of children. Accidents in the Home dips in and out of the lives of this complicated, close, fraught family, reaching out into the past for explanation and illumination as well as across the present. It is the debut of a quite formidable fictional talent.

Accidents in the Home

'A modern Graham Greene' Sunday Times 
 
Robert Grieve – pushing thirty and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher – decides to go missing. 
 
As he crosses the border from Thailand to Cambodia, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events involving a bag of ‘jinxed’ money, a suave American, a corrupt policeman and a rich doctor’s daughter, in which Robert’s life is changed forever. 
 
Alive with malice and grace, this is a taut tale reminiscent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith: a story of double identities, and innocence in the midst of evil, from a master of atmosphere and observation.

Hunters in the Dark

Cees Nooteboom

Alma and Almut share a fascination for Australia and its ancient peoples; their ceremonies, sand drawings and body paintings. After Alma suffers a traumatic attack, they board a cheap flight from São Paulo to Sydney, and together begin their journey across their secret continent. Alma slowly recovers through a brief love affair with an Aboriginal artist, and both women become involved with the Angel Project in Perth, where actors dressed as angels are concealed around the city for the public to discover. 
 
In a seemingly unconnected story, a man staying at a remote Alpine spa unexpectedly meets a woman he encountered years before and with whom he shared a single night. It was in a faraway city and she was dressed as an angel...

Lost Paradise

Albert French

The crowded joys and familiar despair of poor, back-alley life in 1950 Pittsburgh have a hold on most people there, but there are those who need to escape. Jeremiah Henderson and his woman, Willet Mercer, set their sights on New York City - but making good is easier said than done. Left with no choice but to give in to the pimp who'd like to try Willet on for size before selling her to his clientele, Jeremiah and Willet try to focus on the future. But just before the pimp has his way with her, Willet balks, stabbing him to death in the back of his car. Horrified, but, nonetheless now flush with the pimp's fat wad and fancy Buick, it looks as if they may be in sight of their dreams; they just have to make one last stop outside Wilmington, North Carolina, where Willet intends to see the little boy she abandoned long ago.

I Can't Wait On God

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
In Hide My Eyes, private detective Albert Campion finds himself hunting down a serial killer. A spate of murders leaves him and his friend and colleague Inspector Luke, with only two baffling clues: a left-hand glove and a lizard-skin lettercase. However, a chain of strange events leads them to an odd museum of curiosities hidden in a quiet London neighbourhood where more is going on than meets the eye. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

Hide My Eyes

D J Taylor

Glamorous Alice Keach is one of 1930s London's foremost hostesses. Despite humble American origins, she has secured her place in high society through marriage to one of England's wealthiest bachelors. 
 
But Alice has a secret. Its roots run years back, and miles away, to the dust-blasted prairies of Kansas. It corncerns a lost little boy left under the haphazard guidance of an eccentric uncle. Now, a visit from America looks set to blow apart Alice's glittering pre-eminence forever.

Ask Alice

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
Fact catches up with fiction when the secret of telepathic communication is discovered. But the device at the centre of the mystery is in the possession of two schoolboys and whether they stole it or invented it, there are powerful interests who will kill to get hold of it. Private detective Albert Campion faces as deadly a challenge as any in his career. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

The Mind Readers

Frances Leviston

'Superbly written and fearlessly imagined fiction' Sarah Hall 
 
Ten women, all called Claire, are tangled up in complex power dynamics with their families, friends, and lovers. Though all are different ages, and leading different lives, each is haunted by the difficulty of living on her own terms. 
 
Claire is a teenaged babysitter left alone with a strange little girl and her imaginary friend. Claire is a woman trying to escape her elderly mother by employing an android carer. Claire is a young TV journalist wrecking her first big interview. Claire's boyfriend discovers more than he bargains for when he begins to read her diary. 
 
And whatever she does, Claire is always living in the shadow of a monstrous mother. 
 
'Leviston is a mistress of precision and emotional insight' Hilary Mantel, TLS

The Voice in My Ear

A. S. Byatt

Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets. 
 
They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them. This is the children's book.

The Children's Book

Elaine Feeney

THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR 
WINNER OF AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 
 
Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. She spends her days getting lost online, going to work and minding her own business. 
 
But Claire is thrown back into a love she thought she’d left behind when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby, stirring up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house. As the secrets of the past are revealed, Claire must confront whether she can escape her history to make a future for herself.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way

Roddy Doyle

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 grown children. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside. 
 
That is until Paula’s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, a loving wife and mother, “a success” – Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. 
 
Over the next few days, as Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, they find themselves embracing the bruised but beautiful symmetry of what each means to the other.

The Women Behind the Door

Tom Crewe

Discover Tom Crewe's magnificent debut novel about forbidden desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England... 
 
'Beautifully written' Graham Norton 
'Subtle, sexy and beautifully crafted' Sarah Waters 
'Lavishly imagined' Sunday Times 
______________ 
 
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 work on a revolutionary book arguing for the legalisation of homosexuality. 
 
Before it can be published however, Oscar Wilde is arrested and their daring book threatens to throw them, and all around them, into danger. How high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living? 
______________ 
 
'A very fine new writer' Kate Atkinson 
'I loved this book' Zadie Smith 
'Some of the best writing on desire I've read' Douglas Stuart 
'Extraordinary' Jonathan Bailey 
'Filled with nuance and tenderness . . . charting the lives of men and women who inspired not only political progress but an entire new way of living and loving' Colm Tóibín

The New Life

Francesca Segal

WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2012 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013 
 
WINNER OF THE BETTY TRASK AWARD 2013 
 
WINNER OF THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE 2013 
 
 
 
What if everything you’d ever wanted was no longer enough? 
 
Adam and Rachel are getting married at last. Childhood sweethearts whose lives and families have been intertwined for years; theirs is set to be the wedding of the year. 
 
But then Rachel’s cousin Ellie makes an unexpected return to the family fold. Beautiful, reckless and troubled, Ellie represents everything that Adam has tried all his life to avoid – and everything that is missing from his world. As the long-awaited wedding approaches, Adam is torn between duty and temptation, security and freedom, and must make a choice that will break either one heart, or many. 
 
'Wonderful...witty…an astonishingly accomplished debut which will draw comparisons between Segal and Zadie Smith and Monica Ali' Stylist

The Innocents

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 
 
Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? 
 
Private detective Albert Campion is summoned to the village of Kepesake to investigate a particularly distasteful death. The body turns out to be that of Pig Peters, freshly killed five months after his own funeral. Soon other corpses start to turn up, just as Peters's body goes missing. It takes all Campion's coolly incisive powers of detection to unravel the crime. 
 
As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

The Case of the Late Pig

Fannie Flagg

The hilarious and heartwarming new novel from the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe 
 
Wisconsin, 1941 – With all the men off to war, Fritzi and her sisters must learn men’s work and the All-Girl Filling Station is born, complete with neat little caps, short skirts, and roller-skates. Their peace doesn’t last long though: skilled women are needed to fly planes for the war effort… 
 
Alabama, 2005 – Mrs Sookie Earle has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to putting her feet up. But then one day a package arrives. Its contents knock Sookie sideways, propelling her back to the 1940s, and four irrepressible sisters whose wartime adventures force them to reimagine who they are, and what they are capable of. 
 
 
‘Flagg is a writer of great warmth and wisdom... A richly imagined family saga’ The Times 
 
‘Wonderful... A warm, funny riff on family and identity' Daily Mail

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

Elisa Albert

Sometimes I’m with the baby and I think: you’re my heart and my soul, and I would die for you. Other times I think: tiny moron, leave me the fuck alone 
 
 
A year has passed since Ari gave birth and still she can’t locate herself in her altered universe. Sleep-deprived, lonely and unprepared, she struggles through the strange, disjointed rhythms of her days and nights. Her own mother long dead and her girlhood friendships faded, she is a woman in need. When Mina – older, alone, pregnant – moves to town, Ari sees hope of a comrade-in-arms. Perhaps the hostile terrain could be more easily navigable together. 
 
 
With purifying anger and outrageous humour, Elisa Albert unleashes on a culture that turns its new mothers into exiles, and expects them to act like natives. And as she defines the raw experience of motherhood, Albert offers a hilarious and devastatingly honest examination of how we become the women we are.

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