Modern fiction

Marcus Conway has come a long way to stand in the kitchen of his home and remember the rhythms and routines of his life. Considering with his engineer's mind how things are constructed - bridges, banking systems, marriages - and how they may come apart. Mike McCormack captures with tenderness and...

Newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. But as Jimmy fights in Gallipoli, Ruby is forced to take a job at a city timber merchant's yard - thrown into a man's world fraught with complications. And as the lives of those around her begin to sh...

There's nothing like a wedding for stirring up the past…Mr & Mrs Max Irving request the company of: Mrs Fran Friedman, mourning her empty nest, the galloping years, and a disastrous haircut. Mr Saul Friedman, avoider of conflicts and increasingly distant husband. The two Misses Friedman, Pip and ...

Maisie Brennan is standing on a podium on the twentieth anniversary of the death of her son, trying to find the first breath that will help her start talking to a room full of strangers. A daunting task at the best of times, but she's also menopausal and one hot flush away from totally losing it....

There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth... Emma Maria Rossini appears to be the luckiest girl in the world. She's the daughter of a beautiful and loving mother, and her father is one of the most famous film actors of his generation. She's also the granddaughter...

John and Nicky have never eaten spaghetti and would give anything for the occasional bowl of chips or piece of chocolate cake. But they live with their rather strange aunt who insists upon health food diets. When they use some birthday money to go out for lunch, they experience the delights of sp...

From the bestselling author of Autumn and Winter comes the next instalment in the remarkable, once-in-a-generation masterpiece, the Seasonal Quartet.What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the ...

Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan’s wish list. But somebody’s got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co, and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, Kate has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai boxing kit...

Moss has lived with her pa on a remote island for as long as she remembers. The Old World has disappeared beneath the waves - only Pa's magic, harnessing the wondrous stormflowers on the island, can save the sunken continents. But a storm is brewing, promising cataclysmic changes. Soon, two stran...

Sophie, Emily, Amy and Melissa have been best friends since they met twenty years ago. As history has moved on around them, they have seen each other through everything. From Sophie’s secret fear that she doesn’t actually want to be a mother, despite having two kids, to Amy’s perfect-on-the-outsi...