British Literary Fiction

'Fans of Maeve Binchy and Cathy Kelly will love this.' A story of the aftermath, of picking up the pieces, of finding yourself again and discovering that life isn’t always easy . . . it’s not meant to be, but it can be worth it. Ann Maguire believes that discovering the truth of her past will set her free, but sometimes having all the answers isn’t enough . . . Forced to leave Dublin after her marriage crumbles, Ann returns to her childhood home of Knockmore, to find herself even more isolated than before. Catapulted back to grieving for her parents and the life she once knew, ...

At thirty-three, nurse Heather is desperately waiting for her romantic life to begin. Then she meets handsome, strong Anthony and is sure she’s found the one. Brushing any doubts aside, she projects all her hopes for true love onto him. Meanwhile, at a yoga retreat in Spain, happy-go-lucky Joe can’t believe his luck when he meets vivacious, witty Amy. She’s the sharpest, most beautiful woman he has ever dated, and the fact that she’s interested in him feels like a dream come true.

From Ireland to Australia, past to present, a family saga of truth, lies, love and intrigue. Until you’re asked, you may never tell... Lucie Woods is honest, isn’t she? It turns out, like so many others, that she’s been lying to herself for a very long time. When an incident occurs at her children’s school, it sets in motion a string of events that sees her life torn apart at the seams. Karma acts fast, barely giving her a moment to breathe before delivering a string of gifts, if you can call them that. Bad things usually happen in threes, but when her misfortune reaches beyond this...

In these 10 beautifully moving short stories, mostly written over the last year, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle paints a collective portrait of our strange times. A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret.

1553. Hannah Green, the young daughter of a Jewish bookseller, is forced out of Spain by the Inquisition, and becomes an unlikely player at the fractious Tudor Court. Her gifts of foresight mean that she is given, as a Holy Fool to the newly crowned Mary I. But as Mary’s grip on the throne loosens, threatened by the ambitions of her sister, Elizabeth, Hannah is trapped in the deadly rivalry between the daughters of Henry VIII.

Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels were some of the most celebrated works of fiction of the past decade. Ecstatic praise came from a wide range of admirers, from literary superstars such as Zadie Smith, Francine Prose, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Michael Chabon to pop-culture icons such as Anthony Bourdain and January Jones. Now St. Aubyn returns with a hilariously smart send-up of a certain major British literary award in this witty audiobook.

1491. Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, has been betrothed since childhood to the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon. Their marriage will cement the alliance Henry Tudor craves to secure his country. But when Arthur’s sudden death leaves an 11-year-old boy heir to the kingdom, Henry Tudor must choose whether to send Katherine back to Spain or to marry her himself. Katherine has no son from her brief marriage to secure her future; her substantial dowry and his powerful contract are at stake.

‘When you hide the truth from yourself, you keep the Devil’s secret...’ Sarah Kingsmoor has built a successful career as a family doctor in an idyllic market town. She lives in the cottage of her dreams, enjoys rewarding friendships, and leads the life she’s always wanted for herself. She’s convinced of this. One spring evening, Sarah stumbles upon a brutal mugging. Her intervention saves the victim’s life. And a series of events is set in motion which will jar Sarah loose from her comfortable existence, and change her forever. As she finds herself drawn increasingly closer to ...

It’s 1663 in the tiny, hardscrabble Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now present-day Manhattan. Orphan children are going missing, and among those looking into the mysterious state of affairs are a 22-year-old trader, Blandine von Couvering, herself an orphan, and a British spy named Edward Drummond. Both the search for the killer and Edward and Blandine’s newfound romance are endangered, however, when Blandine is accused of being a witch and Edward is sentenced to hang for espionage.

At 18 years old, Dinah gave away her baby son to the rich couple she worked for before they left Jamaica. They never returned. She never forgot him. Eighteen years later, a young man comes from the US to Kingston. From the moment she sees him, Dinah never doubts—this is her son. What happens next will make everyone question what they know and where they belong.

A Handful of Primroses A Story for Mothering Sunday By M.M.Wake - My gift to all Mothers this Mothering Sunday In the quiet village of Low Fellburn, where the chapel bell tolls through coal-dusted winds and wild primroses bloom beneath the hawthorn tree, four generations of women mark the rhythm of love, loss, and resilience. From Maggie in 1880, returning home with dirt under her nails and grief clenched in her pocket, to her great-great-granddaughter Rachel in the present day, baking simnel cake while raising her own children amid broken marriages and biscuit tins full of memory — this ...

Anne Quirk's life is built on stories - both the lies she was told by the man she loved and the fictions she told herself to survive. Nobody remembers Anne now, but this elderly woman was an artistic pioneer in her youth, a creator of groundbreaking documentary photographs. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers in the British army, has inherited her habit of transforming reality.

It's been years since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time. That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec. Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it.

A short story companion to Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, and Frankenstein 2035 by Kev Freeman. The journal written by Victor Frankenstein recording his final experiments leading to the recipe and creation of life. Experimentation and Findings of the Indulgence of Animal Electricity within the Stature of Man. I begin this journal with the anticipation that these records of my endeavors will sometime provide others with a foundation for further experimentation into the remarkability of the human spirit. Victor Frankenstein, September, 1792. Victor Frankenstein studied...

An enemies to lovers romance.Connor is in mourning for his deceased wife and two young daughters, and now he's been accused of murdering their killer. Laura is his court appointed attorney. She's struggling to justify a loveless marriage and a career filled with moral conflict. This is her first big murder case and the media is all over it - the Celtic Vigilante. Connor has become a local celebrity. Laura has to win him an acquittal but Connor isn't making that easy. He's resistant to all of her ideas, and he clearly dislikes everything about Laura, including her defense strategy. And yet ...

In 1830 a young novice called Catherine Labouré was granted a vision of the Virgin Mary. Nearly 200 years later, Sister Anne is also waiting for a sign. Which is why she accepts a mission to go to a tiny community on an island just off the coast of Brittany. Her only companion there is a sceptical, chain-smoking older nun who just wants to be left in peace.

In the spirit of the novels of Jane Austen comes a story of self-discovery, friendship, and love. Agnes Merriweather was born to wealth and privilege, but at the age of three and twenty, after her father squandered his fortune and she is left without the protection of her wealthy aunt, she must begin a new life. Necessity requires her to go and live with her brother, a gentleman of reduced means, in the small Derbyshire village of Kympton. Accustomed to a life of comfort and a society of elegance, Agnes feels trapped in the small, unvarying confines of life in her brother’s modest country...

January 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea.

Mervyn Peake was a writer, artist, poet and playwright, best known for his gothic masterpiece, the Gormenghast trilogy. This selection of works from Peake’s Progress includes some of his most characteristic and memorable poems and short stories, from memories of the horrors of the concentration camps at Belsen to the fantastic wit of his nonsense poetry. The selection includes 'The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb', 'The Weird Journey', 'Mr Slaughterboard' and 'Danse Macabre'. It is read by Mervyn Peake's sons, Sebastian and Fabian Peake.

In 1959, Nancy’s life changes dramatically when her family moves to a new town, Stevenage. Now there is room for a piano, Nancy loses herself in an imagined past of Mozart’s lesser known sister, while making unexpected discoveries of her own inscrutable mother’s history. In 1989 the piano becomes a fixture in a women’s community centre in the town, in a time of personal strife for Martha and her friends. The politics of the era threaten the existence of the centre, and the future of this group of women. A troubled young man buys the piano in 1997 and places it in his sparse flat at ...