Caribbean Fiction

Elvira Carr believes in rules. She also strongly believes in crisp schedules, clear guidelines, and taking people at face value. Not that the 27-year-old sees many people. After several unfortunate incidents, her overbearing mother keeps her at home. But when her mother has a stroke, Elvira is suddenly on her own. To help her navigate a world that is often puzzling, she draws up seven ironclad rules. Armed with these, a notebook full of questions, and guidance from a helpful neighbor, she takes charge of herself.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Following the demise of bloodthirsty buccaneer Captain Flint, young Jim Hawkins finds himself with the key to a fortune. For he has discovered a map that will lead him to the fabled Treasure Island. But a host of villains, wild beasts and deadly savages stand between him and the stash of gold. Not to mention the most infamous pirate ever to sail the high seas....

Andy Bellows is in a right state. Plagued with insomnia, anxiety and neckache, he’s convinced there’s something seriously wrong with him. And the worst thing is that his doctor agrees. The diagnosis: Andy is in the grip of a self-destructive addiction to technology - he just cannot put that bloody mobile phone down. Texting, tweeting, gaming and online dating - technology rules Andy’s life. His phone even monitors his bowel movements. So how will he cope when he’s forced to follow doctor’s orders and step away from all of his beloved screens?

Split into five sections - Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering - Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians, and Italian divas. Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent, and funny - a gift to readers and writers both.

When Nick’s wife Kerry falls ill and dies, he realises for the first time how fragile his happiness has always been, and how much he’s been taking his good life and wonderful family for granted. Now, he suddenly finds himself navigating parenthood alone, unsure how to deal with his own grief, let alone that of his teenage son, Olly.

The Knight's Tale of medieval wars and chivalry is the first tale told to the pilgrims as they set out to Canterbury. It concerns Theseus, returning from fighting at Thebes, and two brother knights Palamon and Arcite, imprisoned but yearning for their loves. But the real hero of this recording is Richard Bebb who, with the help of Professor Derek Brewer, the leading expert on Chaucerian pronunciation, make the original Middle English not only comprehensible to the modern ear, but exciting.

Bond may have a license to kill, but “Pistols” Scaramanga has a talent for it. He’s a KGB-trained assassin who’s left a trail of dead British Secret Service agents in his wake. His weapon of choice? A gold-plated Colt .45. In the aftermath of his brainwashing by the Soviets, Bond is given one last chance to win back M’s trust: terminate Scaramanga before he strikes MI6 again.

When Rachel Croft wakes up on her family’s boat in Bermuda, it’s to sunshine and yet another perfect day…until she goes to wake her seven-year-old son, Oscar. Because the worst thing imaginable has happened. He isn’t there. In the dark and desperate days that follow, Rachel struggles to navigate her grief. And while her husband, James, wants them to face the tragedy together, Rachel feels that the life they once shared is over.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel, is regarded by many as her masterpiece. Molly Gibson is the daughter of the doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford. Her widowed father marries a second time to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks, but until the arrival of Cynthia, her dazzling stepsister, Molly finds her situation hard to accept. Intertwined with the story of the Gibsons is that of Squire Hamley and his two sons.

The unsung story of superb naval ingenuity and heroism that came close to making the battle of Trafalgar unnecessary. If it hadn’t been for a drunken naval officer and a minor earthquake history would have been forever changed. 1803 and the Royal Navy dominate the Caribbean. However, Commodore Samuel Hood is short of ships. Diamond Rock is a small volcanic plug in the sea south of Martinique. Despite his men’s misgivings and against almost insurmountable odds, he lands a garrison and places cannon on the top. The Honourable Mathew Turner is in the Caribbean on a diplomatic mission and ...

Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.

The most fearsome enemy he ever faced. Of all the enemies that our hero has shrunk away from, there was one he feared above them all. By his own admission they gave him nightmares into his dotage. It was not the French, the Spanish, the Americans, or the Mexicans. It was not even the more exotic adversaries such as the Iroquois, Mahratta, or Zulus. While they could all make his guts churn anxiously, the foe that really put him off his lunch were the Ashanti.

Funny, outrageous, sometimes touching, and perhaps a little bit naughty - in Queen Lucia, E. F. Benson has created not only a wonderful character study in Mrs. Lucas, but a whole village of memorable characters.

101 Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook and first published in 1916, is a collection of one familiar poem each by the best-known poets in the English language, including Alfred Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Milton, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth. The anthology is indexed by title, author and first line.

On the morning of her 25th birthday, Lily Harper opens the very last letter written to her by her beloved mother, who died when she was eight. Learning about the first and only real love of her mom's life is a revelation. The same momentous day, Lily meets Eddie Tessler, an actor fleeing fame who could change her world in unimaginable ways. But her childhood friend, Dan, has his own reasons for not wanting Lily to get too carried away by Eddie's attentions.

Becky’s father is not just absent: he’s a total mystery, a hole in her life. He died before she was born and for her mother, Laura, the subject is strictly off-limits. When Laura books a spontaneous trip to Greece, Becky decides to join her, determined to get closer to her mother - and to the truth. But as they make their way to the island of Santorini, it becomes clear that this holiday is not as impulsive as Becky thought. Laura’s hiding something from her daughter - and she’s been hiding it for Becky’s whole life.

Rainbow Valley (1919) is the seventh audiobook in the chronology of the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, although it was the fifth book published. In this audiobook, Anne Shirley is married with six children, but the audiobook focuses more on her new neighbor, the new Presbyterian minister John Meredith, as well as the interactions between Anne's and John Meredith's children.

It’s January 1972 but the sun is white hot when Willy May Michael’s boat first kisses the dock of Mustique Island. Tucked into the southernmost curve of the Caribbean, Mustique is a private island that has become a haven for the wealthy and privileged. Its owner is the eccentric British playboy Colin Tennant, who is determined to turn this speck of white sand into a luxurious neo-colonial retreat for his rich friends and into a royal court in exile for the Queen’s rebellious sister, Princess Margaret.

In May 1987, Jackie Benton received a heartbreaking phone call from her boyfriend, Sean Hardy, bringing an end to their five-year relationship. He’d fallen for a fellow student at Exeter University. Sean and Jackie would never see each other again. Thirty-three years later, Sean returns to his home town. There, he inadvertently discovers what became of Jackie Benton.

England, 1947: A young woman finds herself under close observation in an insane asylum, charged with a violent crime she has no memory of committing. As she tries to make sense of her recent past, she recalls very little. But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and her lover risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans - a heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living nightmare?