Products
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley ( paperback March 2025)
£9.99
In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'.
With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?
'I loved its combination of extreme whimsy, high seriousness and cool understatement' THE TIMES
The Mission House, by Carys Davies (PB June 2021)
£8.99
A fabulous writer,- she also wrote West, and a short story collection called The Redemption of Galen Pike. If you enjoy evocative prose, great characterisation and perhaps even the context of the setting in India, you will love this.
Fleeing the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life's simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla have taken Hilary under their wing. The Padre is concerned for Priscilla's future, and as Hilary's friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship.
But religious tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems. The Mission House boldly and imaginatively explores post-colonial ideas in a world fractured between faith and non-belief, young and old, imperial past and nationalistic present. Tenderly subversive and meticulously crafted, it is a deeply human fable of the wonders and terrors of connection in a modern world.
The Mission House, Carys Davies (paperback, June 2021)
£8.99
Fleeing his demons and the dark undercurrents of life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in a south Indian mission house next door to the presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter, Priscilla, live. As Hilary's friendship with Priscilla grows, so too do the religious and nationalist tensions around them, and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems. Meticulously crafted and tenderly subversive, The Mission House is a deeply human story of the wonders and terrors of connection in a modern world.
The Monkey From The Future, Ross Welford ( paperback March 2023)
£7.99
The hilarious, moving and adventure-packed new novel for readers of 9 and up from Ross Welford, the bestselling and Costa-shortlisted author of Time Travelling with a Hamster The year is 2425. Centuries after a catastrophic meteor collision, nature has retaken the earth. In a small town in what was once England, young Ocean Mooney and the monkey-owning Duke Smiff have just dug up a 400 year-old tablet computer.Meanwhile, in the present day, Thomas Reeve and his genius cousin Kylie create the Time Tablet - a device which they hope will allow them to communicate with the future. But when the Time Tablet malfunctions live on television, Thomas and Kylie are sucked into the year 2425 - and have only 24 hours to return home, and save the future of humanity...
The Monkey Who Fell From the Future, Ross Welford ( paperback Feb 2023)
£7.99
The latest hilarious, moving and adventure-packed new novel for readers of 9 and up from Ross Welford.
The year is 2425. Centuries after a catastrophic meteor collision, nature has retaken the earth. In a small town in what was once England, young Ocean Mooney and the monkey-owning Duke Smiff have just dug up a 400 year-old tablet computer.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Thomas Reeve and his genius cousin Kylie create the Time Tablet - a device which they hope will allow them to communicate with the future. But when the Time Tablet malfunctions live on television, Thomas and Kylie are sucked into the year 2425 - and have only 24 hours to return home, and save the future of humanity...
The Most Fun we Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo ( paperback, June 2020)
£9.99
This book got a little overlooked when published as a hardback because it was simply gigantic. I predict late success with the paperback, it has been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and is a superb, engrossing read.
MARILYN has somehow fallen into motherhood and spent four decades married to DAVID, who's pretty certain he loves her more than anyone has ever loved another person.
WENDY, their eldest, a cause for concern, soothes herself with drink after being widowed young, while VIOLET, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mother, is disturbed by the reappearance of a son placed for adoption fifteen years earlier. LIZA, a professor, is pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves and GRACE, their dawdling youngest daughter, lives a lie that no one in her family suspects. 'A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory' Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles'
Everything about this brilliant debut cuts deep: the humor, the wisdom, the pathos' Rebecca Makkai
The Moth: This is a True Story ( paperback)
£9.99
With a fascinating introduction by Neil Gaiman on the oral tradition of storytelling.
The Moth is a non profit organisation trying to maintain this craft, helping storytellers hone their stories and then telling them live.
Before television and radio, before penny paperbacks and mass literacy, people would gather on porches, on the steps outside their homes, and tell stories. The storytellers knew their craft and bewitched listeners would sit and listen long into the night as moths flitted around overhead. The Moth is a non-profit group that is trying to recapture this lost art, helping storytellers - old hands and novices alike - hone their stories before playing to packed crowds at sold-out live events.
The very best of these stories are collected here: whether it's Bill Clinton's hell-raising press secretary or a leading geneticist with a family secret; a doctor whisked away by nuns to Mother Teresa's bedside or a film director saving her father's Chinatown store from money-grabbing developers; the Sultan of Brunei's concubine or a friend of Hemingway's who accidentally talks himself into a role as a substitute bullfighter, these eccentric, pitch-perfect stories - all, amazingly, true - range from the poignant to the downright hilarious.
The Murder After the Night Before, Katy Brent ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
Something bad happened last night. I've woken up with the hangover from hell, a stranger in my bed, and I've gone viral for the worst reasons. But I can't remember a thing. My best friend Posey is dead.The police think it was a tragic accident. I know she was murdered. There's only one thing stopping me from dying of shame.
I need to find a killer. From the author of How to Kill Men and Get Away With It, don't miss this wickedly witty and utterly addictive novel, perfect for fans of Bella Mackie, Dawn O'Porter and Killing Eve. Praise for The Murder After the Night Before: What a ride! Unflinchingly realistic and raw but somehow also brilliantly funny at times, Brent's novel is a must-read.
The Museum of Ordinary People, Mike Gayle ( paperback March 2023)
£9.99
The superb new novel from the bestselling author of Half A World Away and All the Lonely People. Filled with warmth, tenderness and character. It really made me think, too - I love that it encourages us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.Still reeling from the sudden death of her mother, Jess is about to do the hardest thing she's ever done: empty her childhood home so that it can be sold. But when in the process Jess stumbles across the mysterious Alex, together they become custodians of a strange archive of letters, photographs, curios and collections known as The Museum of Ordinary People. As they begin to delve into the history of the objects in their care, Alex and Jess not only unravel heart-breaking stories that span generations and continents, but also unearth long buried secrets that lie much closer to home.
A thought-provoking and poignant story of memory, grief, loss and the things we leave behind.
The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, by John Burnside (pb, April 2021)
£12.99
A Financial Times Book of the YearThough we might not realise it, our collective memory of the twentieth century was defined by the poets who lived and wrote in it. At every significant turning point we find them, pen in hand, fingers poised at the typewriter, ready to distil the essence of the moment, from the muddy wastes of the Western front to the vast reckoning that came with the end of empire.
This is the first and only history of twentieth century poetry, by the acclaimed poet, author and academic John Burnside. Bringing together poets from times and places as diverse as Tsarist Russia, 1960's America and Ireland at the height of the Troubles, The Music of Time reveals how poets engaged with and shaped the most important issues of their times - and were in their turn affected by their context and dialogue with each other. This is a major work of scholarship, that on every page bears witness to the transformative beauty and power of poetry.
The New Tao of Warren Buffett by Mary Buffett ( hardback Nov 24)
£18.99
A new collection of simple yet powerful words and wisdom from Warren Buffett about today’s economy and how investing has changed in the past two decades – from crypto to climate change – compiled and commented upon by bestselling authors Mary Buffett and David Clark. Warren Buffett’s investment achievements are unparalleled. He owes his success to hard work, integrity, and the most elusive commodity of all, common sense.
In The New Tao of Warren Buffett, Mary Buffett – coauthor of the bestselling Buffettology series – joins David Clark to bring readers more of Warren Buffett’s smartest, funniest, and most memorable sayings that reveal the life philosophy and the investment strategies that have made Warren Buffett, and the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, so enormously wealthy. Collected from a variety of fresh sources, including personal conversations, corporate reports, profiles, and interviews, the new quotations here reflect Warren’s practical strategies and provide useful tips for every investor, large or small. Including short explanations for each quote and examples from Buffett’s own business transactions, these ruminations on everything from AI to inflation illustrate his words at work.
Inspiring, thought-provoking and invaluable, this irresistibly browsable book offers priceless investment savvy that anyone can take to the bank – and is destined to become a new classic.
The New Wife, JP Delaney ( paperback Jan 2024)
£9.99
When Finn Hensen gets a call from his sister Jess to say their father has died, neither is heartbroken. Their parents divorced many years ago, after which their father, Jimmy, continued to live a bohemian lifestyle in sun-soaked Mallorca. Ownership of his beautiful but dilapidated farmhouse in the mountains now passes to Finn and his sister.The only problem is that Jimmy recently remarried and his new wife, Ruensa, is still living there. The pair agree that Finn should go to Mallorca and tactfully take possession of their inheritance. When he arrives, however, Finn is surprised to find that Finca Siquia has been completely transformed into a chic Mediterranean bolthole by Ruensa and her twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Roze.
The Spanish police, meanwhile, are asking awkward questions about Jimmy's death . . .
Are Ruensa and Roze the helpless victims of circumstance? Or will they stop at nothing to get Finca Siquia for themselves?
The New Wilderness, Diane Cook ( paperback 2021)
£12.99
From an acclaimed Guardian First Book Award finalist comes a debut novel 'brutal and beautiful in equal measure' (Emily St. John Mandel)
A Guardian Best Science Fiction Book of the Year
Bea's daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, her lungs ravaged by the smog and pollution of the overpopulated metropolis they call home. The only alternative is to build a life in the vast expanse of untamed land known as The Wilderness State.
No one has been allowed to venture here before. That is all about to change. But as Bea soon discovers, saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen.
Passionate and exhilarating, The New Wilderness is the story of a mother's fight to save her daughter in a world she can no longer call her own.
The Night Animals, SarahAnn Juckes ( paperback Jan 2023)
£7.99
Uncover the ghost animals within in this moving and uplifting story about finding help where you need it, from the highly acclaimed author and illustrator of The Hunt for the Nightingale. Nora's mum has good days and bad days, but the bad days are getting worse. It's been just the two of them for always, and they don't need anyone else.When the rainbow-shimmering ghost animals Nora used to see when she was small start to reappear, she's convinced that they hold all the answers. Along with new friend Kwame, Nora follows a glittering ghostly fox, hare, raven and otter on the adventure of a lifetime, helping her to find the strength she needs to help her family. In a heartbreaking and hopeful narrative, Sarah Ann Juckes' stunning novel, illustrated by the award-winning Sharon King-Chai sees a brave young girl face down her ghosts.
For fans of The Last Bear and Julia and the Shark. Praise for Hunt for the Nightingale 'Full of hope, beauty & ultimately a healing song to nature' Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear
The Night Interns, Austin Duffy ( paperback May 2023)
£8.99
Stylish, mordant, and pitch-perfect - I read it in one sitting. If Rachel Cusk or Sally Rooney had been junior doctors they might have come up with something like this" - Gavin Francis, author of Recovery
Intravenous lines, catheters, bodies in distress, wounds: three young surgical interns working the night shift must care for - and keep alive - the influx of patients, while frightened and uncertain about what the night will throw at them. The Night Interns beautifully conjures the alien space of the hospital wards and corridors through the viewpoint of one of the interns, as he comes to terms with the bodily reality of the patients and the bizarre instruments of healing.
Equally unsettling for the inexperienced junior staff are the dysfunctional hierarchies of the hospital workplace. Under intense pressure and with very little sleep, the interns become inured to their encounters with sickness, all the while searching for the meaning in their work. By turns moving, shocking, and darkly funny, The Night Interns fizzes with nervous energy, forensic insight and moral tension, as it evokes life and death on the frontline.
The Nothing to See Here Hotel, by Steven Butler ( paperback)
£7.99
A hotel for magical creatures, where weird is normal for Frankie Banister and his parents who run the hotel. ‘This hotel gets five stars from me’ Liz Pichon
Welcome to The Nothing to See Here Hotel! A hotel for magical creatures, where weird is normal for Frankie Banister and his parents who run the hotel. When a goblin messenger arrives at The Nothing to See Here Hotel, announcing the imminent arrival of the goblin prince Grogbah, Frankie and his family rush into action to get ready for their important guest.
But it soon becomes obvious that the Banister family are going to have their work cut out with the demanding prince and his never-ending entourage, especially when it turns out the rude little prince is hiding a secret... The first book in a fabulously funny series by bestselling author Steven Butler,
The Oak Tree, Julia Donaldson and Victoria Sandoy ( paperback August 2024)
£7.99
Watch a thousand years unfold in the life of one magnificent tree! A thousand years ago, a tiny acorn fell to the ground. As the years pass, it grows . . and GROWS into an enormous oak tree! As the centuries sweep by, children play games around the tree. Families dance about it.
A fleeing king even hides inside its hollow trunk! The tree gives food and shelter to a host of animals, from squirrels and badgers to birds and beetles. After a thousand years, the ancient tree finally falls in a storm - but a new acorn sprouts, and the cycle of life begins all over again. The tree's magical life story is brought to life in Julia Donaldson's rich, dramatic rhyme.
Victoria Sandøy's gorgeous, atmospheric illustrations perfectly capture the changing seasons, and the people and wildlife that pass by Children will love spotting all the creatures in the pictures, and seeing the games children play around the tree This is a book that encourages us all to look more closely at nature, and to appreciate the wonder of our ancient trees. The final pages of the book contain extra fascinating facts about oak trees and the animals that depend on them.
The Ocean Squid Explorers Club, By Alex Bell ( paperback Feb 2021)
£7.99
In this ( fourth* ) explorers' adventure we meet Ursula, a part mermaid girl who is determined to follow in Stella's footsteps and help her to defeat the Collector!Ursula knew the submarine wasn't designed to go this deep, but what choice did they have? No one wanted to get swallowed up by a colossal sneezing jellyfish!In a distant watery corner of the Explorers Kingdom, a submarine engineer, Ursula, is determined to become an explorer. Unfortunately, she hides an extraordinary secret, which makes her the sworn enemy of the Ocean Squid Explorers' Club were they ever to find out . .
. But when The Collector threatens the Club, Ursula throws caution to the wind and leads an expedition through treacherous waters, filled with gremlins, aboard the Blowfish submarine - and joined by her friends Max, Genie and Jai - and even her idol Stella!Thrilling, heart-pounding adventure with exquisite detail throughout. Alex Bell's world-building is second to none.
See all in the series below *
The Odd Egg, Emily Gravett ( picture book)
£7.99
This classic picture book with split pages that allow the visual jokes to unfold, celebrates its 15th anniversary in this new edition featuring extra content from the multi-award winning Emily Gravett. All the birds have eggs to hatch. All except Duck.But when Duck finds an egg of his own to look after he's delighted - it's the most beautiful egg in the whole world! But all the other birds think it's a very odd egg indeed - and everyone's in for a BIG surprise when it finally hatches. A beautifully illustrated and cleverly formatted tale with a surprise ending that's bound to ruffle some feathers!
The Other Side of the Bridge, Mary Lawson ( pb, 2007)
£9.99
**LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE**
A powerful, heart-breaking story about tempting fate and living with the consequences. Arthur and Jake are brothers yet worlds apart. Arthur is older, shy, dutiful and set to inherit his father's farm. Jake is younger, handsome and reckless, a dangerous man to know.
When Laura arrives in their rural community, the fragile balance of the brothers' rivalry is pushed to the edge of catastrophe... 'An enthralling read, both straightforward and wonderfully intricate' Guardian'
Evokes beautifully the big joys and sorrows of most people, no matter how small their town' The Times
The Ottoman Endgame, Sean McMeekin ( paperback April 2016)
£14.99
The Ottoman Endgame : War, Revolution and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923
The Ottoman Endgame is the first, and definitive, single-volume history of the Ottoman empire's agonising war for survival. Beginning with Italy's invasion of Ottoman Tripoli in September 1911, the Empire was in a permanent state of emergency, with hardly a frontier not under direct threat.
Assailed by enemies on all sides, the Empire-which had for generations been assumed to be a rotten shell-proved to be strikingly resilient, beating off major attacks at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia before finally being brought down in the general ruin of the Central Powers in 1918. As the Europeans planned to partition all its lands between them and with even Istanbul seemingly helpless in the face of the triumphant Entente, an absolutely unexpected entity emerged: modern Turkey. Under the startling genius of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a powerful new state emerged from the Empire's fragments.
This is the first time an author has woven the entire epic together from start to finish - and it will cause many readers to fundamentally re-evaluate their understanding of the conflict. The consequences, well into the 21st century, could not have been more momentous - with countries as various as Serbia, Greece, Libya, Armenia, Iraq and Syria still living with them.
The Ottomans : Khans, Caesars and Caliphs (paperback Nov 2022)
£12.99
The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic-Asian antithesis of the Christian-European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans' multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe's heart. In their breadth and versatility, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans.Recounting the Ottomans' remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic and Byzantine heritage; how they used both religious toleration and conversion to integrate conquered peoples; and how, in the nineteenth century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the dynasty's demise after the First World War. Upending Western concepts of the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Reformation, this account challenges our understandings of sexuality, orientalism and genocide. Radically retelling their remarkable story, The Ottomans is a magisterial portrait of a dynastic power, and the first to truly capture its cross-fertilisation between East and West.
The Pachinko Parlour, Elisa Shua Dusapin (paperback August 2022)
£9.99
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, Winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long.
It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko, in an apartment in an abandoned hotel, and lying on the floor at her grandparents’: daydreaming, playing Tetris and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by.
When her grandparents first arrived in Tokyo, fleeing the civil war in Korea, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, a tender relationship growing, Mieko’s determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds and with it, Claire’s own desire to visit Korea with her grandparents.
The Pachinko Parlour is a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel amongst family. Crisp and enigmatic, Dusapin’s writing glows with intelligence.
The Painter’s Daughter, Emily Howes ( paperback Feb 2025)
£9.99
1759, Ipswich. Sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends and do everything together. They spy on their father as he paints, they rankle their mother as she manages the books, they tear barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home.
But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly has had a tendency to forget who she is, to fall into confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out. When the family move to Bath, Thomas Gainsborough finds fame as a portrait artist, while his daughters are thrown into the whirl of polite society. Here, the merits of marriage and codes of behaviour are crystal clear, and secrets much harder to keep.
As Peggy goes to greater lengths to protect her sister, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off-course. The discovery of a betrayal forces her to question all she has done for Molly - and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another . .
Convincing, engaging, transporting' GUARDIAN 'A wonderfully powerful and haunting novel with a hugely gripping plot' DEBORAH MOGGACH
The Panda's Child, Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher (hardback Oct 23)
£16.99
In a faraway forest a baby is lost and found, protected by a she-panda. Nine years later another baby, the panda's child, is in great danger, and only a boy and the spirit of the forest can save him. This magical, powerful story by Jackie Morris, co-creator of The Lost Words, and award-winning illustrator Cathy Fisher, is a book for all ages to treasure, exploring our most vital connection with wild nature.
It's emotional and enthralling, as well as a great story.
The Pandas Who Promised, Rachel Bright ( paperback May 2024)
£7.99
High on a misty mountainside, red panda cubs Popo and Ketu live happily with their mama. As the sisters grow, they promise Mama that they will always stay close to home. But while cautious Popo is content to spend her days in the family's cosy treetop nest, bold Ketu dreams of excitement and exploration.
So when Ketu creeps off down the mountain in search of adventure, Popo must make a choice: will she keep her promise to Mama, or look after her sister?An action-packed, heart-warming tale of being true to your word and true to yourself, from the creators of the international bestseller The Lion Inside.
The Paris Bookseller, Kerri Maher ( Paperback Dec 2022)
£9.99
A vivid evocation of the famous female-owned Parisian bookshop... Kerri Maher writes a love letter to books, bookstores and booklovers everywhere' Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network'PARIS, 1919. Young, bookish Sylvia Beach knows there is no greater city in the world than Paris. But when she opens an English-language bookshop on the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia can't yet know she is making history.
Many leading writers of the day, from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, consider Shakespeare and Company a second home. Here some of the most profound literary friendships blossom - and none more so than between James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Sylvia determines to publish it through Shakespeare and Company.
But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous book of the century comes at deep personal cost as Sylvia risks ruin, reputation and her heart in the name of the life-changing power of books... -
The Paris Dancer, Nicola Rayner ( Paperback Feb 2025)
£9.99
Paris, 1938.
Annie Mayer arrives in France with dreams of becoming a ballerina. But when the war reaches Paris, she's forced to keep her Jewish heritage a secret. Then a fellow dancer offers her a lifeline: a ballroom partnership that gives her a new identity.
Together, Annie and her partner captivate audiences across occupied Europe, using her newfound fame and alias to aid the Resistance. New York, 2012. Miriam, haunted by her past, travels from London to New York to settle her great-aunt Esther’s estate.
Among Esther’s belongings, she discovers notebooks detailing a secret family history and the story of a brave dancer who risked everything to help Jewish families during the war. As Miriam uncovers Esther’s life in Europe, she realises the story has been left for her to finish. Grappling with loss and the possibility of new love, Miriam must find the strength to reconcile her past and embrace her future.
Immaculately researched and exquisitely written... historical fiction at its best' - Louise Fein
The Paris Dancer, Nicola Rayner ( paperback Feb 2025)
£9.99
Paris, 1938. Annie Mayer arrives in France with dreams of becoming a ballerina. But when the war reaches Paris, she's forced to keep her Jewish heritage a secret. Then a fellow dancer offers her a lifeline: a ballroom partnership that gives her a new identity.
Together, Annie and her partner captivate audiences across occupied Europe, using her newfound fame and alias to aid the Resistance. New York, 2012. Miriam, haunted by her past, travels from London to New York to settle her great-aunt Esther’s estate.
Among Esther’s belongings, she discovers notebooks detailing a secret family history and the story of a brave dancer who risked everything to help Jewish families during the war. As Miriam uncovers Esther’s life in Europe, she realises the story has been left for her to finish. Grappling with loss and the possibility of new love, Miriam must find the strength to reconcile her past and embrace her future.
'Immaculately researched and exquisitely written... historical fiction at its best' - Louise Fein
The Paris Express, Emma Donoghue ( hardback March 2025)
£18.99
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room and The Pull of The Stars, Emma Donoghue takes readers on a thrilling ride through a simmering turn-of-the-century Paris on the edge of a dazzling future.
Autumn, 1895. Paris is as chaotic as it is glamorous, with industry and invention creating huge wealth and terrible poverty. One morning, an anarchist boards the ill-fated Granville to Paris express train, determined to make her mark on history.
Aboard the train are others from across the globe: the railway crew who have built a life together away from their wives, a little boy travelling alone for the first time, an artist far from home, a wealthy statesman and his invalid wife, and a young woman with a secret. Truths are revealed and relationships forged as the train speeds towards the City of Light and a future that will change everything . .
. 'An edge-of-your-seat historical thriller that I couldn't put down' – Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
The Partition : IRELAND DIVIDED, 1885 - 1925, Charles Townsend ( paperback April 2022)
£25.00 £10.99
And then, as these bitter disputes continued, it became clear that under no circumstances would the Protestants be party to any of it. The Partition is a remarkable, clear-sighted and thoughtful account of how two unthinkable events - full Irish independence and the creation of the state of Northern Ireland - came to pass. The Irish nationalist claim to leave ran into a loyalist demand to remain, increasingly centred on the north-eastern Protestant community, threatening large-scale violent resistance.
Here Charles Townshend lays out what is ultimately a tragic story, as partition became the only answer to an otherwise insoluble problem. The settlement of the Irish question drew in every major politician, conjured up heroes and villains, led to civil war and finally to Ulster's catastrophic Troubles. The hard border has always been seen as a failure of both British and Irish statecraft, but has endured now for a century.
The Partition brilliantly brings to life the contingency and uncertainty that created it.
The Passenger, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (paperback Sept 2021)
£10.99
Berlin, November 1938. With storm troopers battering against his door, Otto Silberman must flee out the back of his own home. He emerges onto streets thrumming with violence: it is Kristallnacht, and synagogues are being burnt, Jews rounded up and their businesses destroyed.Turned away from establishments he had long patronised, betrayed by friends and colleagues, Otto finds his life as a respected businessman has dissolved overnight. Desperately trying to conceal his Jewish identity, he takes train after train across Germany in a race to escape this homeland that is no longer home. Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938, fresh in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his prose flies at the same pace.
Shot through with Hitchcockian tension, The Passenger is a blisteringly immediate story of flight and survival in Nazi Germany.
The Peacock and the Sparrow, IS Berry ( paperback Oct 2024)
£9.99
WINNER OF THE 2024 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
WINNER OF THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL - WINNER OF THE 2024 BARRY BEST FIRST MYSTERY OR CRIME NOVEL AWARD - WINNER OF THE 2024 MACAVITY BEST FIRST MYSTERY AWARD
‘Gritty, propulsive, dark and twisty’ David McCloskey, author of Damascus Station
‘It’s fantastic, I loved it’ Steve Cavanagh, author of Thirteen
‘..the most impressive debut of the year to date and a spy novel to rank alongside the best of Mick Herron’s Slough House series.’ The Irish Times
‘Sensational…feels like every inch of the real world of espionage’ Alex Gerlis, author of Every Spy a Traitor
‘I.S. Berry is at the vanguard of a new generation of American spy novelists who have electrified the genre.’ Charles Cumming, author of Judas 62
The thrilling debut from author and former CIA officer I.S. Berry, following an American spy’s last dangerous mission.
Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission — uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency. But then he meets Almaisa, an enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask.
When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict, his romance and loyalties upended. In an instant, he’s caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. He sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa’s love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain’s secrets end and America’s begin.
The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall ( paperback)
£8.99
The Penderwicks: four sisters, as different as chalk from cheese, yet as close as can be. The eldest, Rosalind, is responsible and practical; Skye, stubborn and feisty; dreamy, artistic, budding novelist, Jane; and shy little Batty, who doesn't go anywhere without her butterfly wings. And not forgetting Hound, their large lumbering lovable dog.The four girls and their absent-minded father head off for their summer holidays, but instead of the cosy tumbledown cottage they expect, they find themselves on a huge estate called Arundel, with magnificent gardens ripe for exploring. It isn't long before they become embroiled in all sorts of scrapes with new-found friend, Jeffrey - but his mother, the icy-hearted Mrs Tifton, must be avoided at all costs. Chaotic adventures ensue, and it soon becomes a summer the sisters will never forget...
The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories ( pb 2020)
£9.99
The perfect gift this Christmas season: a generous selection of some of the greatest festive stories of all time.
This is a collection of the most magical, moving, chilling and surprising Christmas stories from around the world, taking us from frozen Nordic woods to glittering Paris, a New York speakeasy to an English country house, bustling Lagos to midnight mass in Rio, and even outer space. Here are classic tales from writers including Truman Capote, Shirley Jackson, Dylan Thomas, Saki and Chekhov, as well as little-known treasures such as Italo Calvino's wry sideways look at Christmas consumerism, Wolfdietrich Schnurre's story of festive ingenuity in Berlin, Selma Lagerlof's enchanted forest in Sweden, and Irene Nemerovsky's dark family portrait. Featuring Santas, ghosts, trolls, unexpected guests, curmudgeons and miracles, here is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short story writers of all time.
The People Immortal, Vasily Grossman ( paperback 2023)
£12.99
One of Grossman's three great war novels - alongside Life and Fate and Stalingrad. "A significant, valuable addition to Grossman's small but powerful body of work" WILLIAM BOYD"
Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war's first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces.
Grossman's descriptions of the natural world - and his characters' relationship to it - are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted story-teller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and file soldiers. Grossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But The People Immortal is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda.
On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material. A heavily redacted English translation of The People Immortal was published in 1946.
This current edition is the first that reflects Grossman's original text. Translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
The Perfect Parent Project, Stewart Foster ( pb Jan 2021)
£7.99
From the award-winning author of THE BUBBLE BOY comes a heart-warming and unforgettable story that follows one boy's search for the perfect family, with surprising and unexpected results. Perfect for fans of Onjali Q. Rauf and Lisa Thompson.'Friendship, laughter, suspense and more!' - Ross Welford, author of TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER and THE 1000-YEAR-OLD BOY THINGS MY PERFECT PARENTS MUST HAVE: 1. A mega mansion like the ones footballers live in 2. A garage wall with a basketball hoop 3.
No gerbils 4. Holidays to Disneyland All Sam wants is a family of his own, a home instead of a 'house' and parents he knows will still be there when he wakes up. Because Sam has been in and out of foster care his whole life and he can't imagine ever feeling like he truly belongs.
Then his best friend Leah suggests that rather than wait for a family to come to him, he should go out and find one. So begins The Perfect Parent Project ... But Sam may just discover that family has a funny way of finding you.
The Pet Potato, Josh ( paperback March 2023)
£7.99
Albert is so desperate to get a pet, he'll take anything - a cat, a dog, giraffe... he's not fussy, so he's super excited when Dad finally brings a pet home. There's just one problem: it's a potato.Potatoes can't do anything a proper pet does... can they?!Branford Boase Award shortlisted Josh Lacey and World Illustration Award shortlisted Momoko Abe bring warmth and humour in perfect measure to this story, perfect for any child who's desperate for a pet!
The Philosophy Resistance Squad, Robert Grant ( paperback 2021)
£7.99
Milo (He's about 11) is thrilled to be starting at the country's fanciest, shiniest, most prestigious school. But it soon becomes clear that something sinister is going on. The headmaster, Dr Pummelcrush, is bent on brainwashing the students and turning them into mindless, unthinking human robots.
When Milo stumbles across a bright and colourful secret garden and meets its joyous gardener, he and his friends begin to open their minds to a whole new way of thinking: philosophy. Can the Philosophy Resistance Squad use their new questioning skills to resist Pummelcrush's evil project and save their classmates from being zombified?
An exciting and witty, dystopian story - if you like this you'll enjoy The Hunger Games, Terry Pratchett and Philip Reeve when you're a little older!
