Lighter Reads
Sometimes you don't want your book to take you somewhere dark. You might be looking for family drama, romance or plain escapism, but there will be something here to keep you entertained, whether that is curled up in winter with the rain lashing outside, or some mental diversion on your sunlounger on holidays.
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 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 Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donogue (paperback June 2024)
£9.99
The Rachel Incident is an all-consuming love story. But it's not the one you're expecting. It's unconventional and messy.
It's young and foolish. It's about losing and finding yourself. But it is always about love.
When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back...
'A deliciously complicated and very real romance with some refreshing twists. O'Donoghue captures all the intensity of messy young love' MAIL ON SUNDAY
Order now for delivery with paperback publication around 6th June !
The Saint of Lost Things, Tish Delaney ( paperback April 2023)
£8.99
Lindy Morris is stuck. She lives in rural Ireland, banished to a lonely bungalow by her Granda Morris, with only her Auntie Bell and the TV for company. But one day Lindy realises that life is not quite what she thought it was: her mother's disappearance and her own lost years need to be brought out into the light.Suddenly Lindy is awake, uncovering the very secrets that will release her from her past. Told with devastating wit and poignancy, THE SAINT OF LOST THINGS is the triumphant story of an unlikely heroine as she makes her bid for freedom.
The Wake Up Call, Beth O’Leary ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
They'll do anything to save the hotel, except work together . . .Welcome to Forest Manor Hotel, where the staff and guests are one happy family. Except for Izzy and Lucas - bitter rivals banned from working the same shift, for everyone's sake. After struggling for years, the hotel may soon have to close its doors forever.
But when Izzy returns a guest's lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management this might fix everything. With four rings still sitting in lost property, Izzy and Lucas are forced to work together to try to save the day. But as their rivalry becomes something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas start to wonder if there's more at stake here than the hotel's future .
This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams ( paperback 2020)
£9.99
A new novel from the wonderful Niall Williams ( History of the Rain, Four Letters of Love).
One of my favourite books of 2020 - Linda
Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living.
But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets for which he needs to atone. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett ( paperback June 2024)
£9.99
This is a story about Peter Duke who went on to be a famous actor. This is a story about falling in love with Peter Duke who wasn't famous at all. It's about falling so wildly in love with him - the way one will at twenty-four - that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight.There was no way to foresee the mess it would come to in the end. It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear - of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. 'One of our greatest living chroniclers of love and marriage ...
True Colours, James Simpson ( paperback August 2024)
£12.99
Derry on a plate ( with a side order of Strabane)… this book has joy, poignancy and humour all wrapped up in a Derry shaped package. Thoroughly enjoyable, quirky and heartwarming.
- signed copies available!
Welcome to Glorious Tuga, Francesca Segal ( paperback April 2025)
£9.99
’‘Full of romance, intrigue and friendships’‘Blue sea; small island; paradise. Sign me up!’‘
Zoologist Charlotte Walker has taken up a year-long fellowship on the tiny, remote island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She is warmly embraced by the tight-knit community of islanders – and their animals – who are keen to adopt Charlotte as Tuga’s first vet.
But Charlotte has a family secret that connects her to the island. She is determined to solve the mystery: she just needs to make sure she stays focused on her research, and absolutely does not fall in love with the first man she meets…’A much-needed escape, I warmly recommend this beauty’ NIGELLA LAWSON
Went to London, Took the Dog, Nina Stibbe ( paperback 2024)
£9.99
From the beloved writer Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina, a warm and funny story of a woman changing her life at sixty. 'A unique comic voice, endlessly funny' – David Nicholls, author of One Day'Painfully funny, but also deeply moving' – Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and BlissWhat does it mean to start again at sixty?In Went to London, Took the Dog, Nina Stibbe is surprised to find herself asking this question as she leaves married life behind in Cornwall and heads back to London after twenty years away for what she calls ‘a year-long sabbatical’. She takes up lodgings at the house of writer Deborah Moggach, unprepared for how she, and the city, has changed and now wondering whether freedom is all it’s cracked up to be .
. . Follow the diary of a sixty-year-old runaway as she becomes, as she puts it, ‘a proper adult’ at last.
You are Here, David Nicholls ( paperback July 2025)
£9.99
Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way... Marnie is stuck. Stuck working alone in her London flat, stuck battling the long afternoons and a life that often feels like it's passing her by.
Michael is coming undone. Reeling from his wife's departure, increasingly reclusive, taking himself on long, solitary walks across the moors and fells. When a persistent mutual friend and some very English weather conspire to bring them together, Marnie and Michael suddenly find themselves alone on the most epic of walks and on the precipice of a new friendship. But can they survive the journey?
THE LOVE STORY OF THE YEAR'A triumph, a real gift of a novel'Sunday Times'Romantic, funny and hopeful'Dolly Alderton'Pure pleasure in a paperback'The Guardian, Books of the Summer
Yours Cheerfully, AJ Pearce ( paperback July 2022)
£9.99
From the author of Sunday Times Bestseller, Dear Mrs Bird, comes a much hoped-for follow up. Charming, hilarious and inspiring, Yours Cheerfully is just the tonic we've all been waiting for. '
'Full of wit, friendship and the uplifting knowledge that when people come together, great changes can be made' - Katie Fforde
London, September, 1941.
Following the departure of the formidable Editor, Henrietta Bird, from Woman's Friend magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the challenge of becoming a young wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles is blossoming, while Emmy's best friend Bunty, is still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, but bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to Make a Go of It.
When the Ministry of Information calls on Britain's women's magazines to help recruit desperately needed female workers to the war effort, Emmy is thrilled to be asked to step up and help. But when she and Bunty meet a young woman who shows them the very real challenges that women war workers face, Emmy must tackle a life-changing dilemma between doing her duty, and standing by her friends. Every bit as funny, touching and cheering as AJ Pearce's debut, Dear Mrs Bird, Yours Cheerfully is a celebration of friendship, a testament to the strength of women and the importance of lifting each other up, even in the most challenging times.
