Modern Fiction (post 1945)

Small towns don't feel small when you grow up there. That comes later. The world as you know it seems wide. You feel close to it, the smells, the seasons,...

The Darker Proof , an anthology of stories about suffering with the HIV virus, was first published in 1987 to critical acclaim. This updated version, which includes stories by Adam...

Her true love is in London but her new love is New York!This fun, fashion-packed novel is perfect for fans of Sex and the City and Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series...

Praised as "Australia's answer to Maeve Binchy, a modern-day Jane Austen" ( The Sun Herald , Australia), Monica McInerney, internationally bestselling author of The Alphabet Sisters , returns with a...

Jacob Hunt is a teenager: brilliant at maths, wicked sense of humour, extraordinarily organised, hopeless at reading social cues. And Jacob has Asperger's. He is locked in his own world...

Power of the Sword is the story of an intense sibling rivalry in war-torn South Africa from bestselling author, Wilbur Smith. They were half-brothers, raised in different worlds in the...

Now living in Melbourne, Isabelle and Dr Jack are expecting their first child. And, naturally, Isabelle is the very model of a calm Earth Mother-to-be...Or she would be if she...

Dublin, 1907. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works. Outspoken and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a Catholic...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 The moving, powerful and urgent English-language debut from one...

This is the story of how we grow old - how we give up the dreams of youth for something better - and how many chances we have to get...

When Russian federal agent Nikolai Aven, starts investigating the affairs of Moscow tycoon Marat Ivankov, he is caught in a web of corruption involving the lethal Russian Mafia and their...

Framed by historical realism, Gillian Bradshaw expertly weaves convincing magical elements into her fantastic tale of Gwalchmai, the Hawk of May. Son of the beautiful, infinitely evil sorceress Morgawse, nephew...

WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZE 2009 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2010 'A tremendously vital book in every sense.' - Sunday Times At a suburban barbecue one afternoon,...

The fourth book in the deliciously naughty GOSSIP GIRL THE CARLYLES series Serena, Nate and Blair kept us all entertained with their less than pure behaviour but Gossip Girl was...

Robin is shocked but thrilled when Hannah arrives on his Oxford doorstep with a two year old and a suitcase, and announces that Freddie is his son. Her husband Marcus...

New South Wales, 1856: Miles McGinty and Isabel Dowling are born on the same night into different worlds. Miles is the illegitimate son of an actress in a troupe of...

Paris, 1815. Napoleon has just surrendered at Waterloo and is due to begin his exile. Meanwhile, Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, has just arrived in Paris to...

Cara Gayle is one of life's pleasers. A young, country school-teacher in 1960s Ireland, she spends her life looking after her philandering husband, Oliver and her pious mother, Maggie. When...

It's 1913. Fifteen-year-old Malise Monroe earns herself an education teaching younger children at a Dundee schoolhouse. Her father is passionately devoted to improving conditions for workers in the jute industry...

Hilary had always thought she'd lived a charmed life. With a caring husband, David, and two lively children, she took an active part in both family and village life. Then,...

Kamryn Matika has a great job, a hectic social life and no responsibilities - one birthday card will change all of that forever... What would you do for the friend...

When Chloe Cadwallader's beloved godmother Jocelyn dies, she leaves her a letter and a map of Britain, with the suggestion that she chuck in her job and boyfriend to embark...

1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests...

'I see murder in this unhappy hand ' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can...

There were three of us in the marriage Ellie can't push Princess Diana's infamous words out of her mind, except Ellie isn't dealing with a mistress, but with a matriach,...

Mary, a young Australian girl, suddenly finds herself in a Muslim girls' boarding school in Alexandria, Egypt. Everything is strange, including the other girls. A month of Ramadan fasting, a...

The gods of poetry and death descend on a house in India to vie for the soul of a wounded monkey. A bargain is struck: the monkey must tell a...

This title is part of a series of nine plays for children aged seven to nine. It is intended for guided reading sessions and is in line with literacy guidance....

Laughable Loves is a collection of stories that first appeared in print in Prague before 1968, but was then banned. The seven stories are all concerned with love, or rather...

When a diplomat at the Madagascan Embassy in Delhi is stabbed to death in seemingly scandalous and mysterious circumstances, the ambassador asks his old friend and fellow chess enthusiast, Jay...

A colloquial, fast-moving first-person narrative, COCAINE tells the story of Pete, a freelance music journalist who thinks he's got a scoop on the big band of the moment and whose...

Following a near-death experience as a child, the narrator becomes cursed with the ability to foresee the deaths of the people closest to him. These visions come to him in...

Stevie was a young woman who took life very seriously indeed: wouldn't drink coffee if it came from a chain, would never buy a card on Valentine's day. Why would...

Winnie would say she's no trouble. She's content to let the days go by, minding her own business, bothering no-one. She'd rather not recall the past and, at 72, doesn't...

Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown to adulthood in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. Now they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and amass power...