Showroom Sample Contemporary Fiction Bargain Book Box SP4047

Showroom Sample Contemporary Fiction Bargain Book Box SP4047

Eighteen contemporary novels for a reader who likes a big story: Sally Rooney, Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt, Lucinda Riley twice, Jessie Burton’s The Confession, Rosie Walsh, Cecelia Ahern, Erica James twice, Christy Lefteri’s Songbirds and Bernice McFadden’s Sugar. A mix of book-club fiction and summer reads. Some covers may carry price stickers or sticker residue.

1. Songbirds — Christy Lefteri — A Sri Lankan maid in Cyprus goes missing and nobody looks for her except her employer’s wife and the man who loved her in secret. From the author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, and angrier.
2. Beautiful World, Where Are You — Sally Rooney — A novelist, her best friend, a warehouse worker and a political adviser, and the emails between the two women about whether anything they do matters. Rooney’s third, and the one with the most argument in it.
3. The Man Who Didn’t Call — Rosie Walsh — Seven perfect days, then he vanishes and doesn’t answer his phone. Her friends say he’s a cad; she knows something’s wrong. The twist is the whole point and it works. Liane Moriarty loved it.
4. Escape to the French Farmhouse — Jo Thomas — Del moves to Provence with her husband, he leaves, and she stays, making lavender products in a village that doesn’t want her. Katie Fforde says pure joy; it’s the most escapist book here.
5. Never Greener — Ruth Jones — Kate, seventeen, had an affair with Callum, married and thirty-nine; twenty years on she’s a famous actress and he’s still married, and they meet again. The Gavin and Stacey co-writer’s debut novel, and it’s sharper than the TV.
6. Mothers and Daughters — Erica James — Three generations, one lakeside house, and the secrets each woman keeps from the next. James’s big-cast family novel.
7. Summer at the Lake — Erica James — Lake Como, two women decades apart, and a man who connects them. Comfort fiction with a view.
8. Her Husband’s Mistake — Sheila O’Flanagan — Roxy’s husband made one mistake; she has to decide whether a marriage is more than one mistake. O’Flanagan’s Irish domestic realism, done well.
9. American Dirt — Jeanine Cummins — Lydia and her son flee Acapulco after a cartel kills her whole family at a quinceañera, and ride the trains north with the migrants. The most argued-over bestseller of 2020, and a page-turner whatever you think of the argument.
10. Sugar — Bernice L. McFadden — A prostitute moves into a church-going Arkansas town in the 1950s and the woman next door, who lost a daughter, befriends her. McFadden’s debut, and a Black American classic in the making.
11. The Year I Met You — Cecelia Ahern — Jasmine is fired, gardening-leaved for a year, and stuck watching the drunk neighbour across the road she’s always hated. Ahern’s most grown-up book.
12. Black Country Orphan — Annie Murray — A girl abandoned at a Birmingham foundry grows up never sure whether she’s family or servant. Murray’s Black Country is the real thing.
13. The Butterfly Box — Santa Montefiore — Chile and Cornwall, a childhood love and a box of secrets. Montefiore’s first and still her readers’ favourite.
14. Sunny Days and Sea Breezes — Carole Matthews — Jodie runs away to a houseboat on the Isle of Wight and finds a community that won’t leave her alone. Milly Johnson calls it sun-filled; it is.
15. The Shadow Sister — Lucinda Riley — Star, the third of the Seven Sisters, follows her adoptive father’s clue to a London bookshop and a Edwardian story about a woman named Flora. Riley’s big series at its most English.
16. Everything Is Beautiful — Eleanor Ray — Amy is a hoarder, her house is full, and a child next door starts to find things in it. A gentle novel about grief disguised as a tidy-up story. Katie Fforde says beautifully written.
17. The Confession — Jessie Burton — Rose takes a job as assistant to the reclusive novelist Constance Holden, who once knew Rose’s missing mother. 1980s LA and present-day London, from the Miniaturist author.
18. Hothouse Flower — Lucinda Riley — A Norfolk estate, a wartime affair in Thailand, and the granddaughter who inherits the secret. Riley before the Seven Sisters, and arguably better.