Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Showing 65–80 of 318 results
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Flight
£9.99Flight
A stunning novel about grief, shame, art, family, and all the ways we try and fail and try again to love and care for one another, from the critically acclaimed author of Want
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Foster
£8.99Foster
A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers’ house she finds affection she has not known before, and slowly she begins to blossom in their care. But when a secret is suddenly revealed, she realises how fragile her idyll is.
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Foxash
£10.99Foxash
Worn out by poverty, Lettie Radley and her miner husband Tommy grasp at the offer of their very own smallholding – part of a Government scheme to put the unemployed back to work on the land. When she comes down to Essex to join him, it’s not Tommy who greets her, but their new neighbours. Overbearing and unkempt, Jean and Adam Dell are everything that the smart, spirited, aspirational Lettie can’t abide. As Lettie settles in, she finds an unexpected joy in the rhythms of life on the smallholding. She’s hopeful that her past, and the terrible secret Tommy has come to Foxash to escape, are far behind them. But the Dells have their own secrets. And as the seasons change, and a man comes knocking at the gate, the scene is set for a terrible reckoning.
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Franny and Zooey
£9.99Franny and Zooey
Two wonderful stories about members of the Glass family by the author of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. The first story takes place in downtown New Haven during the weekend of ‘the Yale game’ and follows Franny Glass on a date with her collegiate boyfriend. The second focuses on Zooey Glass, a somewhat emotionally toughened genius.
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Fruit of the dead
£16.99Fruit of the dead
An electric, beguiling contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of one summer on a lush private island, about addiction and sex, family and independence, and who holds the power in a modern underworld.
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Ghost music
£9.99Ghost music
When Song Yan’s mother-in-law moves into the apartment she shares with her new husband Bowen, their carefully calibrated life is overturned. Family secrets are uncovered – a disappeared sister, a former wife; family plans are put on hold – can they possibly try for a child in these circumstances? Trapped and disorientated, Song Yan begins to question whether she knows anything at all about the man she chose to marry. He, in turn, withdraws from her completely. When mysterious parcels of mushrooms begin to arrive on the doorstep, purporting to arrive from a virtuoso pianist, Bai Yu, whom everyone had believed to be dead, Song Yan seizes on the invitation to track him down.
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Girl, Woman, Other
£9.99Girl, Woman, Other
‘Girl, Woman, Other’ follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends, and lovers, across the country and through the years.
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Glorious exploits
£16.99Glorious exploits
It’s 412 BC, and Athens’ invasion of Sicily has failed catastrophically. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are held captive in the quarries of Syracuse, starving, dejected, and hanging on by the slimmest of threads. Lampo and Gelon are local potters, young men with no work and barely two obols to rub together. When they take to visiting the nearby quarry, they discover prisoners who will, in desperation, recite lines from the plays of Euripides for scraps of bread and a scattering of olives. And so an idea is born: the men will put on Medea in the quarry. A proper performance to be sung of down the ages. Because after all, you can hate the Athenians for invading your territory, but still love their poetry. But as the audacity of their enterprise dawns on them, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between enemies and friends.
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Godmersham Park
£9.99Godmersham Park
January 1804. Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. But her mother has died and she desperately needs an independent income if she is to survive. For her new charge, twelve-year-old Fanny Austen, Anne’s arrival is all novelty and excitement. But Anne is keenly aware that her new role is an awkward one – she is neither one of the servants nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in her instant dismissal. She has just begun to settle into her position when dashing Henry Austen and his younger sister Jane come to stay. Both take an immediate interest in the pretty, clever governess who quickly becomes drawn into the above stairs life of the Austen family.
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Good Omens
£9.99Good Omens
According to the ‘Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter’ – the world’s only totally reliable guide to the future – the world will end on Saturday.
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Greek lessons
£9.99Greek lessons
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it’s the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages.
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Hagstone
£16.99Hagstone
‘Intelligent, probing’ MAGGIE O’FARRELL
‘Wild, singular? gripped me from the start’ DOUGLAS STUART
‘Passionate, wild, hugely atmospheric’ DAVID NICHOLLS
‘A gorgeous, mysterious read’ AISLING BEA
‘Wild, elemental? I adored it’ LOUISE KENNEDY
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Hamnet
£9.99Hamnet
On a summer’s day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
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Happy place
£9.99Happy place
Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year for the past decade, they have run away from their lives to drink far too much wine and soak up the sea air with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth. Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone. But this is the last time they’ll all be together here. The cottage is for sale, and since they can’t bear to break their best friends’ hearts, they’ll fake it for one more week. But how can you pretend to be in love in front of the people who know you best?
£9.99