CONTEMPORARY FICTION

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.
When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the over of night.
A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Owning her was all he ever wanted . . .

Everything about Olivia belongs to Malachi Vize.
Her mind. Her body. Her soul. Her fear. Her pain.

When she sends him to prison, her betrayal runs deep. Now free, he wants revenge against the one girl he shouldn't want. His forbidden obsession. His foster sister.
He's spent years planning for this, and now he's ready to haunt her.

When Halloween comes, he can longer lurk in the shadows. All he has left to own is her heart, even if he needs to take it.

He had her, but then he lost her.

Malachi Vize has always had one desire in life.
One goal.
One deep obsession he could never give up on.
His foster sister, Olivia.

For the first time, Olivia has chosen him over everything else she holds dear, and Malachi doesn't intend to ever let her go. But his happiness is soon shattered by powerful enemies who want to claim Olivia for themselves.
Wounded and wrestling with his own demons, Malachi is forced into unexpected alliances to hunt them down, but he won't stop fighting until he gets her back.

Read the captivating dark academia romance in Bound, then flip your book over to unleash the dangers of forbidden love in Unbound.

Bound

A reluctant con artist and a professor with too many secrets are bound by an arcane text-in more ways than one.
Veronica "Vero" Mercer grew up with grifters for parents, and she knows her way around a con. When grad school bills pile up and her friends are in trouble, she turns her art history skills into a forgery side hustle.
It's supposed to be a short-term deal, but her work draws the attention of Dr. Viktor Ashworth, a reserved, very British professor. Instead of turning her in, Ashworth kidnaps her - politely - and makes an unusual offer: forge a mysterious ancient manuscript for him.

Unbound

A five-thousand-year-old woman who has outlived empires. A doctor who has spent his life fighting death. Their fates collide in a blood game of vengeance.
Lilit of Nineveh has spent millennia in control. As a powerful revenant, she enforces one rule above all: protect mortals. Disciplined and focused, she has never made the same mistake twice, and she has learned that attachments can only lead to ruin.
Enter Roman Martin. An overworked and relentlessly kind ER physician, he is the one mortal Lilit cannot quit. Any relationship between them is against everything Lilit has fought for. Still, she keeps coming back to him.

1980. Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope near the Rio Grande when he discovers the aftermath of a drug deal turned deadly. Finding bullet-ridden bodies, several kilos of heroin, and a caseload of cash, he faces a choice – walk away or take the money and run. Choosing the latter, he knows, will change everything.


And so begins a terrifying chain of events, as each player in this brutal game seems determined to answer one question: how does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

In a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. The landscape is destroyed, nothing moves save the ash on the wind and cruel, lawless men stalk the roadside, lying in wait. Attempting to survive in this brave new world, the young boy and his protector have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves. They must keep walking.


Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Road is an incandescent novel, the story of a remarkable and profoundly moving journey. In this unflinching study of the best and worst of humankind, Cormac McCarthy boldly divines a future without hope, but one in which, miraculously, this young family finds tenderness.

Ophelia came to the elite Sorrowsong University to destroy Alex and his family.
But that was before she knew him. Before their love became each of their reasons for living.

Sal Paradise, young and innocent, joins the slightly crazed Dean Moriarty on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American Dream.

My name is Teal Van Doren, and I’m where princes go to die.

I have a secret.
I stole a heart - or rather, a marriage contract.
It wasn’t mine to want, to touch, or even consider.
But it was there for the taking, so I took it.

Huge mistake.

Ronan Astor is nobility in this world.
Arrogant player.
Heartless bastard.
Vicious prince.

Now he’s out to destroy me.
But what he doesn’t know is that I’m coming for him too.

The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results.

Ariel was first published in 1965, it contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963, including poems such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralytic'…

Ariel was first published in 1965, it contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963, including poems such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralytic'…

During a time of great turmoil, Gustave Flaubert created literature's most scandalous heroine: Madame Bovary. He then poisoned her with arsenic.

But what if, 175 years later, Emma – and the women history overlooked – could seize the quill from his hands and tell a different story?


In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a luminous reinvention of an iconic male writer, told through the eyes of the women – real and fictional – who shaped him: a devoted nursemaid, an Egyptian dancer and a passionate, jealous lover who refuses to be forgotten. Through their voices, visionary author Elif Shafak creates both an intimate portrait of a great artist and an epic meditation on storytelling itself: who gets remembered, who gets erased, and how can literature endure through political upheaval, war and injustice?

When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances "Frankie" McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on California's idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl.


But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path.


As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America. But Frankie will also discover the true value of female friendship and the heartbreak that love can cause.

This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II, when women’s stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . .

Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.

Written centuries before the time of Shakespeare and even Chaucer, The Tale of Genji marks the birth of the novel-and after more than a millennium, this seminal work continues to enchant readers throughout the world.

Lady Murasaki Shikibu and her tale's hero, Prince Genji, have had an unmatched influence on Japanese culture. Prince Genji manifests what was to become an image of the ideal Heian era courtier; gentle and passionate. Genji is also a master poet, dancer, musician and painter.

Famed goalkeeper Noah Wilson doesn't do relationships or complications. The only thing the grumpy single dad wants is to do his job and spend more time with his daughter.


Unfortunately, his bachelor status has made it impossible to find the right nanny for her. With the World Cup looming and a string of fired nannies in his wake, he has no choice but to hire the last person he wants close to his orbit.
She's too stubborn and far too appealing for her own good, but she's also a natural with his daughter.

And the way his heart skips a beat whenever she's around? That's nothing more than a coincidence. He's sure of it.

Beginning one morning in December, WE DO NOT PART traces the path of a young woman, Kyungha, as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalised following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.

Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon’s house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her.

The incredible first memoir from the Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things

I never anticipated Charlie Florek. But Charlie Florek changed my life.

Good things happen at the lake. That's what Alice's Nan always says. And it's true. It's where Alice took that photo, the one that catapulted her career.


But when Nan falls, Alice puts down her camera and heads back to Barry’s Bay. No camera. No deadlines. Quiet… until he shows up.

Charlie Florek. He was nineteen when she accidentally photographed him. Now he’s back - taller, hotter, and somehow even more unforgettable.

Bo is determined to live his own life in his own way. But his son has other ideas...

Bo lives a quiet existence in his small rural village in the north of Sweden. He is elderly and his days are punctuated by visits from his care team and his son.

A song without any answer in it?
That's the sound of waiting.
Livia Bohusz misses her brother, Cyrus.
Unmoored by his death, and the stifling silence of the family farm, eleven-year-old Livia has no choice but to survive.
Her only solace: music, an escape in the quiet rapture piano practice brings.
The promise of a new life her talent offers, intoxicating.
So when Livia starts her college music scholarship it feels as if a new life might begin. Immersing herself in her passions in a world where she excels, even as she struggles to fit in with more urbane classmates, she glimpses the possibilities of a life beyond the farm and her parents.

Min Jin Lee, the acclaimed author of Pachinko, returns with a breathtaking contemporary epic that follows one family as they reckon with personal dreams and familial duty.

John and Helen Koh and their three children – Bo, DH and Mido – are building new lives in Korea when they find their worlds upended, first by a terrible betrayal and then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Striving to regain their footing, the Kohs set out to do whatever it takes to provide for their children’s futures.
They leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in California, where new opportunities open for the Koh children, as the parents, strangers in a strange land, adjust to a difficult existence in which their qualifications mean little. Their way forward is lit by the faith that education will lead the next generation to the success and security that have eluded their parents.

At New England boys boarding school Welton Academy, tradition is celebrated and high achievement is expected. When former Welton student and new English teacher John Keating encourages students to "make their lives extraordinary" with his unorthodox teaching methods, he shakes up the stuffy preperatory school's high-pressure environment and guides his pupils on a journey of self-discovery.


Inspired by Keating, high school junior Todd Anderson and friends resurrect the Dead Poets Society—a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. But the Dead Poets pledges soon realize that their newfound freedom can have tragic consequences. Can the club and the individuality it inspires survive the pressure from authorities determined to destroy their dreams?

Sweet and gentle, calm and collected, nervous and inexperienced, Tobias Mitchell was death cloaked in the form of a handsome man. But, instead of running the other way, she fell for him.


Aria Miller is a scientist researching rare genetic diseases when her world is tilted off its axis, and she collides with Tobias. When she takes him on as her assistant, he becomes infatuated with her in ways he can't comprehend.


When reality hits and Aria is forced to leave the country, Tobias is faced with the thought of losing the object of his desire. His mask slips, showing her his true self for the first time.

Aria is his, and he'll do anything to make sure she stays that way.

It all began with just one line. . .
The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary and contained a single sentence:
I’ll wait forever if I have to.

It was signed by Dante, a man I didn’t know.

Out of simple curiosity, I wrote back to ask him what exactly he was waiting for. His reply?

A love story and a tale of life-enhancing friendship: Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer showcases his wit, sophistication and deep knowledge of focaccia in this magical tale set amidst the Tuscan hills.


Broke and directionless, our young man takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco - a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown.


Trained as an archivist, he thinks he's been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful, crumbling mansion nestled in the green Tuscan hills... but what are his actual duties?
Days are spent ridding the house of a marten - whatever that is - locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to unnervingly handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco's great and final plan-to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it's too late.


As summer turns into autumn and the Italian countryside begins to work its magic on our protagonist, the secrets of Villa Coco and its inhabitants are slowly brought to light - and with them, an unforgettable story of the enduring power of friendship.

The princess isn’t supposed to dethrone the king.

Elsa
He told me he’d destroy me - and he did.
I might have lost the battle, but the war is far from over.
They say it takes just one move to dethrone a king.
No one warned me he’d drag me down with him on the way.

Aiden
If Steel’s little princess wants a war, then she’ll get one.
There’s only one rule: follow mine - or none at all.
So go ahead, sweetheart.
Show me what you’ve got.

The London winter of 1947 is as cold as St Petersburg during the Revolution. Albertine, the wife of a British army officer often abroad on covert government business, finds herself increasingly lonely.

Eager to distract herself with work, she takes a job as companion to the mysterious 'Monsieur Ka', a Russian emigre. As she is drawn into Ka's dramatic past, her own life is shaken to its foundations.

As a girl, Clara del Valle can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister, Rosa the Beautiful, Clara is mute for nine years. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon to the stern and volatile landowner Esteban Trueba.