The first story collection from Kate Atkinson in twenty years, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales from the bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life

In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.

With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems.

Sisters Cleo and Robyn may be close in age but their attitudes to life could not be further apart. While Cleo's a fully-fledged adult with a family, a business and a signature scent, Robyn is still waiting for the instruction manual to Adult Life and success is keeping her houseplant alive. Skating by at her job as an estate agent, she's adept at avoiding housework, ignoring admin, and evading her mother's anxious questions about her love life. But then Robyn's fired in the most publicly humiliating way imaginable - and her chaos catches up with her.

Although Cleo steps in to give Robyn a temporary job in her cleaning firm, it comes with very firm instructions: Robyn must BEHAVE RESPONSIBLY. And that includes meeting the high standards of Jim, her enigmatic supervisor. But when Robyn learns to navigate the catastrophic kitchens and judgemental dogs of total strangers she learns some unexpected truths about her own messy world. No one's life is spotless...

Is it time - finally - for everyone to stop sweeping their secrets under the carpet?

Tannie Maria might be the Karoo’s favourite agony aunt, but when it comes to matters of her own heart, she doesn’t have all the answers.

Why is she having trouble telling her beau – the dashing Detective Henk Kannemeyer with the chestnut moustache – that she loves him? There are other, more pressing problems too. A tall, dark stranger zoomed in on her Ducati motorbike: she is Zabanguni Kani, a journalist renowned for her political exposés, who, after receiving threats, must move in with Tannie Maria for safety. Who could tell that a trip to the country’s northern borders was on the cards?

The journey will plunge Maria and her friends into pools of danger, amid water maidens, murders, and Harley Davidsons. Ladismith’s famous crime fighter is back – with a tin of buttermilk rusks in hand – to restore eace from the Klein Karoo to the great Limpopo River.

In Finding Ashley, a deeply moving novel from the number one bestseller Danielle Steel, two estranged sisters get the chance to reconnect and right the wrongs of the past.

Melissa Henderson leads a quiet life. Once a bestselling author, she now pours all her energy into renovating a Victorian house in the foothills of rural New England. Six years ago, her life was derailed by tragedy and she stopped writing. The house has given her new purpose.

When her beloved home appears on the news, Melissa receives a call from her estranged sister, Hattie. They were close once, but that was before Melissa withdrew from the world. Now Hattie is determined to help Melissa turn a new page, even if it means reopening one of the most painful chapters of her life. All these years later, Hattie feels compelled to embark on a journey that will change both their lives forever, to find the child that Melissa was forced to give up when she was only a teenager in Ireland. .

Finding Ashley is a powerful love story of two strong, brave women turning loss into reconnection, and a family reunited.

Author and actor Milton Schorr's second novel, A Man Of The Road, tells the story of Little Mikey, a young boy from the mythical West Coast town of Freeburg, who must one day set out on an epic cross-country hitch-hiking journey to Africa’s greatest city: Goldtown.

On his dangerous way he encounters characters from all sections of South African society, and from each he learns an aspect of what it is to truly be free, to live life as ‘A Man Of The Road.’

The best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Road returns with the second volume of The Passenger series: Stella Maris is an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence.

1972, BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN: Alicia Western, twenty years old, with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag, admits herself to the hospital. A doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alicia has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she does not want to talk about her brother, Bobby. Instead, she contemplates the nature of madness, the human insistence on one common experience of the world; she recalls a childhood where, by the age of seven, her own grandmother feared for her; she surveys the intersection of physics and philosophy; and she introduces her cohorts, her chimeras, the hallucinations that only she can see.

All the while, she grieves for Bobby, not quite dead, not quite hers. Told entirely through the transcripts of Alicia's psychiatric sessions, Stella Maris is a searching, rigorous, intellectually challenging coda to The Passenger, a philosophical inquiry that questions our notions of God, truth, and existence.

Rebekkah Keller was ’n tiener toe haar pa oorlede is. Om aan die knaende verdriet te ontsnap begin sy lengte ná lengte vryslag in die skoolwembad te swem. Meer as twintig jaar later woon Rebekkah steeds in Bloemfontein. Sy is geskei van haar man en sy werk voltyds by ’n prokureursfirma. Sy swem nooit meer nie. Een oggend stuur Rebekkah se beste vriendin vir haar ’n nuusberig wat die mat onder haar voete uitruk. Die verlede spoel soos ’n fratsgolf oor haar.

In die somer van 1838 vertrek die Voortrekkerleier Piet Retief en sowat 100 man na die Zoeloekoning Dingaan om oor grond vir die trekkers te onderhandel. In die laer by Doornkop wag sy vrou Magdalena op hulle terugkeer. Die afloop van hierdie sending na Dingaan is wyd opgeteken as die Slag van Bloedrivier.

Byna 180 jaar later is Hanna op soek na wat ook al Magdalena nagelaat het. Vroeg in hierdie soektog loop Hanna haar vas in ’n plaasmoord waarvoor sy nie antwoorde het nie. Bitter min is bekend oor Magdalena en haar lewe ná 1838, buiten haar brief in 1841 aan haar skoonfamilie. In Pietermaritzburg staan haar huisie vandag nog, nou ’n klerewinkel.

Kort voor haar dood in 1854 besoek ’n handelaar haar in Potchefstroom en staan in sy boek ’n paragraaf aan haar af.

Al wat ons het, is vandag en elke mens vertel ’n storie anders. Van ver af is niks soos dit vir ons lyk nie.

“Bloedlelie is ’n merkwaardige en belangrike roman uit die pen van ’n vaardige, gesoute skrywer. Verskriklike en weersinwekkende gebeure sowel as hedendaagse politieke kompleksiteite en strydpunte word met ’n seker hand uitgebeeld. Tegelykertyd is hierdie roman die verhaal van Magdalena Retief, die grootliks onbesonge vrou van Pieter Mauritz Retief.” - Helene de Kock

Finding your way is never a simple journey…

Alice sees the best in people. She also sees the worst. She sees a thousand different emotions and knows exactly what everyone around her is feeling. Every. Single. Day.

But it’s the dark thoughts. The sadness. The rage. These are the things she can’t get out of her head. The things that overwhelm her.

Where will the journey to find herself begin?

Waarheen vlug jy as huis nie meer huis is nie?

Na jare se afpersing, agterdogtigheid en alkoholmisbruik, slaan Emma se man, Gert, haar byna in die hospitaal in. By hom kan sy nie verder bly nie, dit sal haar lewe kos. Sy vlug vanuit hulle klein myndorpie in Mpumalanga met nie veel meer as die klere aan haar rug nie. Maar waarheen en wat gemaak sonder geld, 'n werk, of familie wat haar kan ondersteun? So kies Emma koers Kaap toe, en bid vir die beste.

Die tog suid is angstig en eensaam, en uiteindelik gee haar motor die gees naby Stilbaai. Nes dit lyk of haar gebede op dowe ore val, kom 'n plaaslike boer, Dewald, tot haar redding. Noodgedwonge nooi hy haar om by hom op die plaas te bly terwyl sy wag vir die kar se herstel. Maar iets skort op Dewald se werf; die plaas boer agteruit, die olyfboorde is oorgroei, en die foto's van hom as gelukkige jonggetroude staan nog die huis vol. Dewald is te jonk om 'n wewenaar te wees, maar dis sy lot in die lewe.

Vir hom bring Emma se aankoms nuwe lig, vir haar kan hy die heenkome wees wat sy nog altyd gesoek het. Maar as hulle die liefde wat tussen hulle ontstaan wil kans gee, gaan albei eers moet vrede maak met die verlede. Want Gert het nog nie vir Emma laat gaan nie, en oudvriendin Julia wil vir Dewald hê, en sal doen wat sy moet om hierdie onverwagse inkommer uit die weg te ruim.

Vlug van gister is 'n hartroerende verhaal van tweede kanse en oorbegin wat lesers weer sal laat glo in ware liefde.

Vir Hilda is veeartsenykunde 'n ongemaklike roeping, 'n pynlike passie, 'n tweesnydende swaard. Daar’s die hondekosadvertensie-stertswaaidae, waarop sy met algehele sekerheid weet dat sy 'n positiewe verskil maak. Daar’s egter ook die swart hond dae, die dae wanneer die reuk van bloed en mis en modder soos 'n vel aan haar bly kleef en sy katvoet oor haar skouer bly loer vir die dood wat in haar hande skuil. Moes sy nie maar eerder by prentjies teken gebly het en haar diereliefde op 'n spul troeteldiere uitgestort het nie? Wat sou haar oupa – of haar ma! – van sulke ruggraatlose ambisieloosheid se? As sy nie 'n veearts kan wees nie, wie is sy dan? In Ilse van Staden se meesleurende romandebuut word vrae rondom passie en plig; toewyding en perfeksionisme; idealisme en ontgogeling binne die raamwerk van 'n jong veeaarts se opleiding en toetrede tot die praktyk op onvergeetlike wyse ontbloot.

"Falling in love with him was the easiest thing I've ever done. It happened instantly. Completely. Irrevocably. Marrying him was a dream come true. Staying married to him is the fight of my life. Love transforms. Ours is both a refuge from the storm and the most violent of tempests. Two damaged souls entwined as one. We have bared our deepest, ugliest secrets to one another. Gideon is the mirror that reflects all my flaws...and all the beauty I couldn't see. He has given me everything. Now, I must prove I can be the rock, the shelter for him that he is for me. Together, we could stand against those who work so viciously to come between us. But our greatest battle may lie within the very vows that give us strength.

Committing to love was only the beginning. Fighting for it will either set us free...or break us apart."

Heartbreakingly and seductively poignant, One With You is the breathlessly awaited finale to the Crossfire saga, the searing love story that has captivated millions of readers worldwide.

Joint-2019 Booker Prize Winner, along with Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.

In this electrifying sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood answers the question that has tantalised readers for decades: What happened to Offred? When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead. With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood’s sequel picks up the story 15 years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

Everyone knows Ruby Devereaux's books. But no one knows her story... until now.

From a teenager in wartime England to a veteran of modern-day London - via 1950's New York, the Swinging Sixties, Cold War Berlin, Venice and Vietnam - Ruby Devereaux has lived one hell of a life: parties, scandals and conflict zones, meeting men and adventure along the way. In a writing career spanning seven decades and more than twenty books, she's distilled everything into her work. Or has she?

Now beyond her 90th year, Ruby's energy is ebbing and her beloved typewriter put away. Until a call from her publisher presents Ruby with an ultimatum, and the impetus to embark on one last book - "warts and all", as she says. Even in her dotage, Ruby.M Devereux has the power to surprise, because whatever this author does, she does on her own terms. Always.

Is Ruby finally about to reveal the secrets of her infamous life?

Taking the reader on a rollercoaster ride through the latter half of the 20th Century, The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux is a mesmerising story of one unforgettable woman's place in an ever-changing world.

Drie jaar ná die dood van een van Afrikaans se grootste skrywers kom ’n Nederlandse vrou Suid-Afrika toe om navorsing vir ’n biografie oor sy lewe te doen. Sy besoek die skrywer se voormalige vakleerling om meer oor die enigmatiese figuur vas te stel – bykans dertig jaar nadat die twee mans se weë pynlik geskei het.

Onder die priemende blik van die biograaf lê die vakleerling, eens ’n aspirantskrywer en nou ’n Zen-monnik, sy lewe bloot in die bestek van een nag.

Wie was die groot skrywer werklik? Waarom was die impak van sy kluisenaarsbestaan en sy werk op die jong man so enorm? Hoekom het die skrywer hom na sy eensame sterfbed laat kom? Wat is die ware rede agter die Nederlander se biografie?

Sluitstuk is ’n elegiese roman oor verlange, verlies, wraak en versoening wat die roete na stilte en die skeppingsimpuls oopskryf.

Marty told the reporters that she saw it happen. She saw the gunman enter the hall. She saw her mother die trying to protect them all.

That’s the version of Day One Marty wishes was true. But strange inconsistencies in her story begin to surface. Details that don’t add up. Questions she can’t answer.

The story ignites. Amidst the media frenzy, conspiracy theorists become obsessed with exposing what really happened. And at the epicentre of it all is a small community changed forever. Survivors crushed by guilt. Families torn in half. Outsiders consumed by the hunt for truth.

Each has their own version of Day One. Each must grapple with this tragedy, even as fanatics question whether it ever really happened at all.

But what did Marty really see? And why would she lie?

As events spiral out of control, the true story is revealed, piece by shocking piece. Day One is an unflinching and heart-breaking exploration of our obsession with tragedy – and what it really means to live it.

You wouldn’t know it was there, the unnumbered house behind the iron-grille gate, just below the craggy rocks of Northcliff ridge. To the untrained eye the rambling property might seem neglected, with its tangle of trees and untamed indigenous bush. But there is purpose here, and a peaceful, subterranean, focus on all that withers and dies.

Five strangers – a model, a former nun, a couple in crisis, and an offender newly released from prison – have come here, to this place, to discover an end to life as they’ve known it. Placing their trust in their hosts, the Mortician and Mustafa, the five open their minds and bodies to an alternative experience. Not all of them will survive – or at least not in the way they imagined – but all of them will be shown the limits of their living.

The Institute for Creative Dying is vivid and visceral, unique in its bold and imaginative exploration of mortality and the interconnectedness of all forms of being.

Grace Adams is one bad day away from saving her life.

One hot summer day, stuck in traffic on her way to pick up the cake for her daughter's sixteenth birthday party, Grace Adams snaps. She doesn't scream or break something or cry or curl into a ball. She simply abandons her car in traffic and walks away. But not from her life - towards it.

Towards the daughter who has banned her from the party. Towards the husband divorcing her. Towards the terrible thing that has blown their family apart.

She'll show her daughter that no matter how far we fall, we can always get back up. Because Grace Adams was amazing. The world and her family might have forgotten. But Grace is about to remind them...

Four American debutantes attend a renowned Paris cotillion in #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel’s captivating new novel.

It’s the summer of 1959 and the Palace of Versailles is hosting an event that will make history. It is an exclusive dusk-to-dawn ball in which a select group of American and French debutantes will be presented to international society and royalty. Four young women, all with something to prove, receive what some see as the invitation of a lifetime.

Amelia Alexander, who hopes to eventually attend law school, hesitates to participate in what she sees as an archaic and privileged tradition. But her indomitable widowed mother, Jane, who’s struggled financially and sacrificed for a career, encourages her to attend. Jane would do anything for Amelia to have the chance at a happily ever after.

Felicity Smith is equally uncertain about the ball. Although her family is prominent in the Dallas social scene, Felicity prefers to keep to herself, avoiding the older sister who torments her. But to get out of her sister’s shadow, Felicity decides to accept. If it’s a success, the tables will have turned at last.

For Caroline Taylor, the beautiful ingénue and daughter of Hollywood legends, the ball is an irresistible opportunity. But an unexpected heartbreak just before she leaves for France gets things off to a bad start.

Then there’s Samantha Walker, an art history major with an overprotective father. Her excitement about the invitation is overshadowed by the emotional and physical effects of a past tragedy that still haunts her.

For all these young women, Paris and one transcendent night will change their lives forever. Bestselling author Danielle Steel extends an invitation to all, in The Ball at Versailles.

Huilboek​ is Hattingh se eerste boek in negentien jaar. Dit is ’n verweefde teks wat afspeel tussen die hier van Nieu-Seeland en die verlede van Ryk se kinderjare in die 1960’s aan die Oosrand.

Wie wás die kind op die stoep saam met sy ma en pa en ouma en boeties en Outa Toon? En wie was Outa Toon, van wie ons slegs die skouer en rug sien op ’n foto met pa en seuns? Die man wat vir Ryk gesê het, “Jy is mos die een met die hart.”?

Huilboek is ’n kragtoer.

Treasure is a naïve dreamer tossed into this unforgiving reality. Intent on supporting herself, she walks out of her dysfunctional family home in Westonaria and straight into the greedy heart of Jo’burg, disguised as the city of gold and black diamonds, to chase the illusion of fame and a happy ending.

But living a life of luxury in a society of artificial human beings comes at a hefty price. She is wooed by a wealthy man who grooms her into a power-hungry machine... but is the pleasure worth the pain and endless sacrifices? What can she offer a man who has everything but a soul? As her life crumbles around her, can Treasure alter her fate before it’s too late?

This inspirational novel is for all those who see one side to life; it's time to open your eyes to both sides of the coin.

A tale of friendship, courage and romance, the latest novel from bestselling author Katie Fforde is here.

When Cass is asked by her father to take on an unusual photography project in the Caribbean Island of Dominica, she really can't see a reason to say no.

But the remote island has just been hit be a severe hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake. Cass is travelling with Ranulph who is searching for the rare stone carvings her father wants her to photograph.

Their hunt leads Cass down a path of bravery and self-discovery, and she soon falls for Ranulph, who has been by her side every step of the way.

But does he feel the same way about her?

In 2020, tien jaar nadat Sabine uit die Laeveld weggesteier het, keer sy terug om nog net een maal weer hulle familieplaas Donkerhoek te sien en ’n neersitplek te soek vir die bondel wat sy al so lank saamdra.

Sy het egter nie ’n telefoonnommer vir die nuwe eienaar nie en Google Maps weet nie van so ’n plek nie.

In tien jaar het die aarde hierlangs geswig voor grondeise en armoede en die media berig van ’n onbekende virus wat reeds dood op die planeet begin saai het.

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town.

As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother's sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no' right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Edouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist with a powerful and important story to tell.

Gina knows hardly anything about her father apart from the fact that he was once engaged to Koringa, a crocodile tamer, and that he is buried in an unmarked grave. In between shifts at a call centre, with Doubt always looking over her shoulder, she works on a novel about him, ultimately drawing back the curtain on a complex, sad but also funny and enchanting life.

A story about love, family, fear and the banishing of fear: a celebration of strong women and a defence of a ‘nervous’ man.