November 1944. A German rocket strikes London, and five young lives are atomised in an instant.

November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered, and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century. Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances.

Light Perpetual is a story of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, it is a sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life.

The second part of Hilary Mantel’s award winning Wolf Hall trilogy, unlocking the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief minister.

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason.

To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?

“You give a girl a taste of fresh air and then you take it away—she’ll grow fierce and wild to get it back.”

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.

Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the 'unadoptable' girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future.

But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose.

Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

From the bestselling author of SIX TUDOR QUEENS, a captivating new novel about two Boleyn cousins, close as sisters - and the truth that will change everything.

At twelve years old, Kate Carey attends her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold. Horrified by what she witnesses, Kate is convinced that King Henry VIII has sent an innocent woman to a terrible death.

As the Boleyns fall from favour, Kate serves her now motherless cousin, the young Lady Elizabeth. Bound by Boleyn blood, the two girls are like sisters, until Kate marries for love - and leaves a jealous Elizabeth behind.

At court, Kate cannot ignore the sly looks thrown her way, nor the whispers behind her back. Only when her mother, Mary, lies dying, does she learn the life-shattering truth that the Boleyns have been hiding for years.

It is a secret that will haunt Kate throughout her life, as her family flee into exile, only returning home when Elizabeth becomes queen. But the bond between the Boleyn cousins will never be the same again...

Drawing on the true history of ‘Farini’s Friendly Zulus’, a group of men who were taken to Britain and then to America as performing curiosities, the novel opens in 1885 in wintry New York City.

The protagonist, Mpiyezintombi, simply called Em-Pee by the English-speakers, loses more than his name in this far-off foreign country; he is seen as little more than a freak-show act – though he is not kept in a cage like the beautiful Dinka Princess, with her gold-painted papier-mâché crown and fur cape. For EmPee, it is love at first sight, but the caged woman is not free to love anyone back: she is the property of Monsieur Duval, proprietor of Duval Ethnological Expositions.

And so begins one of Zakes Mda’s most striking stories, one that depicts terrible historical injustices and indignities, while at the same time celebrating the vigour and ingenuity of the creative spirit, and the transformative power of love.

In an already-great pantheon of Mda love stories and classic gems, this may be his most powerful work yet.

In die vroeë 1970’s onderneem die een-en-twintigjarige Jakob Koetaan ’n lewensveranderende reis van die Baai na Kaapstad ̶ ’n stad wat hom sedert sy kinderjare gelok het.

Wanneer ’n toevallige ontmoeting by die OK Bazaars hom saam met PAC-aktiviste in die tronk laat beland, raak Jakob bevriend met Sipho, ’n charismatiese leier wat sy oë oopmaak vir die stryd om vryheid.

Want Jakob wéét hoe dit is om nie vry te wees nie. Sy familie het immers hulle plaas Towerwater weens apartheid se groepsgebiedewet verloor, en hy moes ophou skool gaan om vir sy jonger suster te help sorg.

Maar die prys van ontwaking is swaar. Soos boikotte tot geweld oorgaan, word alles wat Jakob glo oor lojaliteit, liefde en die betekenis van tuiste getoets.

’n Kragtige struggleverhaal deur die oë van ’n jong man wat sy plek tussen sy mense in die stryd om vryheid ontdek.

From 'one of the brightest, most pleasure-giving writers at work today' (Jeffrey Eugenides), a visionary tale inspired by the life of the 20th century film director G.W. Pabst, who left Europe for Hollywood to resist the Nazis and then returned to his homeland with his wife and young son and began making films for the German Reich.

An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.

G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest, perhaps the greatest director of his era: when the Nazis seized power he was filming in France, to escape the horrors of the new Germany he flees to Hollywood. But under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, who he made famous, can help him. And thus, almost through no fault of his own, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. The returning family is confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. But Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin, wants the film genius, he won't take no for an answer and makes big promises. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.

Daniel Kehlmann's novel about art and power, beauty and barbarism is a triumph. The Director shows what literature is capable of.

Based on the heart-breaking true story of Cilka Klein, Cilka's Journey is a million copy international bestseller and the sequel to the No.1 bestselling phenomenon, The Tattooist of Auschwitz

In 1942 Cilka Klein is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair, and forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival.

After liberation, Cilka is charged as a collaborator by the Russians and sent to a desolate, brutal prison camp in Siberia known as Vorkuta, inside the Arctic Circle.

Innocent, imprisoned once again, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, each day a battle for survival. Cilka befriends a woman doctor, and learns to nurse the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under unimaginable conditions. And when she tends to a man called Alexandr, Cilka finds that despite everything, there is room in her heart for love.

Cilka's Journey is a powerful testament to the triumph of the human will. It will move you to tears, but it will also leave you astonished and uplifted by one woman's fierce determination to survive, against all odds.

Don't miss Heather Morris's next book, Stories of Hope. Out now.

Wily Odysseus, King of Ithaca, has won Troy for the Greeks – after a decade of brutal, bloody warfare. But now this warrior remembers he is a husband and father – and his gaze turns longingly towards home.

Setting sail with a small fleet, Odysseus dreams of soon lying in the arms of his beloved wife Penelope, and of teaching his son Telemachus the ways of a warrior. However, the gods laugh at the foolish hopes of mortals.

And, angered by this upstart, Poseidon – God of the ocean realms – curses our hero to wander the seas for ten long years.

Encountering one-eyed giants, six-headed monsters, terrible storms, titanic whirlpools, hypnotic sirens, seductive witches and jealous goddesses, Odysseus is tempted and tormented beyond any man’s endurance.
Yet he is no mere mortal – and the lure of his wife and son draws him, step by step, stroke by stroke, ever closer to home and his ultimate destiny . . .

A tale of love and longing, return and redemption, home and hope, Stephen Fry’s Odyssey sees the author and national treasure weave the final threads of the fabulous story begun in the worldwide bestseller, Mythos, into an astonishing and mesmerising tapestry for the ages.

A dark, folkloric family saga that moves through history to the present day, exploring the legacy of colonialism and how pain echoes through generations.

Qianze has not seen her father—her Ba—in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday. But then she gets a call—there is a man on the porch of her childhood home, and he’s asking for her. This man isn’t the Ba Qianze remembers: he’s aged beyond recognition, struggling with dementia and alcoholism, and worst of all, haunted by a half-forgotten prophecy.

While Qianze wrestles with what she owes this near-stranger, Ba unveils fragments of their family history, from his bloody days as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to his mother’s youth in Manchuria under Japanese occupation. Soon Qianze finds herself plagued by strange visions—fox spirits trail her on her evening commute, a terrifying jackalope stalks her nightmares, and the looming prophecy slinks ever closer.

Told through the eyes of three generations, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a glimmering tale about forgiveness, inheritance, and the inescapability of fate.

It is 18th century Saint Domingue, and Tété never knew her parents. All she knows is that her mother was a slave, and that her white father's identity will forever remain a mystery.

As a child she is sold to the plantation-owner Toulouse Valmorain, and finds herself subjected to his unwanted attentions. Still, in spite of everything, she finds community and comfort among the other slaves. And as a revolution gains momentum and opportunities surface, she can't help but wonder: will freedom, one day, be in reach?

Powerful and moving, Island Beneath the Sea is a story of courage and hope, even in the cruellest of circumstances.

Originally published in 2009.

From bestselling South African author Penny Haw comes a new historical fiction tale inspired by the story of groundbreaking paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, in a sweeping, dual-timeline story of intergenerational friendship, a meditation on the beauty of the natural world, and a celebration of the women who pave the way for those to come.

It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.

Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey commissions her to illustrate a book, she's not at all expecting to fall in love with the older married man. Mary then follows Louis to East Africa, where she falls in love for a second time, this time with the Olduvai Gorge, where her work defines her as a great scientist and allows her to step out of Louis's shadow.

In time, Mary and Grace learn they are more alike than they thought, which eventually leads them to the secret that connects them. They also discover a mutual deep love for animals, and when Lisa, an injured cheetah, appears at camp, Mary and Grace work together to save her. On the morning Grace is due to leave, the girl―and the cheetah―are nowhere to be found, and it becomes a race against time to rescue Grace before the African bush claims her.

From the acclaimed author of The Invincible Miss Cust and The Woman at Wheel comes an adventurous, dual timeline tale that explores the consequences of our choices, wisdom that comes with retrospection, and relationships that make us who we are, based on the extraordinary real life of Mary Leakey.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave's breathtaking story of love and longing, of the lives we almost live and the choices we don't make — and finding the courage to embrace who you really want to be.

Two young women meet in Paris one sultry summer in a decades-spanning tour de force about the enduring power of young love and the poignant heartbreak of missed chances—perfect for fans of One Day and Normal People.

Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her PhD at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman. The moment the two women meet, the spark is undeniable, but their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love. It is the beginning of a relationship that will define their lives and every decision they have yet to make…

Erica and Laure’s love story spans decades, marriage, children, secret trysts, and the agonizing changes—both personal and political—that might mean they can be together, after all. But when life brings them within touching distance again, will they be brave enough to seize a future together?

Beautifully capturing young love and all its complexities, Almost Life is a story of longing for the paths not taken, and the almost lives we live.

It is 1538 in Spain, and Inés' shiftless husband left her years ago.

He had travelled to Chile to be a part of the new colonies; he didn't expect that Inés would be bold enough to follow him. Determined to leave her stifling homeland behind, Inés sets out on a journey to the New World.

Soon after arriving on the shores of this new land, she discovers that her husband has, once again, slipped out of reach. But before long she meets Pedro de Valdivia - war hero and field marshal to conquistador Francisco Pizarro - and finds a love that not only changes her life, but also the course of history.

Based on historical events, Inés of My Soul is an epic tale of how one woman's determination and passion shaped the future of a country.

Originally published in 2006.

Growing up in 1940s Los Angeles, Gregory Reeves' outlook on life was always guided by two beliefs. The first: his fear of death was something to be conquered. The second: his father's radical religious doctrine, 'The Infinite Plan', was immutably true.

But when he leaves the barrio where he spent his youth for Berkeley, San Francisco, both beliefs are called into question. Soon he has graduated from college, and finds himself in the thick of the Vietnam War. And when he returns, how can he possibly think of life and death in the same way?

Following one man's journey through the twentieth century, The Infinite Plan asks: how much can the American reality shape one's pursuit of the American Dream?

Originally published in 1991.

Akbar Manzil was once the grandest residence on South Africa’s east coast near Durban. Nearly a century later, when Sana and her father move to the house, the latest of Akbar Manzil’s long list of tenants, it is in near-ruins, crumbling, shabby and dark. This is a place where people come to forget. Or to be forgotten.

Full of questions about her new home, Sana is drawn to the deserted and eerie east wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects – and to the locked door at its end, unopened for decades. Soon, Sana begins to discover the tangled, troubling history of the house, awakening the memories of the house itself and dredging up old and terrible secrets that will change the lives of everyone – living and dead – at Akbar Manzil.

Sublime, heart-wrenching and lyrically stunning, The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil is a haunting love story and a mystery, all intertwined beautifully into one young girl’s search for belonging.

A captivating, polyphonic novel of one family’s flight from and return to Iran.

1979. Behsad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah’s expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid.

1989. Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behsad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power.

1999. Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories.

2009. Laleh’s brother Mo is more concerned with a friend’s heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down …

A topical, moving novel about revolution, oppression, resistance, and the absolute desire for freedom.

ELOISE’S STORY

Sir Phillip knew that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he’d proposed, figuring that she’d be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage. Except . . . she wasn’t. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her . . . and more.

Did he think she was mad? Eloise Bridgerton couldn’t marry a man she had never met. But then she started thinking . . . and wondering . . . and before she knew it, she was in a hired carriage in the middle of the night, on her way to meet the man she hoped might be her perfect match. Except . . . he wasn’t. Her perfect husband wouldn’t be so moody and ill-mannered, and while Phillip was certainly handsome, he was a large brute of a man, rough and rugged, and totally unlike the London gentlemen vying for her hand. But when he smiled . . . and when he kissed her . . . the rest of the world simply fell away, and she couldn’t help but wonder . . . could this imperfect man be perfect for her?

From the Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author comes the latest instalment in the epic multimillion-selling series, The Seven Sisters. This is the book that fans around the world have been waiting for.

The six D’Aplièse sisters have each been on their own incredible journey to discover their heritage, but they still have one question left unanswered: who and where is the seventh sister? They only have one clue – an image of a star-shaped emerald ring. The search to find the missing sister will take them across the globe – from New Zealand to Canada, England, France and Ireland – uniting them all in their mission to complete their family at last.

In doing so, they will slowly unearth a story of love, strength and sacrifice that began almost one hundred years ago, as other brave young women risk everything to change the world around them.

Hidden in the shadows, an evil will rise . . .

Piay, appointed Nomarch of Memphis by the God-Pharoah Rameses, has transformed his city, rebuilding the famous white walls, feeding the once starving citizens and returning the wealth plundered by the barbarian Hyksos. But when a murdered scribe is found sealed inside the city's newly-constructed vault - with the mark of Anubis, god of death, scrawled next to him in blood - panic tears through the people.

Piay calls on the only man in Egypt he knows can discover the truth: his mentor, the great sage Taita. But soon after Taita's arrival in Memphis, the bloody mark of Anubis appears again. Taita and Piay are pitted against a criminal mastermind turned warlord. The pair's adversary has a simple, brutal aim: restore the Red Pretender's kingdom - and obliterate Rameses's forces.

Drawn into a desperate battle of wits, can Taita and Piay finally reunite the two kingdoms? Or will the shadow of the Red Pretender tear Egypt apart once again?

Who will survive the battle in the house of the two pharaohs?

From Ensimbini, in the village of Somizi, in the shadow of the Ntokozo Hills, within the Kingdom of Langabi, during the reign of King Diliza, the cousin of Langabi’s founder, the late Queen Sukumani, there comes a hero.

King Diliza, sun of the sky and leopard of the many markings, Babengabuzang’ elangeni.

Owethu knows your secret.