Dublin, 1943. Actress Julia Bridges disappears. The last sighting of her is entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of another woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death – and Julia’s body has never been found. Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, until her apparent suicide a few years later, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her.

Until...

Dublin, 1968. Nicoletta Sarto is an ambitious junior reporter for the Irish Sentinel when the bones of Julia Bridges are discovered in the garden of a house on the outskirts of Dublin. Drawn into investigating the 25-year-old mystery of Julia’s disappearance and her link to the notorious Gloria Fitzpatrick, the story takes Nicoletta into the tangled underworld of the illegal abortion industry, stirring up long-buried secrets from her own past.

As much a murder mystery story as a look at a young woman’s struggle to succeed in a man’s world, Where They Lie is a beautifully atmospheric debut that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

There is a short period in everyone's life when his character is fixed forever . . . ' George Orwell

Eric Blair stood out amongst his fellow police trainees in 1920s Burma. Nineteen years old, unusually tall, a diffident loner fresh from Eton, after five years spent in the narrow colonial world of the Raj – a decaying system steeped in overt racism and petty class-conflict – he would emerge as the George Orwell we know.

Drawing on all his powers of observation and imagination, Paul Theroux brings Orwell's Burma years to radiant life, tracing the development of the young man's consciousness as he confronts the social, racial and class politics and the reality of Burma beyond. Through one writer, we come to understand another - and see how what Orwell called 'five boring years within the sound of bugles' were in fact the years that made him.

An atmospheric, exuberant novel about love and sex, art and revolution, experimentation and creativity from the best-selling author of The Postcard, Anne Berest, and her sister, the acclaimed novelist Claire Berest, based on the life of their great grandmother.

The year is 1908, the height of the Belle Epoque, and a brilliant, young French woman named Gabriële, newly graduated from the most elite music school in Europe, meets a volcanic Spanish artist named Francis. Following a whirlwind romance, they marry and fall headlong into a Paris that is experimenting with new forms of living, thinking, and creating. Soon after marrying Francis, Gabriële meets Marcel, another young artist, five years her junior. Soon, Francis, Marcel, and Gabriële are all three involved in a fervent affair that will change the course of art history and redefine the avant-garde.

Surrealism, Dada, and Abstraction are among the new artistic practices and new ideas that emerge from this electric love triangle in the following decade, during which the Belle Epoque sours and the world descends into the devastation of World War I. Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Gabriele Buffet―the protagonists of this brilliantly imagined “true novel”―are vividly reimagined by the Berests.

Moving between Paris, New York, Berlin, Zurich, Barcelona, and Saint-Tropez, Gabriële is as audacious, uninhibited, and unforgettable as its central character, the mercurial, pioneering Gabriële Buffet.

In this mystery in the award-winning series featuring a twelfth-century Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael must travel to the heart of a leper colony to root out the secret behind a savage murder. Setting out for the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has more pressing matters on his mind than the grand wedding coming to his abbey. But as fate would have it, Cadfael arrives at Saint Giles just as the nuptial party passes the colony's gates. When he sees the fragile bride looking like a prisoner between her two stern guardians and the bridegroom-an arrogant, fleshy aristocrat old enough to be her grandfather-he quickly discerns this union may be more damned than blessed. Indeed, a savage murder will interrupt the May-December marriage and leave Cadfael with a dark, terrible mystery to solve. Now, with the key to the killing hidden among the lepers of Saint Giles, the monk must ferret out a sickness not of the body, but of a twisted soul.

Meet Asma, the only child of the Patels. Growing up in the cloistered confines of an Indian Township in the 60s, hers is a nearly idyllic childhood. When 1976 arrives and the country goes up in flames, Asma finds herself caught between the Fires of Resistance and the duties she is bound to as the daughter of an Indian household.

From BookTok sensation Emily McIntire comes a dark and delicious fractured fairy tale in her fan-favorite Never After series.

She doesn’t belong to him…she belongs to the crown.

Prince Tristan Faasa was never destined for the throne. That was always his brother, Michael. The same brother responsible for both Tristan’s tormented childhood and the scar that mars his face. When their father dies, Michael is set to assume the throne, and Tristan is set to steal it. The leader of a secret rebellion, Tristan will stop at nothing to end his brother’s reign. But when Michael’s new betrothed, Lady Sara Beatreaux arrives, Tristan finds himself in the middle of a new kind of war. The kind that begs the question of what’s more important, the crown or the woman about to wear it.

Sara has one plan. Marry the King and eradicate the Faasa line, even at the risk of her own peril. But she never expects the Scarred Prince. He’s dangerous. Forbidden. And one of the men she’s been sent to kill. But the line between hatred and passion has never seemed so thin, and as secrets come to light, Sara grows unsure of whom she can trust—torn between vengeance and the villain she was never supposed to love.

Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage.

She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester. However, there is great kindness and warmth in this epic love story, which is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors.

Ultimately the grand passion of Jane and Rochester is called upon to survive cruel revelation, loss and reunion, only to be confronted with tragedy.

Through letters with a famous author, one French librarian tells her love story and describes the brutal Nazi occupation of her small coastal village.

Saint-Malo, France: August 1938. Jocelyn and Antoine are childhood sweethearts, but just after they marry and are hoping for a child, Antoine is called up to fight against Germany. As the war rages, Jocelyn focuses on comforting and encouraging the local population by recommending books from her beloved library in Saint-Malo. She herself finds hope in her letters to a famous author.

After the French capitulation, the Nazis occupy the town and turn it into a fortress to control the north of French Brittany. Residents try passive resistance, but the German commander ruthlessly purges part of the city's libraries to destroy any potentially subversive writings. At great risk to herself, Jocelyn manages to hide some of the books while waiting to receive news from Antoine, who has been taken to a German prison camp.

What unfolds in her letters is Jocelyn’s description of her mission: to protect the people of Saint-Malo and the books they hold so dear. With prose both sweeping and romantic, Mario Escobar brings to life the occupied city and re-creates the history of those who sacrificed all to care for the people they loved.

A sweeping story of love, adventure and adversity, The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse is an epic tale of courageous women battling to survive in a hostile land.

Olifantshoek, Southern Africa, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, arrives in search of her cousin ― the notorious she-captain and pirate commander Louise Reydon-Joubert ― who landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years before, then disappeared without a trace . . .

Franschhoek, Southern Africa, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne’s perilous journey, another intrepid and courageous woman of the Joubert family ― Isabelle Lepard ― has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. Intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books, she quickly discovers that the crimes and tragedies still shadow the present. And now, Isabelle faces a race against time if she is to discover the truth, and escape with her life . . .

When trauma cleaner Essie Pound makes a gruesome discovery in the derelict Edinburgh boarding house she is sent to clean, it brings her into contact with a young policewoman, Emily Noble, who has her own reasons to solve the case.

As the two women embark on a journey into the heart of a forgotten family, the investigation prompts fragmented memories of their own traumatic histories – something Emily has spent a lifetime attempting to bury, and Essie a lifetime trying to lay bare.

Emily Noble’s Disgrace is the third novel from Mary Paulson-Ellis, the bestselling author of The Other Mrs Walker, a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year.

From the Sunday Times No.1 Bestselling author comes the latest instalment in an epic multi-million selling series, The Seven Sisters.

To the outside world, Electra D’Aplièse seems to have it all: as one of the world’s top models, she is beautiful, rich and famous.

Yet Electra’s already tenuous control over her state of mind has been rocked by the death of her father, Pa Salt, the elusive billionaire who adopted his six daughters from across the globe. Struggling to cope, she turns to alcohol and drugs. As those around her fear for her health, Electra receives a letter from a stranger claiming to be her grandmother . . .

In 1939, Cecily Huntley-Morgan arrives in Kenya from New York to nurse a broken heart. Staying with her godmother, a member of the infamous Happy Valley set, she meets Bill Forsythe, a notorious bachelor and cattle farmer with close connections to the proud Maasai tribe. But after a shocking discovery, and with war looming, Cecily has few options. Moving up into the Wanjohi Valley, she is isolated and alone. Until she meets a young woman in the woods and makes her a promise that will change the course of her life for ever.

The Sun Sister is the sixth breathtaking instalment in Lucinda Riley’s multi-million selling epic series, The Seven Sisters.

‘Heart-wrenching, uplifting and utterly enthralling. The Seven Sisters series is Lucinda Riley at the top of her game: a magical storyteller who creates characters we fall in love with and who stay with us long after we finish reading. Dazzlingly good.’ Lucy Foley, bestselling author of The Hunting Party

A mother's secret past collides with her daughter's present in this intoxicating novel from Jane Healey, the author of The Animals at Lockwood Manor.

In the summer of 1973, teenage Ruth and her four friends are obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings, and a little bit obsessed with each other. They spend the scorching summer days in the river by Ruth's grand family home, pretending to be the drowning Ophelia and recreating tableaus of other tragic mythical heroines. But by the end of the summer, real tragedy has found them.

Twenty-four years later, Ruth is a wife and mother of three children, and moves her family into her still-grand, but now somewhat dilapidated, childhood home following the death of her father. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Maeve, is officially in remission and having been discharged from hospital can finally start acting like a 'normal' teenager with the whole summer ahead of her. It's just the five of them until Stuart, a handsome photographer and old friend of her parents, comes to stay. And there's something about Stuart that makes Maeve feel more alive than all of her life-saving treatments put together.

As the heat of the summer burns, how long can the family go before long-held secrets threaten to burst their banks and drown them all? Set between two fateful summers, The Ophelia Girls is a visceral, heady exploration of illicit desire, infatuation, and the perils and power of being a young woman.

Responsible for raising her siblings, Lazarus and Mary, after her mother's untimely death, Martha finds solace in friendship and the beginnings of first love, until adversity strikes again. Many years later, a life-changing encounter with Jesus of Nazareth reawakens Martha's heart, even as she faces an unknown future.

No stranger to adversity, Martha of Bethany is a woman of dust, undone and unseen in her hurt and loss. After her mother's untimely death, the responsibility for raising her siblings--Lazarus and Mary--lies heavily on her shoulders. She finds solace in a new friendship and the beginnings of first love, but her father's disapproval and unforeseen hardship leave Martha broken and guarded.

Twelve years later, when her friend's husband contracts a severe disease, they send for the new rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. Martha recognizes the miraculous Healer from a story she heard many years ago, and the life-changing encounter reawakens Martha's hardened heart, even as she faces an unknown future.

With impeccable research and a keen eye for detail, Heather Kaufman delivers a moving narrative of Martha's life in this hopeful story of love, loss, and the promise of redemption.

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Ruru’s father, Phaks, joined the anti-apartheid struggle in exile before she was born but never returned, preferring to stay in Tanzania. Years later, though he has passed away, Ruru goes in search of signs of his life in his adopted country.

She finds it in his widow and his ‘pillow books’ – journals he kept, coming to terms with his mortality.

Struck by the parallels with her teenage letters to her late mother, she reads to find answers to her questions: Who was he? Why did he not return?

A global phenomenon, The Alchemist has been read and loved by over 62 million readers, topping bestseller lists in 74 countries worldwide. Now this magical fable is beautifully repackaged in an edition that lovers of Paulo Coelho will want to treasure forever.

A special deluxe edition of the extraordinary and beloved international bestseller.

Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. This is such a book – a beautiful parable about learning to listen to your heart, read the omens strewn along life’s path and, above all, follow your dreams. The Alchemist has become a modern classic.

Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucia, feels that there is more to life than his humble home and his flock. One day he finds the courage to follow his dreams into distant lands, each step galvanised by the knowledge that he is following the right path: his own. The people he meets along the way, the things he sees and the wisdom he learns are life-changing.

With Paulo Coelho’s visionary blend of spirituality, magical realism and folklore, The Alchemist is a story with the power to inspire nations and change people’s lives.

Finally Fyreback settles into a proper job. Bringing rough justice to all who are oppressed in these troubled times, and the Law such as it is, has no legal jurisdiction. He learns a few extra skills on the way, diplomacy doesna t seem to be one of them, but be sure his Cleaver plays ita s part. Will this be the wind down to a stable married life and family. Again who can say, now possessing a Wife and Child with another to yet be born, peace and quiet will return to the Border with a new Monarch to rule both Scotland and England under one Crown, but that is still a few years ahead.