Orphan sisters chase monsters of urban legend in Bloemfontein.

At a busy taxi rank, a woman kills a man with her shoe. A genomicist is accused of playing God when she creates a fatherless child. Intruders is a collection that explores how it feels not to belong. These are stories of unremarkable people thrust into extraordinary situations by events beyond their control.

With a unique and memorable touch, Mohale Mashigo explores the everyday ills we live with and wrestle constantly, all the while allowing hidden energies to emerge and play out their unforeseen consequences.

Intruders is speculative fiction at its best.

The remarkable new novel from the author of the multimillion-selling international sensation The Midnight Library

'What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet . . .'

When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the lifechanging power of a new beginning.

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been.

Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”

Their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything.

It couldn’t save their marriage.

Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she’s is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.

Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It's hot. It's illicit. It's all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?

'Not Alone kept me breathless with tension.' - Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room 'Intensely moving, genuinely gripping, plausible and absorbing' - Charlotte Mendelson, author of The Exhibitionist In a world very close to our own, a mother and her young son desperately fend for themselves in the confinement of their one bedroom flat. Five years ago, a toxic microplastics storm killed most of the population. Now Katie must forage and hunt the few surviving animals for meat as she attempts to feed her little boy, to care for him as best she can. At a time when stepping outside could kill you, Harry is kept indoors at all costs, never venturing beyond the entrance to their building, never knowing the truth of how he came to call this place home. Bodies continue to build up around them, inescapable layers of toxic dust hang heavily in the air and Katie is only getting sicker. Then, after years without human contact, Katie and Harry are terrified by the arrival of another survivor and Katie knows she must finally undertake a previously unthinkable journey in search of the man she was supposed to marry. In search of a new life for her son. Outside their safe haven, Katie and Harry encounter a world that is forever changed. There are new threats to their safety here, fellow survivors who are determined to start a new population, to save the world they so desperately misunderstood. Katie is pushed to unimaginable lengths as she pushes ahead in search of a better life and as Harry's safety wavers in the balance. As they travel further north, leaving their once safe haven so far behind them, Katie knows how much harder it will be to return if things go wrong. In Not Alone, Sarah K. Jackson combines heart-stopping adventure, with a deeply felt and vividly imagined central bond between mother and child which transcends the world around them. This stunning debut is about love, trust, hope and the looming threat facing us all.

What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves?

It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people - Karim, Fauzia and Badar - are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed.

Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life - and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.

But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested - and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.

A compelling and thought-provoking novel about the choices we must make to find the life we want and the rejuvenating power of love by the world’s favourite storyteller, billion copy bestselling author, Danielle Steel.

After a dark and unhappy childhood and two failed marriages where love was rarely felt, bestselling thriller author, Sabrina Brooks, has finally found the life she’s always craved. She’s discovered that her writing, her close circle of friends, and her beautiful home in Massachusett’s Berkshire mountains with her two beloved dogs are all that she needs to be happy and at peace.

However, Sabrina’s perfect life is suddenly disrupted when she receives a mysterious letter informing her that she is now the sole heir to her recently deceased uncle’s title and manor house in southern England. Determined to sell, Sabrina is forced to cross the Atlantic and see the property for herself.

But Sabrina’s visit to England takes a very different turn as she learns more about the family history and the secrets her father had kept from her, and she starts to fall in love with the breath-taking beauty of the historic manor and its gardens. Also, she cannot help but enjoy the company of the devastatingly handsome but complicated lawyer who acts as her tour guide.

As she discovers the rejuvenating power of love in all its forms, Sabrina must decide whether she is brave enough to gamble on her future and choose a different, more exciting path or return to the safe haven she thought she’d always wanted.

A beautiful novel of self-discovery and new beginnings set against the backdrop of Paris and the isolated French coast, from the multi million-copy bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop

Claire Cousteau is one of France’s most esteemed biologists, with a seemingly perfect family life, but she has become increasingly frustrated by her marriage and her husband’s affairs.

As the Cousteaus prepare for a summer in Brittany, Claire’s son Nico asks if his new girlfriend, Julie, can join them? Julie has conundrums of her own - she is an ambitious woman, and unsure if Nico really is her match. But what the family don’t realise is that Julie and Claire have met before, in a Parisian hotel during a night that Claire thought was her secret.

Beneath the Breton sun, could their surprising bond alter the course of their lives for all time?

"This vengeful tale that pits artistic genius against mental health and happiness will captivate fans of dark suspense."-Library Journal, STARRED review A debut thriller for fans of Lucy Foley and Liz Moore, Dark Things I Adore is a stunning Gone Girl-esque tale of atonement that proves that in the grasp of manipulative men, women may momentarily fall. But in the hands of fierce women, men will be brought to their knees. Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay. 1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed. 2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protege's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web. Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay. A searing psychological thriller of trauma, dark academia, complicity, and revenge, Dark Things I Adore unravels the realities behind campfire legends-the horrors that happen in the dark, the girls who become cautionary tales, and the guilty who go unpunished. Until now. "A smart, nuanced exploration of victims and villains, inspiration and theft, and the intersection of these things, in every artist. Pay attention to Katie Lattari. She's the real deal."-Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbors

"This Side of Paradise" was published in 1920. The novel explores the lives and morality of post-World War I youth and the theme of love corrupted by greed. "The Beautiful and the Damned" is about a 1920s socialite and his relationship with his wife, his service in the army and his alcoholism. It explores the themes of love, money and decadence. "The Great Gatsby" was first published in 1925 and quickly became a classic novel. The Modern Library named it the second best English-language novel of the 20th Century. Set in 1922 America is enjoying the roaring twenties, however Prohibition has made alcohol an illegal substance and hence the bootleggers are making a killing. "Tender Is the Night" is the final complete novel that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, it was published in 1934. It explores complex relationships and mental health issues, it is quite dark at times.

In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias - long-thought dead - returns, the villagers fall under his spell. Irimias sets about swindling the villagers out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold.

Min weet die staatsamptenare Pixley en Joubert wat op hulle wag toe Minister hulle na ’n vergadering genaamd “Removal of Monuments” ontbied. Dié twee amptenare se agtergrond is so uiteenlopend soos kan kom: Pixley is afkomstig van die Zoeloe-adelstand, terwyl Joubert glo van sy betoorgrootmoeder se kant afstam van generaal Piet Joubert. Minister se opdrag: Al die apartheid- en koloniale standbeelde, simbole en monumente moet verskuif word.

Pixley en Joubert moet deur die land reis en die ongewenste monumente besoek, die situasie evalueer, en dan met ’n plan vorendag kom oor hoe dit gedoen sal word. Die tydsberekening vir die toer is nie goed vir Joubert nie: Sy siek pa (Pompies, wat op sy dag ’n waterwyser was) trek by hom en sy vrou, Alet, in. Alet is ’n medium en nou met Pompies in die huis, maak Joubert se ma se gees ook haar verskyning. Ook vir Pixley is die tyd nie eintlik geleë nie: Hy is nie seker waar hy staan met sy droomvrou, Memory, nie. Die Rwandese kunstenaar uit Nederland wat hy, toe hy haar vir die eerste keer ’n snoekerstok sien vashou, geweet het kán naai.

Soos wat Pixley en Joubert vorder met hulle toer op soek na ’n geskiedenis waarvan sommiges eerder wil vergeet, kom besoek hulle persoonlike geskiedenisse hulle ook. Geheime word onthul, maar nog meer vrae en raaisels ontstaan.

“As ’n boom in ’n bos val, en niemand is daar om dit te hoor nie, maak dit nog steeds ’n geluid?” lui die reeds geykte gesegde. As ek nie ’n naam het nie, bestaan ek dan werklik? Wie is ek sonder die mense wat my definieer? As ek anders optree as wat verwag word – is dit ek wat verkeerd is, of die verwagting?

Dis van die vrae wat Ilse van Staden sonder pretensie en met fyn aanvoeling vir karakter in Tafel Vir Twee ondersoek.

Kind of volwassene, oud of jonk, man of vrou – Ilse van Staden loop ’n geloofwaardige entjie in elk van haar karakters se skoene en leer ken langs die pad die broosheid van menswees, maar ook die mistieke verwondering wat in die alledaagse opgesluit lê.

Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids, and her school family with passion and joy for living. But she wasn't always that way. Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen. But he wasn't always that way. And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before - at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him - but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a new chance at living. But when Duncan, of all people, gets hired as the new principal there, it feels like the the best thing that could possibly happen to the school - and the worst thing that could possibly happen to Sam. Until the opposite turns out to be true. The lovable Duncan she'd known is now a suit-and-tie wearing, rule-enforcing tough guy so hell-bent on protecting the school that he's willing to destroy it. As the school community spirals into chaos, and danger from all corners looms large, Sam and Duncan must find their way to who they really are, what it means to be brave, and how to take a chance on love - which is the riskiest move of all.

Op 'n dag in die vroee sewentigs bemerk 'n afgelee Noord-Kaapse gemeenskap 'n gebou in hul midde waar voorheen net 'n stuk braakgrond was. Drie weke later verdwyn die gebou . . .

Lees ook oor die vreemde werklikheid van mense wat meer as een maal lewe, oor die jong man wat so skaam is dat hy nie op foto's kan vertoon nie, en oor die intense liefdesverhouding van 'n paartjie wie se lewenspaaie net vir 'n paar sekondes gekruis het.

Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, brings us a dark, luminous and wickedly funny portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from one of the finest writers of our age.

Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school. This weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to their son Giles’ envy and violence.

As their lives unfold over the next half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically: Dave, a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.

Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security.

Thandiwe lives by her own rules. She shamelessly sells her body on the South African streets of Yeoville and views her job as no different from those of young black graduates who take up affirmative action posts as perpetual juniors under soul-destroying mentors. Thandiwe's searing views on the post-apartheid corporate world become public when she is approached by Kwena, a young film-maker who is interested in telling the stories of prostitutes and the shameful secrets of many. For Thandiwe, that personal story begins in the poor, rural village where Thandiwe and her best friend Zonke grew up, facing the many challenges of a vulnerable childhood together. They both fend off unwanted sexual attention and Thandiwe loses her mother in a freak accident, leaving her an orphan. When she runs away from her guardians to avoid circumcision, Thandiwe arrives in Jo'burg and soon launches her unconventional career. While Zonke pursues a more sheltered and conventionally successful course of action, Thandiwe has to fight fiercely for her independence, even at the risk of endangering her own life.