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.

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

In Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

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.

In Tasneem’s close-knit Muslim Indian community the stigma of divorce is a heavy burden to carry, and her mother insists on finding her a husband – even if it means orchestrating a traditional ‘samoosa run’. When she meets Aadil an unexpected connection sparks and they strike a deal: a pretend engagement to keep their families off their backs. But a simple ruse soon grows complicated because one of them is hiding a life-changing secret . . .

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.

Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist beloved for her moral advice. Her youngest daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humour.

When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret from Nora’s past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic. Nora is injured in an accident and a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to write a tell-all about her mother. Under false pretences, Ruby returns home to take care of the woman she hasn’t spoken to for almost a decade.

Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island, to the lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up, a place filled with childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There Ruby is also reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them had been best friends, inseparable. Until the summer that Nora had left and everyone’s hearts had been broken . . . .

Audrey Burges The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone is a charming and magical debut novel, with a love story at its heart, woven across multiple periods and perspectives, about a mystical dolls' house. Once upon a time there was a house . . . From her attic in the Arizona mountains, thirty-four-year-old recluse Myra Malone blogs about a miniature mansion - a dolls' house - which captivates thousands of readers worldwide. Myra herself is tethered to the Mansion by a strange magic she can't understand - there are rooms that appear and disappear overnight, music that plays in its corridors. Across the country, Alex Rakes, the thirty-four-year-old heir of a furniture business, encounters two Mansion fans trying to recreate a room. Alex is shocked to recognize his own bedroom in minute scale. The Mansion is his family's home, handed down from the grandmother who disappeared mysteriously when Alex was a child. Searching for answers, Alex begins corresponding with Myra. Together, the two unwind the lonely paths of their twin worlds - big and small - and trace the stories that entwine them, setting the stage for a meeting rooted in loss, but defined by love.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s poignant Before we say goodbye, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

The regulars at the magical Cafe Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with its famous legend and extraordinary, secret menu time travel offering. Many patrons have reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family, and visited loved ones. But the journey is not without risks and there are rules to follow. Travellers must have visited the cafe previously and most importantly, must return to the present in the time it takes for their coffee to go cold.

In the tradition of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s sensational 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' series, readers will once again be introduced to a new set of visitors:

• The husband with something important left to say
• The woman who couldn’t bid her dog farewell
• The woman who couldn’t answer a proposal
• The daughter who drove her father away . . .

In the hauntingly beautiful Before we say goodbye, Kawaguchi invites us to join his characters as they embark on a journey to revisit one crucial moment in time.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, "one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot" (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters. In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations-until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen. The stranger's arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock-conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice-she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city. As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu'er, the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for centuries. A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.

An intense, atmospheric novel about the devastating power of friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic events.

After Marissa loses her mother at 6, the most intimate relationship of her life begins. Her marine biologist father, determined to channel his grief into completing his wife’s research, whisks her across the globe to Thailand. There she meets Arielle, and a fairytale friendship takes hold. During the week, the girls live at the resort owned by Arielle’s parents; on the weekends they join the tight-knit community of researchers on a nearby island. Together the girls discover the fragile wonders of its reefs, forests, and beaches. Together they learn to dive into the deep, holding their breath for minutes at a time, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name. Together they learn to swim their way out of danger. But then comes a wave Arielle can’t outpace, leaving Marissa gutted with loss.

Years later, Marissa is back in New York, adrift and haunted by the memory of her friend. Over the course of two fateful days, as another cataclysm approaches the city and the past comes flooding back, she discovers how to sustain herself in a precarious world.

For two decades D.J. Taylor has been one of the UK's most celebrated biographers, novelists and critics. During this time, he has also quietly and consistently produced some of the finest short stories in contemporary fiction. Wrote For Luck contains several newly written pieces, alongside a dozen other works showcasing his developing mastery of the form, gathered under one cover for the first time.