In Half a Life we are introduced to the compelling figure of Willie Chandran. Springing from the unhappy union of a low-caste mother and a father constantly at odds with life, Willie is naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. Drawn to England, and to the immigrant and bohemian communities of post-war London, it is only in his first experience of love that he finally senses the possibility of fulfilment.

In its humorous and sensitive vision of the half-lives quietly lived out at the centre of our world, V. S. Naipaul’s graceful novel brings its own unique illumination to essential aspects of our shared history.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

The Man of Steel and Lobo defend Metropolis from Brainiac’s army in a can’t-miss Superman event with major repercussions for the DC Universe!

Writer Joshua Williamson’s Superman era reaches a massive inflection point as longtime foe Brainiac invades Metropolis—with an unstoppable Lobo army!

The Super family and all the heroes of Metropolis join the fight, but will they be enough to hold off Brainiac's lethal and crazed soldiers?! Can Superman and Lex learn what Brainiac is searching for? He's not bottling Metropolis, so what is he collecting instead?!

If Superman is going to save the day this time, he’ll have to enlist an unlikely ally—Lobo himself! Can the Man of Steel and the Main Man get along long enough to race across the universe and stop Brainiac? And how is Amanda Waller involved in all of this?

Williamson teams with superstar artist Rafa Sandoval for this game-changing story, which leads directly to the next phase of the DC Universe!

This volume collects Action Comics #1064-1066, Superman #13-15, and Superman: House of Brainiac Special #1, the full House of Brainiac story.

A young patrolman harbors secret feelings for a middle-aged shop owner on his beat!

Shin Nakamoto was a troubled youth until a local patrolman saved him from a nasty beatdown one night. Inspired by the patrolman’s heroism and good looks, Shin suddenly had a goal in his aimless life—to become a patrolman and serve at the same station as his crush! But after a decade of pursuing his dream, Shin discovers that Seiji has retired from the force to run his family’s tiny convenience store.

Living under the same roof as the man he’s had a crush on for a solid decade has Shin’s libido in overdrive, and even his rampant awkwardness can’t get in the way of him getting some! Meanwhile, Seiji is swamped with self-doubt. Does an old man with a bleak romantic history have what it takes to satisfy his hot, young partner?

The exquisite manga adaptation of one of the world’s greatest 20th century fiction classics

'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.'

A stranger to society, a stranger to his own life, Meursault seems indifferent to everything. In The Outsider, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal.

A first in Penguin Modern Classics, Camus’ classic existentialist novel is told through Ryota Kurumado’s powerful artwork. Unlike previous editions of Camus’ novel, Meursault and other characters’ emotions are drawn out through stunning illustrations and seen for the first time. A rare and challenging feat, Kurumado’s manga adaptation makes a novel first published in 1942 feel contemporary.

Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon are back in an explosive new installment of the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

A deadly war game. An adversary as hard to find as he is to kill. Weapons so sophisticated, none have seen the like before. Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon have finally met their match in this pulse-pounding new adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

When African jihadis attack a Nigerian regiment using American weapons, Cabrillo and the Oregon crew are on the case, investigating from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to track a mysterious arms dealer—a genius, or perhaps a devil—known only as the Vendor.

Cabrillo goes undercover to find the Vendor’s base, but his adversary isn’t just an arms smuggler. He’s an arms maker, and Cabrillo just walked into a lethal military game alongside the most dangerous mercenaries in the world, designed to test the Vendor’s cutting-edge AI arsenal.

And yet, surviving an arena full of flame-throwing robots isn’t even his biggest problem. The Vendor has an army of high-speed drones headed for a pivotal military site, and if the Oregon crew can’t stop them from releasing a deadly neurotoxin, the entire globe will erupt in conflict.

Coming of age in 1940s England, Alice's life is thrown into chaos under the shadow of the war. Forced to let go of her hopes and dreams, she finds herself uprooted to America and a life she never could have imagined.

Decades later, it is the 1990s and Alice's granddaughter Marnie is living out of a worn-out Chevy Nova, running heroin and cocaine along the New England coastline. Yet she carries with her memories of a nurtured childhood in hardscrabble Rhode Island, where all the disappointments of her young parents were eclipsed by her grandmother's love.

Spanning six decades and two continents, from the shores of WWII England to the underside of 1990s America, JUNCTION OF EARTH AND SKY unfolds -in multiple timelines -the enduring bond of grandmother and granddaughter, plagued by the past but determined to find their place in the world against all the odds.

A sweeping and emotional debut from a dazzling new voice - for fans of The Paper Palace, The Dutch House and Betty.

Since before the dawn of memory, one thing has defined human history: the war between ninjas and yakuzas. This coarse and manly manga follows two members of these warring tribes who fill the gutters of modern Tokyo with blood to determine which elemental force will reign supreme!

An outrageous new action series, like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure meets Fist of the North Star!

Shinoha is a frickin' NINJA. He can't even smile because of a dark trauma in his past that you'll find out about later. But for now, what you need to know is, he kicks ass and can kill so many guys. Kiwami, on the other hand, looks like a regular business guy, but actually he's a flipping YAKUZA. Everyone knows ninjas and yakuzas have been at war for three hundred years, so when Kiwami and Shinoha meet, it's like, fwoosh, slice, kabloop, stab stab stab... My point is, this manga has REAL ULTIMATE POWER and, if you read it?
Maybe you can too.

Rated A Must-Read by The New York Times, Elle, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Globe and Mail, and CBC. A Finalist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.

"To be loved by your father is to be loved by God."

So says Mona Dean―playwright, actress, and daughter of a man famous for one great novel, a man whose needs and insecurities exert an inescapable pull and exact an immeasurable toll on the women of his family: Mona, her sister, her half sister, their mothers. His infidelity destroyed Mona’s childhood, setting her in opposition to a stepmother who, though equally damaged, disdains her for being broken. Then, just as Mona is settling into her life as an adult and a fledgling artist, her father begins a new affair and takes her into his confidence. Mona delights―painfully, parasitically―in this attention. When he inevitably confesses to his wife, Mona is cast as the agent of disruption, punished for her father’s crimes and ejected from the family.

Mona’s tenuous stability is thrown into chaos. Only when she suffers an incalculable loss―one far deeper and more defining than family entanglements―can she begin supplanting absent love with real love. Pushed to the precipice, she must decide how she wants to live, what she most needs to say, and the risks she will take to say it.

Claudia Dey chronicles our most intimate lives with penetrating insight and devilish humor. Daughter is an obsessive, blazing examination of the forces that drive us to become, to create, and to break free.

How do you catch a killer, when all your suspects know how to get away with murder?

When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out.

The program is a who's who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer.

But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Or commit one...

A villainous heroine finds herself plunged into a seductive world of power, politics and murder in the court of the vampire king in this bloodthirsty debut from an unmissable new voice in fantasy romance.

The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.

Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid - and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.

Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Blood Worker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.

Homicide investigators utilize supernatural abilities to solve their cases while simultaneously investigating their own feelings for each other!

Officer Asako, part of a special investigations unit, has the unique ability to react to the residual thoughts of murder victims, replicating their wounds on his own body. Together with his partner, the reserved Detective Kuroiwa, he works hard to solve the toughest of cases.

In a shocking turn of events, one of the cases this unique team of investigators takes on is the murder of Superintendent Kuroiwa’s own ex-wife, Mari. Upon visiting the murder scene, Asako reacts by collapsing and bleeding profusely from a wound that suddenly appears on his back. But why are Mari’s final thoughts about her ex-husband Kuroiwa, and what does Asako’s surprising reaction to them really mean?

High heat. Low stakes. Sharp steel.

The cozy, low stakes of Legends & Lattes meets the scorching bodyguard fantasy of Jennifer L. Armentrout's From Blood and Ash in this enemies-to-lovers romance where, yes, the swords do cross.

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family's wealth, something that Matti has been trying―and failing―to do for the past ten years.

What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn't plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible―and inconveniently handsome―wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti's business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti's wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti's house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca's secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

EVERY LIFE HAS ITS PRICE

She’s known as the Wolf: an assassin working through a kill list with cool efficiency.
Then someone gets in her way: Evan Smoak.
First, he refuses to conveniently die.
Then he stops her killing others.
Evan has the Wolf’s measure. He met plenty like her in a former life.
But not since he's had so much to lose.
And the powers behind her are bigger than he could possibly imagine.

The Wolf's got Evan in her sights.
She won’t stop. It’s kill – or be killed. Cat and mouse.
And Evan has one fatal weakness.
His humanity . . .

When it comes to romance, opposites really do attract!

Miyu Suzuki is a bright and bubbly high schooler who’s got a crush. There’s just one little problem—when it comes to personality, the guy she’s into is her polar opposite!

High school’s full of ups and downs! But whether it’s deciding where to have a birthday date, coming to terms with who you used to be, or trying to figure out the complex feelings that make up “liking” someone, Suzuki, Tani, and all their friends will manage as long as they’ve got each other!

Wonder Woman’s critically acclaimed and character-defining series from writer Tom King and Daniel Sampere reaches its second volume!

Writer Tom King and artist Daniel Sampere have taken Wonder Woman from Goddess to an enemy of the state in their critically acclaimed Wonder Woman series in the Dawn of DC. Captured by a team of villains, Diana Prince finds herself up against the nemesis of our story, The Sovereign, wielding the Lasso of Lies.

As her new adversary tightens the grip on Wonder Woman’s psyche, will she prove victorious over the web of Amazon lies weaved in Man’s World?

Rival ornithologists hunt through Europe for dangerous magical birds in this historical fantasy romance. If Indiana Jones featured manners, tea, and helicopter parasols - this would be it!

Professor Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare Deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, stealing both her bird and her imagination.

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Beth.

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning.

From the mastermind behind The Dangerous Damsels series, India Holton delivers another fantastical and whimsical story that's perfect to read with a cup of tea . . .

The true story of how a middle-class Black girl from Minneapolis became one of the single biggest threats to the United States banking system.

Tanya Smith fancied herself a folk hero, a kind of Robin Hood, using her powers of persuasion to buck the system and help the poor and needy.

It started innocently enough, with calls to celebrities' houses with her teenage twin sister. Soon, Tanya realised she could convince utility companies to amend the balances of her friends and neighbours, clearing their overdue electricity bills with a single phone call. Eventually, as she tested the limits and realized she could get past any gatekeeper, she began to understand the power of money and what it could do.

Over the years, Tanya 'confiscated' some $40 million in cash and commodities from US banks, using hacked wire transfers. It didn't take long before the FBI was on her tail. But when interviewing her, they made clear that they were using her to get to the person actually running things - clearly, she wasn't smart enough to do this on her own (Black people she was told, rob people, they don't hack computers).

Thus began a cat and mouse game with the authorities that would drive her to unthinkable limits, breaking the hearts of her parents and putting Tanya's life in jeopardy before finally sending her to Federal prison (where she escaped twice) with the longest sentence ever given for a white-collar crime.

Some villains are meant to be heroes . . .

London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers, she spends her days searching for treasure in the mud in order to appease her master, Benjamin Murdstone.

But one day, Nell discovers a strange body on the shore. Nearly seven feet tall, the creature has matted hair covering his legs, and on his head is the suggestion of horns. Nell's fellow mudlarks urge her to steal what she can, but as she ventures closer the figure draws breath – and Nell is forced to make a decision that will change her life for ever . . .

From the critically acclaimed author of The Toymakers comes an imaginative retelling of the legend of the Minotaur, perfect for lovers of historical fiction with a mythical twist such as Stone Blind and Circe.

Her name is Jane Smith. But to friends and foes, she's Jane Effing Smith.

Why? Because she's the best criminal defence attorney in the Hamptons - the elite world of New York's rich and infamous. Because she's as good an investigator as she is a lawyer. Because she's tough. She's strong.

As Jane is preparing to defend a high-profile client accused of a triple homicide, she's also hired to revive a cold case - a cluster of unsolved murders.

Then another bombshell lands. A devastating medical diagnosis. Terminal. She's got a year to live.

But for now, she has a trial to win. Unless one of her many enemies kills her first.

At long last, Adam Sealey has an Oscar within reach. Working with his controversial former mentor, Jonathan, he's given the performance of a lifetime, and he almost believes it might be worth the cost.

Because Adam subscribes to "the method". It's the secret that the world's greatest actors swear by - digging into their darkest, most personal traumas to bring a role to life.

And Adam's greatest trauma is worse than most. Losing his mother when he was just a boy. A forced choice between the success he craved and the girl he loved. And that night back in drama school, the night of Adam's darkest secret, when everyone knows about the dead body, but nobody suspects the truth.

And then he gets a message: someone knows. And if they tell, everything Adam's worked for will come crashing down.

What would you give to win the world?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory – one that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.

However, Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial aspirations. Courtesan Madam Zhang plots to steal the throne for her husband. But scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang is even closer to the throne. He’s maneuverered his way to the capital, where his courtly games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history. In the process, he’d make a mockery of the warrior values his Mongol family loved more than him.

To stay in the game, Zhu must gamble everything on one bold move. A risky alliance with an old enemy: Ouyang, the brilliant but unstable eunuch general. All contenders will do whatever it takes to win. But when desire has no end, and ambition no limits, could the price be too high for even the most ruthless heart to bear?

They say life is made up of moments.

So is a relationship.

From the moment he sets his eyes on Ashley Oliver at sixth form on the cusp of the new millennium, Charlie falls in love. It isn’t all sunshine and roses though and it takes several years and more than one chance meeting before they begin their relationship.

Will they survive everything the world has to throw at them or will the pressure of life, love, and London be too much for them?

Told through moments big and small, trivial and significant, this is the moving and uplifting story of a relationship - the ups, the downs, and everything in between.

One family’s deepest pain. Another family’s darkest secret.

On a hot day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields, while their family, Mi’kmaq people from Nova Scotia, pick fruit. That afternoon, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. As the last person to see her, Joe will be forever haunted by grief, guilt, and the agony of imagining how his life could have been.

In an affluent suburb nearby, Norma is growing up as the only child of unhappy parents. She is smart, precocious, and bursting with questions she isn’t allowed to ask – questions about her missing baby photos; questions about her dark skin; questions about the strange, vivid dreams of campfires and warm embraces that return night after night. Norma senses there are things her parents aren’t telling her, but it will take decades to unravel the secrets they have kept buried since she was a little girl.

The Berry Pickers is an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and the power of family – even in the face of grief and betrayal.

From Lily King, author of Writers and Lovers, The English Teacher is a compelling drama about the fragility of a life built from ruins and the need to protect it.

Fifteen years ago, English teacher Vida Avery arrived alone and pregnant at the elite Fayer Academy. Living on the campus off the coast of New England, she worked to become a beloved fixture of the school – and to shelter herself and her son, Peter, from a painful secret she left behind.

Then she accepts the impulsive marriage proposal of ardent widower Tom Belou, and the prescribed life Vida has constructed begins to come apart. As Peter bonds with Tom and his new step-siblings, Vida retreats further into the books she teaches. To embrace life and a chance at happiness, she will have to face the nightmares of her former self – and shed the pain she has held onto for far too long.