Tripoli in the 1960s. A sweltering, segregated society. Hadachinou is a lonely boy. His mother shares secrets with her best friend Jamila while his father prays at the mosque. Sneaking through the sun-drenched streets of Tripoli, he listens to the whispered stories of the women. He turns into an invisible witness to their repressed desires while becoming aware of his own. ------ Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This is a fascinating portrait of a closed society. On the surface this quiet vignette of a story could be read as gently nostalgic, but underneath the author reveals the seething tensions of a traditional city coming to terms with our modern world. The book gives us privileged access to a place where men and women live apart and have never learned to respect each other.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

It's October 1918 and the war is drawing to a close. Toussaint Caillet returns home to his wife, Jeanne, and the young daughter he hasn't seen growing up. He is not coming back from the front line but from the department for facial injuries at Val-de-Grace military hospital, where he has spent the last two years. For Jeanne, who has struggled to endure his absence and the hardships of war, her husband's return marks the beginning of a new battle. With the promise of peace now in sight, the family must try to stitch together a new life from the tatters of what they had before.

A beautiful homage to the art of reading - light and funny. A celebration of the union of sensuality and language. Marie-Constance loves reading and possesses an attractive voice. So, one day she decides to put an ad in the local paper offering her services as a paid reader. Her first client, a paralysed teenager, is transformed by her reading of a Maupassant short story. Marie-Constance's fame spreads and soon the rich, the creative and the famous clamour for her services. ------ Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'The premise of the story is brilliant: a woman who loves reading aloud acquires - without realizing - power over others. What's true for her clients becomes real for you, the reader of this book. As you turn the pages, think of Marie-Constance as the personification of "reading" itself. And I promise you an experience you will never forget.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

An intoxicating and evocative novel about the all-consuming love affair between two women in Paris and the ruin it leaves in its wake. It's all about Sarah, her mysterious beauty, Sarah the impetuous, Sarah the passionate, Sarah the sulphurous, it's all about the exact moment when the match flares, the exact moment when that piece of wood becomes fire, when the spark lights up the darkness. A thirty-something teacher drifts through her life in Paris, raising a daughter on her own, lonely in spite of a new boyfriend. Then one night, at a friend's tepid New Year's Eve party, Sarah enters the scene like a tornado. A talented young violinist, she is loud, vivacious, appealingly unkempt in a world where everyone seems preoccupied with being 'just so'. It is the beginning of an intense relationship, tender and violent, that will upend both women's lives. A literary sensation in France, All About Sarah perfectly captures the pull of a desire so strong that it blinds us to everything else.

A little girl lives happily with her mother in war-torn Paris. She has never met her father, a prisoner of war in Germany. But then he returns and her mother switches her devotion to her husband. The girl realizes that she must win over her father to recover her position in the family. She confides a secret that will change their lives. ----- Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This is a poetic story about a girl's love for her father. Told from the girl's perspective, but with the clarity of an adult's mind, we experience her desire to be noticed by the first man in her life. A rare examination of the bonds and boundaries between father and daughter.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

Antoine's life is good. During the day, he hangs pictures for the most fashionable art galleries in Paris. Evenings, he dedicates to the silky moves and subtle tactics of billiards, his true passion. But when Antoine is attacked by an art thief in a gallery his world begins to fall apart. His maverick investigation triggers two murders - he finds himself the prime suspect for one of them - as he uncovers a cesspool of art fraud. A game of billiards decides the outcome of this violently funny tale, laced with brilliant riffs about the world of modern art and the parasites that infest it. "You know, you can see parallels in the histories of crime and painting. At first, men painted as they kill, with bare hands. Raw art, you could say...Instinct before technique. Then came instruments, the stick, the brush. One fine day, painting with knives began. Look at the work of Jack the Ripper...And then the gun was invented. Painting with a gun brought something final and radical. And today, in the age of terrorism, they paint with bombs, in cities, in the metros. Anonymous graffiti that explode on street corners..."

For readers of Damaged and Running with Scissors, a chilling exploration of psychological control that ends with a glorious escape.

Maude still remembers the sound of the gate being locked behind her. She was three years old when they moved into the secluded manor, and she would only be allowed out again a handful of times.

Her parents belonged to a fanatical Masonic order who believed that it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor. She followed a strict schedule of study, hard labour and endless drills designed to ‘eliminate weakness’, such as holding an electric fence without flinching and sitting still in a rat-infested cellar.

But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending animals on the lonely estate and characters in the books she read, Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love her parents forbade.

Wife. Mother. Daughter. Killer. 'You can't stop reading, even as you want to look away' New York Times Life is going well for Marie. She and her husband, Laurent, live a comfortable life in a large apartment in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris. Laurent has a good job at a big law firm and Marie enjoys her work at a bank, where she feels appreciated by her clients and colleagues. Comfortable and secure, and ready for family life, the couple begin to try for a baby. But not long afterwards Marie experiences a shocking encounter which threatens to derail their plans completely, and her world slowly starts to fall apart. Less than two years later, the family's apartment is cordoned off by police tape as forensic officers examine a horrific scene in the family apartment. Three bodies around a dining table. Marie, Laurent and their little toddler, Thomas, in his high chair. All three of them have been poisoned by Marie. This Little Family is a dark and furiously compelling novel about women, power and control, from a bright young star in French literature.

Who hasn't wanted to become 'someone else'? The person you've always wanted to be...the person who hadn't given up half way to your dreams and desires? One evening at a bar two men who have just met at their tennis club in Paris conclude that it is time to change their lives and decide to meet again in three years time to see whose transformation is the more radical. Thierry is a picture framer with a steady clientele, but he has always wanted to be a private investigator. Nicolas is a shy teetotal executive trying not to fall off the corporate ladder. But becoming another is not without risk; at the very least the risk of finding yourself. A helter-skelter tale of humour and suspense.

Myriam's decision to open a restaurant in her Paris flat is characteristically unexpected and transforms her life in a curious way. For six years, Myriam has been living in self-imposed exile, cut off from her cool, reserved husband and from her son, and the opening night of Chez Moi is typically desolate. But little by little, Myriam's mouth-watering dishes draw people in, first the florist from across the road, followed by the school children tempted by a four-euro lunch, and then Ben, the most unflappable and devoted of waiters. As the restaurant sizzles towards success, figures and feelings from Myriam's past also begin to emerge, gradually reawakening her appetite for life, both the bitter and the sweet. Simmering with stories, recipes, observations and dreams, Chez Moi serves up a painfully adult story, with an irresistible sprinkling of wonder and magic.

An unforgettable memoir about a life of adventure in the great outdoors and the power of a dog's transformative love.

A tiny ad in a local newspaper catches Cédric Sapin-Defour’s eye: a litter of Bernese Mountain Dog puppies need homes. A lonely, single, sports teacher and mountain climber in the French Alps, Cédric visits the dogs and immediately falls for the puppy with a blue collar.

Named Ubac, French for the north side of the mountain – the rainy, cloudy slope – the puppy quickly upends Cédric’s life. They go on hikes together, taking to the hills and exploring, forging a bond that brings joy and a sense of fulfilment and adventure. They brave the world together, hate to be apart, crave the mountains and the natural world; they protect each other.

Over the course of thirteen years, their pack expands to include Mathilde, Cédric’s wife, and more dogs. Ubac and Me is an intimate meditation on a joyous life lived too fast, the aching pain of separation, and the transformative effect of unconditional love.

Ubac and Me has been a word-of-mouth sensation, selling over half a million copies in France.

THE NO. 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. WINNER OF THE 2020 PRIX GONCOURT. 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD. 'Just when you think you've worked it out . . . well, you probably haven't' DAILY MAIL 'Mind-bending. Written with page-turning conviction' THE TIMES 'A mind-bending, prize-winning speculative thriller' GUARDIAN 'An intoxicating mix of the magical and life's big questions' FINANCIAL TIMES _______ No one knows how it happened. But it'll change their lives forever . . . During a terrifying storm, Air France flight 006 - inexplicably - duplicates. For every passenger, there are now two: a double with the same mind, body and memories. Only one thing sets them apart - while one plane lands in March, the other doesn't arrive until June. Nothing can explain this unprecedented event. But for each duplicated passenger, an impossible moment of reckoning awaits. If there are two of you, and just one life . . . who gets to live it? ______ New York Times: Best Thriller of the Year Publishers Weekly: Best Thriller of the Year Lit Hub: Favourite Book of the Year CrimeReads: Best International Crime Novel of the Year PopSugar: Best Mystery/Thriller of the Month Readers LOVE The Anomaly: 'I absolutely loved this thrilling, addictive book' 5* Reader Review 'This book spun my head. Fascinating, fantastic and thought provoking' 5* Reader Review 'I absolutely love this book. It's a one-of-a-kind story, with perfect pacing. I would highly recommend' 5* Reader Review 'An incredible read - intriguing and original. Keeps you fascinated until the very last page' 5* Reader Review 'A brilliant read . . . So cleverly written' 5* Reader Review

Some favours simply cannot be refused. Tonio agrees to write a love letter for Dario, a low-rent Paris gigolo. When Dario is murdered, a single bullet to the head, Tonio finds his friend has left him a small vineyard somewhere east of Naples. The wine is undrinkable but an elaborate scam has been set up. The smell of easy money attracts the unwanted attentions of the Mafia and the Vatican, and the unbridled hatred of the locals. Mafiosi aren't choir boys, and monsignors can be very much like Mafiosi. A darkly comic, iconoclastic tale.

It is 1942 and the Jews are being deported from Belgium. Separated from his parents, seven-year-old Joseph must go into hiding. He is taken in the dead of night to an orphanage, the Villa Jaune, where the benign and enigmatic Father Pons presides over a motley assortment of children. With the ever-present threat of the Gestapo growing closer, Joseph learns that the secret of survival is to conceal his Jewish heritage. Soon Joseph also discovers that Father Pons has a secret of his own: he is risking his life not only for the boys in his care, but for the Jewish faith itself. Sensitive, funny and deeply humane, Noah's Child is a simple fable that reveals the complexities of faith, bravery and the human condition.