Showing titles in Literature & Fiction

Nothing escapes the snooping opera glasses of Miss Elizabeth Mapp. She whiles away her busy hours observing the small English village of Tilling, and recording the antics in her notebook. But her observations are set to be disrupted by amorous advances of two retired army generals, both vying for her affection. With Miss Mapp distracted, who will keep Miss Susan Poppit in her place or oversee the correct playing of bridge? More importantly will quiet Tilling be subject to a violent duel?

In these globally unprecedented times, Ed is also experiencing new and unusual circumstances. For the first time in 20 years, he's financially independent thanks to the timely arrival of his state pension, and living in a stylish, newly affordable 'capsule urban living unit' (a former office space converted into a flat). He has the luxury of three (organic) meals a day, all the premier catfood Edgar can eat, and even a new car - as well as free time to devote himself to his own long-cherished projects.

An achingly funny story about how to be your own hero when life pulls the rug out from under your feet. From the author of the bestselling You Had me at Hello. Delia Moss isn't quite sure where she went wrong. When she proposed and discovered her boyfriend was sleeping with someone else - she thought it was her fault. When she realised life would never be the same again - she thought it was her fault.

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-driving cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends who ordinarily would remain uncelebrated. It finds a value and specialness in them that is not immediately apparent and prompts the idea that maybe we could learn from the people that we overlook in life.

The troubled teenager continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. In between the ups and downs of his relationship with the divine Pandora and worrying that his genius is going unrecognized, Adrian Mole chronicles the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence.

The peaceful slumber of the Worcester village of Rudge-in-the-Vale is about to be rudely disrupted. First there's a bitter feud between peppery Colonel Wyvern and the Squire of Rudge Hall, rich but miserly Lester Carmody. Second, that arch-villain Chimp Twist has opened a health farm - and he and Soapy and Dolly Molloy are planning a fake burglary so Lester can diddle his insurance company.

The fourth series of the legendary BBC Radio comedy series starring Tony Hancock. Created by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in 1954, Hancock's Half Hour was the radio vehicle that made Tony Hancock a household name. Each week listeners would be admitted to the sometimes fantastical, sometimes mundane life of "the lad 'imself". Aided and abetted by Sid James, Bill Kerr Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques, Hancock would enter into the spirit of each episode with characteristic dolefulness.

Meet Me at Rainbow Corner follows the lives of Dot, Lilly and their friends, as they dance the nights away, fall in and out of love, and navigate the horrors of war. Lilly goes on a secret mission with her Colonel to France, and Dot becomes pregnant and returns to Liverpool. When the war is over, they are reunited, having travelled by boat to the US with countless other war brides to meet their repatriated fiancés again. Along the way, they uncover a case of inside espionage and learn the true meaning of love.

Atticus and Neil are the newly crowned "hottest male narration team" for Mmm-Mmm romance, and they're flying high on the praise. Nothing can get them down. Until Vera and Cameron usher a mysterious voice onto the scene and shake the foundation of the audiobook industry itself. In a world where humanity is all we have, can our group of former friends band together to save the future of storytelling? Or are audiobooks destined to be nothing more than a bunch of beep beep boop?

Something bad happened last night. My best friend Posey is dead. The police think it was a tragic accident. I know she was murdered. But I can’t remember a thing. I’ve woken up with the hangover from hell, a stranger in my bed, and I’ve gone viral for the worst reasons. There’s only thing stopping me from dying of shame. I need to find a killer.

Jenna Jones, former It-girl fashion editor, is broke and desperate for a second chance. When she’s dumped by her longtime fiancé and fired from Darling magazine, she begs for a job from her old arch nemesis, Darcy Vale. The beyond-bitchy publisher of StyleZine.com, Darcy agrees to hire her rival - only because her fashion site needs a jolt from Jenna’s old school cred. But Jenna soon realizes she’s in over her head.

Scobie Donoghue was once the king of the weekend. His twenties were spent working hard and playing harder. A lovable rogue, the lads wanted to be him and the girls wanted to be with him. But now, about to turn forty and returning to his small midlands hometown, Scobie is back in his childhood bed, single, burnt out and depressed. The life he thought he had left behind has moved on—but has he?

The war is in full swing. Following the unprecedented outcome of the siege at Fort Yimin, both the Republic and the Empire are forced to drastically reevaluate their plans for the conflict. With matters on the western front more or less settled for the moment, the warring nations turn their attention toward the eastern theatre. Winter looms on the horizon, threatening to deadlock the region and put a temporary halt to hostilities.

Gorm Ingerson knows the king is a fink. With the land’s insidious ruler hell-bent on his destruction, the axe-wielding Dwarf berserker is desperate to beat him to the punch. But when he discovers the rotten regent’s claim of a town razed by the world’s richest dragon is false, the gruff adventurer fears there’s more than a personal grudge at stake.

The story revolves around the comings and goings at No. 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in Edinburgh. Immediately recognisable are the Edinburgh chartered surveyor, stalwart of the Conservative Association, who dreams of membership of Scotland's most exclusive golf club. We have the pushy Stockbridge mother, and her prodigiously talented five-year-old son, who is making good progress with the saxophone and with his Italian.

Where would you rather be? Lonely and fog-bound in an ancient English castle... or sitting under the stars with friends on a magical Mediterranean island? Magdalena Mountjoy, furious with her impossible husband, the rakish Valdemar, doesn't hesitate when she has the chance to run away to Aeolus, a jewel of an island off the coast of Sicily. Yet every Eden has its serpent.

The father has a story he needs to share before it's too late. As he tells his son about a courageous little girl lying in a hospital bed a few miles away, he reveals even more about himself - his past regrets, his hopes for the future. Now, on Christmas Eve, he has been given the chance to do something remarkable that could change the destiny of the little girl he hardly knows. But before he can make the deal of a lifetime, he must find out what his own life has actually been worth, and only his son can reveal the answer.

Flashman must choose - politcs in London or slave trading in Africa - not that it matters really in this hilarious third installement of the Flashman Papers. When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future - would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference?

You always remember your first love. Don't you? It began with four words. "I love your laugh." But that was 12 years ago. It really began the day Georgina was fired from The Worst Restaurant in Sheffield (TripAdvisor) and found The Worst Boyfriend in the World (Georgina's best friends) in bed with someone else. So when her new boss, Lucas McCarthy, turns out to be the boy who wrote those words to her all that time ago, it feels like the start of something. The only problem? He doesn't seem to remember Georgina at all.