Showing results for "Stories" in Literature & Fiction

Nineteen-year-old Claire Pearson knows she needs a life. And new friends. But brittle, beautiful, and just a little bit too sassy for her own good sometimes, she no longer makes friends easily. And she has no clue where to start on the whole finding a life front, either. Not after a confidence-shattering year dogged by bad break-ups, friends who have become strangers, and her constant failure to meet her parents' sky-high expectations. Robbie and Mia seem the least likely people to help her find a life. But despite Claire's attempts to alienate them, an unexpected friendship develops.

Townie is a brief yet dramatic glimpse at a blossoming friendship between two young women in a small college town - Amal, a transplant from LA, and Bridgette, a local 20-something who feels lost in her own life and becomes enamored with her new friend’s confidence. At first, the new relationship is intoxicating, and the two women spend every spare minute getting drunk on cheap liquor, party-hopping, and binging reality TV. But soon, a secret is revealed that shifts the dynamic, and Bridgette makes a choice she can never take back.

Winner of the Polari Prize Shortlisted for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize ‘A gothic fairy tale, sublime in its creepiness’ – Florence Welch Our Wives Under The Sea is the haunting novel from Julia Armfiled, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love...

Dana Castilaw grew up tossing coins in a well, hoping her wishes would come true, but the candy fountain, puppy, and love never seemed to manifest. At 18, she left her hometown of Barbier Point, Louisiana, longing to be free of her father's chokehold on her life and with a heart full of dreams she hoped would come true. Years later, she is forced to return home with at least one granted wish - her daughter, Sydney. 

Bloomsbury presents The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, read by Frazer Douglas. **OVER 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD** WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Captivating' DONNA TARTT 'I loved it' J K ROWLING...

Trans sailor Darragh Thorn has made a comfortable life for himself among people who love and accept him. Ten years after his exile from home, though, his sister asks him to reconcile with their ailing father. Determined to resolve his feelings rather than just survive them, Darragh sets off on a quest to find the one person who can heal a half-dead man: the mysterious enchanter who once gave him the magic he needed to become his true self.

There was once, long ago, a foolish king who decreed that women should not, and would not, inherit. Thus when a girl-child was born to Lord Cador - Merlin-enchanted fighter of dragons and Earl of Cornwall - he secreted her away: to be raised a boy so that the family land and honour would remain intact. That child’s name was Silence. Silence must find their own place in a medieval world that is determined to place the many restrictions of gender and class upon them. With dreams of knighthood and a lonely heart to answer, Silence sets out to define themselves.

Indulge the Desire You Don’t Talk About. There are fantasies you admit to. And then there are the ones that live in silence — quiet… persistent… impossible to ignore. Hot Erotic Short Stories – 2 in 1 is an invitation into that hidden world. A world where restraint makes everything...

Bridgerton meets Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue in this stunning queer romance by KJ Charles, author of The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting. 'KJ Charles is, in my opinion, a titan of her genre' – Talia Hibbert, bestselling author Get A Life, Chloe Brown Nicolas-Marc, Comte de Valois...

Brought to you by Penguin. **Winner of the Nero Book Awards Gold Prize Book of the Year 2025** A mother following her heart A father with the law on his side A child caught in the middle It’s 2022, and Heron, an old man of quiet habits, has just had the sort of visit to the doctor that turns a...

The instant Sunday Times besteller 'The work of a writer who has once again demonstrated complete command of his craft' - The Irish Times 'Short stories to astonish and delight' Financial Times 'Tales of quiet power' The Guardian In The News from Dublin, a beautiful collection of short stories...

When Yanni Tomaras is kicked out of his family home, his parents' final words are religious insults and an order to never return. Homeless and desperate, he's lured in by Lance - charming on the outside, an evil predator underneath - who abuses Yanni until he finds the courage to leave. Yanni should feel free. But by the time Spencer Cohen finds him, he's resigned to being handed back to Lance and once again being caged by fear.

First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. Classics of modern fiction, these novellas capture 1931 Berlin—charming, grotesque, and dangerous, as Hitler was ascending to power. The Berlin Stories is inhabited by a wealth of characters, in particular the nightclub performer Sally Bowles, whose misadventures were popularized on stage and screen in I Am a Camera and Cabaret.

Patriarchy asserts men are superior to women Feminism clarifies women and men are equal Queerness questions what constitutes male and female Queerness isn’t only modern, Western or sexual, says mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik. Take a close look at the vast written and oral traditions in Hinduism...

Valerie Westland isn't looking for love when she ends up on a date with Cressida Davis, despite the instant attraction or her inability to stop flirting with her. With a past she can't move on from and a heart she doesn't deem worthy of giving away, can the pair find a way to each other, or are opportunities gone forever when one refuses to seize the moment? 

'Superbly plotted...pure escapism and utterly joyful' JOANNA CANNON 'Vivid and entertaining, and powered by such a wonderfully dry wit' THE TIMES 'An excellent mystery...superbly rendered' GUARDIAN 'A beautifully woven debut full of escalating secrets...hugely enjoyable' AJ PEARCE 'An...

Malika Moustadraf (1969-2006) is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. Blood Feast is the complete collection of Moustadraf’s published short fiction: haunting, visceral stories by a master of the genre. A teenage girl suffers through a dystopian rite of passage; a man with kidney disease makes desperate attempts to secure treatment; and a mother schemes to ensure her daughter passes a virginity test.

Infatuation and violence grow between two girls in the enchanting wilderness of postwar Australia as they spin disturbing fantasies to escape their families. Two young men in the midst of the 1968 French student revolts navigate—and at times resist—the philosophical and emotional nature of love. An orphaned boy and his estranged aunt are thrown together on a quiet peninsula at the height of the Troubles in Ireland, where their deeply rooted fear attracts the attention of shape-shifting phantoms of war.

'A SEXY SUMMER ROMANCE' DAILY MAIL 'A GRIPPING MODERN LOVE STORY' THE TIMES 'SOME OF THE BEST SEX SCENES I'VE READ THIS YEAR' GUARDIAN 'ONE FOR ROMANCE FANS EVERYWHERE' MARIE CLAIRE 'THIS SUMMER'S SMART BEACH READ' GRAZIA 'WILL BREAK YOU THEN PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER AGAIN' STYLIST 'UNBEARABLY...

Brought to you by Penguin. It’s a love story, will she ever say yes… Renee Feldman would rather be anywhere other than a family friend’s wedding, introducing herself as a “film school drop-out”—until she runs into Lola Gray, her childhood neighbour who's become a major pop sensation...