Showing titles in City Life

Falling in love was never on Bridget’s to-do list. Having sworn off relationships, she’s only interested in temporary flings to avoid getting hurt again. Ethan is a hopeless romantic who loves deeply and wears his heart on his sleeve. When their one-night stand leaves him wanting more, Ethan is determined to get Bridget to take a chance on him. After an unexpected surgery forces her to rely on him, he becomes part of her carefully guarded world. As Ethan pieces together Bridget’s shattered trust, she must decide if she’s ready to risk everything and let herself fall in love.

As the bombs fall, three women are forced to remake their lives… When the uniform factory is reduced to rubble in a devastating air raid, Amanda, Maisie and Bethan are left without work, and without the sense of safety they once clung to. Shocked by the devastation she sees around her, Amanda signs up as an ambulance driver, putting her life on the line to save those in the poorest areas of the East End. Meanwhile, Maisie and Bethan find work in the heart of Petticoat Lane, trying to scrape pennies together to put dinner on the table.

Librarian and history enthusiast Jess Yates has hit rock bottom. With her ex behind bars for fraud, Jess needs to lay low – easier said than done with a celebrity sister. But Tavy has her uses. Her latest TV project involves renovating Fortune Hall, and she needs a house sitter while she’s jetting around the world. The opportunity is too good to miss, especially when Jess discovers that Fortune Hall has links to the infamous Nell Gwyn. Slowly the house begins to reveal its mysteries, and secrets that have laid buried for centuries can no longer be ignored.

Rudy Sharpe is the irrepressible owner of a tiny, ramshackle record store, stacked from floor to ceiling with piles of vinyl. It’s a place with real soul, where the slogan is ‘If we don't have it – them don't mek it’. Helping out behind the counter is Tasha, Handsworth’s only Black goth girl, while Rudy’s best friend Clifton regularly drops in to talk music, women and rum.

Based in the little town of Bridgeford, High-Lites salon boasts the most misanthropic hairdresser in Britain: sharp-tongued, mean-minded Bev. With the help of her soft-hearted (though slightly dim) assistant, Shirley, she tends to the tresses of a motley crew of local characters. As she cuts their hair, she finds out everything that's going on in their lives - and wastes no time in spreading some gossip of her own.

The cosy, heartwarming first book in the multi-million copy bestselling series. What would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time? Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold, translated from Japanese, explores this...

WINNER of the Pulitzer Prize The Sunday Times Bestseller Best Books of 2022 pick - New York Times, Obama, TIME, Slate, Oprah Daily, Kirkus, LA Times, EW, Sarah Jessica Parker Read by a full cast of narrators, Trust by Hernan Diaz is a sweeping, unpredictable novel about power, wealth and truth...

Anthony Trollope was one of Victorian England’s most popular and prolific authors. He worked for the Post Office while establishing himself as a writer, and is credited with introducing the pillar box to Britain. Best known for his ‘Barsetshire’ and ‘Palliser’ novels, he wrote over 50 works in total, including short stories, travel books, biographies and a posthumously published autobiography. Collected here are a selection of superb adaptations of his much-loved novels, as well as a fascinating documentary and an original radio play by Patricia Cumper.

Brought to you by Penguin. three boyz drive & dream of an impossible night on an endless street. . . a white bimmer hurtles down manchester’s curry mile, carrying three brown boys in pursuit of a wild night out, oi oi oi! there’s IMMY (23) – nursing mad heartbreak but tryna get over it by...

‘Gritty, compelling storytelling’ Daily Mail ‘Dark, tense, action-packed, and so, so clever … I couldn’t stop until the very last page. Outstanding’ Andrea Mara, number one Sunday Times bestselling author of No One Saw a Thing ‘Another absolute cracker. Gruesome and gritty' Liz...

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an abortion,' she announces. She is...

Dora Fairweather wasn’t cut out to be a wife and mother, and as soon as she’s able, she turns her back on her young daughter Lissie. With no parents to protect her, Lissie has no option but the dangerous streets of soot-sodden Bradford or the workhouse orphanage. Life in the orphanage is bleak and Lissie longs for the warm embrace of her beloved father. As the years pass, Lissie learns to enjoy the camaraderie of the other girls in the workhouse, and when she’s taken under the wing of matron Connie Briggs, things begin to look up..

Brought to you by Penguin. A novel from Eve Chase, author of The Glass House and The Birdcage. A glittering family. A Notting Hill house. Step into their secrets . . . Notting Hill, London. Lou Parker's famous mother walks out of their pink front door and doesn't return home by midnight, or the...

It is 1964 and fun-loving Rita has her dream job, working as a nanny for a huge popstar and his family. At first it seems great fun. The house is always full of glamorous people and parties, but soon she begins to worry for the children, who are neglected and crave stability. As if this wasn't enough to contend with, her employer, Cameron Knight, is spending a lot of time in the nursery – and not for the children. Can she keep herself and her charges safe in this chaotic household?

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE BOOKER-SHORTLISTED, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR 'It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us' In March 2020 Lucy Barton's ex-husband William pleads with her to leave New York and escape to a coastal house he has rented in Maine. Lucy...

'His most accomplished and moving novel yet' Lisa Jewell 'Emotionally high-voltage' Metro From the author of The Man I Think I Know *** Strangers living worlds apart. Strangers with nothing in common. But it wasn't always that way... Kerry Hayes is a single mum, living on a tough south London...

Brought to you by Penguin. The uplifting and escapist new romcom and perfect holiday read for summer from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Island in the Sun and One Enchanted Evening. In a city full of dreams, will she find her own…? It’s 1968 and it’s cold when Felicity arrives in...

‘Another perfect page-turner’ The Times ‘A triumph from the master thriller writer’ The Sun In this twisty thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author, a man desperately tries to track down his father in witness protection before his enemies can get to him. Your dad’s not a good...

In the heart of Dressmakers' Alley, Madame Pauline’s sweatshop is rumoured to be a particularly unpleasant place to work. Filled with seamstresses paid a pittance who turn a blind eye to what darker activities are hidden behind locked doors. Young Winnie Brown is keen to prove her value to the Women Movement and secures a job as a seamstress to investigate the whispers of some unsavoury goings on. Her concerns are soon justified when she hears a desperate cry for help.

Coco is having a hell of a month. She’s lost her boyfriend and her business, been forced to uproot her daughter to move back in with her parents in Paris, and now an infuriatingly handsome stranger is yelling at her for acting like a tourist… Right underneath the Eiffel Tower. Storming away from him – and swearing off men for life – she decides she’s going to take the first job that comes her way. Then, as if fate hears her, later that day she stumbles into a little bookshop – but not any old bookshop.