Item category 1: General Fiction

Teacher: 'What did the Israelites do on coming out of the Red Sea?' Boy: 'Dried themselves, sir.' A gentleman is a man who gives up his seat to a lady in a public convenience. School Yarns and Howlers takes you back to those happy schooldays, when headmasters wore a cap and gown, maths was learne...

In the aftermath of an IRA bombing, Harry Clifton uses his new literary station to raise awareness for his POW friend while Giles Barrington works to secure a political career and Sebastian's past threatens his engagement.

From master storyteller Jeffrey Archer, The Prodigal Daughter is the enthralling sequel to the global phenomenon Kane and Abel, described by The Times as a 'classic novel of modern literature'. Hers was the ultimate ambition… The Prodigal Daughter is the magnificent story of love and politics tha...

Two friends fall under the spell of a New York beauty - with quite unexpected results. An offhand remark is taken seriously by a Chinese sculptor, and a British diplomat becomes the owner of a priceless work of art. An insurance claims advisor has a most surprising encounter on the train home to ...

War stories. Thriller. New York, 1939. Tom Bradshaw is arrested for first degree murder. He stands accused of killing his brother. When Sefton Jelks, a top Manhattan lawyer, offers his services for nothing, penniless Tom has little choice but to accept his assurance of a lighter sentence. After T...

Short Stories. These fourteen stories show Jeffrey Archer's great skills with a wide variety of character, of subject and of setting, but all with that trademark twist in the tail. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the...

God's vengeance on the wicked city of Sodom is a perennial source of fascination and horror. Michael Arditti's new novel explores the enduring power of the myth in five momentous epochs. A young Judean exile transcribes the Acts of Abraham and Lot in ancient Babylon; the Guild of Salters presents...

Oliver and Ruby have been besties forever... Oliver and Ruby love going to the beach - swimming in the surf, wading in the rockpools and eating ice-cream! And it gets even better when their funny friend Zac and the coolest girl in school turn up. But what if your bestie is having more fun with so...

Oliver and Ruby have been besties forever... It's Ruby's birthday and she's going to have the most amazing party. Ruby and Oliver decide to try out all the games before anyone else gets there. It's too good! How will the real party ever compete with the besties' practice party?

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on ...

When Kaden thinks he has lost his happy voice, he goes on a hunt to find it. It's quite an adventure, full of imaginary friends and exciting twists and turns. But, is Kaden looking in all the wrong places? When his Mummy guides him in a mindful and meditative visualisation, Kaden realises where h...

In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has been placed on Dusk, they reluctantly decide to join the hunt. As they journey up into this wild, haunted country, they...

In the heat of a long summer Ned hunts rabbits in a river valley, hoping the pelts will earn him enough money to buy a small boat. His two brothers are away at war, their whereabouts unknown. His father and older sister struggle to hold things together on the family orchard, Limberlost. Desperate...

Saeed has not returned to Iran after publishing his novel 'The imaginary narrative of a real murder' for fear of political persecution. He is surprised when Ismael, his father who has never left Iran, announces that he is travelling to Adelaide to visit him. During his short stay, Ismael tells Sa...

Since the death of her best friend Grace, twenty-six-year-old Eve has learned to keep everything and everyone at arm's length. Safe in her detachment, she scrapes along waiting tables and cleaning her shared flat in exchange for cheap rent, finding solace in her small routines. But when a chance ...

Sadler's Wells, 1933. Disciplined and dedicated, Olivia is the perfect ballerina. But no matter how hard she works, she can never match identical twin Clara's charm. As rehearsals intensify for the ballet Coppelia, the girls feel increasingly like they are being watched. And, as infatuation turns...

Three charming stories about a young girl who lives in a flat in Lagos with her sister, Moji, who is very clever; her brother, Dapo, who is very fast; and Grandmummy, who is very bossy. Too Small Tola is just the right size to fit under the bed and rescue Grandmummy's most prized possession when ...

This is the story of Ally and Charlotte, whose paths have intersected over the years though they've never really been close friends. Charlotte married Ally's ex and first true love, David. Fate is about to bring them together one last, dramatic time and change their lives forever. Full of Dani's ...

When Maddie wakes up in a hospital bed, she can't remember anything about what happened to her or what has changed. She just remembers she was about to be married and had everything to look forward to. But it seems life has become a lot more complicated while she has been asleep ...

One night in a remote hunting lodge with a Hollywood director causes an international scandal that wrecks Astrid's glittering stage career, and her marriage. Her ex-husband, the charismatic Scottish actor Magnus Fellowes, goes on to find global fame, while Astrid retreats to a disintegrating Suss...

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upo...

In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the wa...

"Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor." Grace Marks. Female fiend. Femme fatale. Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created ...

"Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor." Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created ...

The collection of a lifetime from the bestselling novelist, poet -- and cultural phenomenon. Before she became one of the world's most important and loved novelists, Margaret Atwood was a poet. Dearly is her first collection in over a decade. It brings together many of her most recognisable and c...

Review: Respected Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood presents a fable of the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right type ideals have been carried to extremes in the mono-theocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women ar...

Tracing the legacy of Margaret Atwood -- a writer who has fundamentally shaped our contemporary literary landscapes -- Paper Boat assembles Atwood's most vital poems in one essential volume. In pieces that are at once brilliant, beautiful and hyper-imagined, Atwood gives voices to remarkably draw...

More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially exp...

In a world where America is ruled by a repressive Bible-inspired regime and past pollution means only 1% of women can bear children, anyone committing a crime and found to be a potential mother is put into an institution and is sentenced to become a Handmaid, duty bound to bear the children of th...

SHORT STORIES. These short fictions and prose poems are beautifully bizarre: bread can no longer be thought of as wholesome comforting loaves; the pretensions of the male chef are subjected to a light roasting; a poisonous brew is concocted by cynical five year olds; and knowing when to stop is o...