Family Life

Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick....

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them...and what they will leave behind....

Clara Casey has more than enough on her plate. Her daughters are a handful and Clara, a senior cardiac specialist, has a new job to cope with....

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life....

A panoramic vision of America at the beginning of the 21st century, seen through the turbulent lives of the Lambert family. At once a moving family drama and a dissection of American society in an age of greed and globalism, The Corrections emerges as a truly great American novel....

Olive is many things. Independent. Adrift. Anxious. Loyal. Kind. Knows her own mind....

Pete Riley is a stay-at-home dad; his partner, Maddie, works in advertising. After Pete drops two-year-old Theo off at nursery one morning, he's politely accosted by a man who looks just like Theo....

Back in the long ago '90s, Rachel Walsh was a mess. But a spell in rehab transformed everything. Life became very good, very quickly. But with the sudden reappearance of a man she'd once loved, her life wobbles....

 A new mystery is afoot in the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series from million-copy best-selling author Richard Osman. Coming Autumn 2022! Pre-order your copy now....

On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below 'The Paper Palace'—her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she dives beneath the water she relives the passionate encounter she had the night before....

Evelyn and Muriel Axon, mother and daughter, lead a haunted existence....

The brand new audiobook from the best-selling author of The Break and The Woman Who Stole My Life....

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Find out....

Diana O'Toole's life is going perfectly to plan. At 29, she's up for promotion to her dream job as an art specialist at Sotheby's, and she's about to fly to the Galápagos, where she's convinced her surgeon boyfriend, Finn, is going to propose....

The mystery of Elizabeth Keane's father is one that has never been solved by the people of Buncarragh - not for lack of speculation....

Samantha and Lauren will need the love and support from the Hedgehog Hollow family more than ever. After all, some dreams are worth chasing....

After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter. But the bridges Kenna burned are proving impossible to rebuild....

On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At 31 years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses....

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend....

Texas, 1934. Elsa Martinelli had finally found the life she’d yearned for. A family, a home and a livelihood on a farm on the Great Plains. But when drought threatens all she and her community hold dear, Elsa’s world is shattered to the winds....

Meet Eva Martínez-Green, an only child full of questions about her beginnings....

Set in 2018, Claire Powell's beautifully observed debut novel follows each member of the Maguire family over a tumultuous year of lunches, dinners and drinks, as old conflicts arise and relationships are re-evaluated....

From a beloved prize-winning author comes a major new novel - a brilliantly perceptive, painfully true and funny journey deep into one family's foibles, from the 1950s right up to the changed world of today....

Ava's marriage has been a lie. For the past five years her husband Mark has been squandering their money on gambling and dodgy deals that have amounted to nothing....

Shocking and controversial when it was first published, The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's Pultizer Prize-winning epic of the Joad family, forced to travel west from Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma in search of the promised land of California....

Maggie is a mother to a stroppy teenager, a wife to a befuddled husband and a daughter to two very different women. She has always known she’s adopted, but has she ever understood what that means? Not really. Following the death of her mother, Maggie finally feels able to go in search of her birth mother Morag, and heads to the Highlands of Scotland with her disgruntled daughter, Roxie, in tow, leaving her crumbling marriage to worry about another day. The family reunion is bittersweet, but everything is blown wide open when Roxie unearths Morag’s explosive teenage diaries. 

Arianna Banks never committed to anything, whether a relationship, a job, or her education. Carrying a damaged reputation because of an atrocious childhood incident, Arianna’s poor self-image has been her downfall. When her parents die unexpectedly, awash with grief, she wonders what her purpose is. She makes several changes, including quitting beauty school to work at a charity call center. Convinced she is doing important work, Arianna isn’t prepared when a coworker named Marc Arnold challenges her to achieve her dreams through her suppressed passion for writing.

On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At 31 years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—12-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement.

In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach.

A gorgeous and evocative novel about three sisters and a life-changing summer in Corfu. What if your life worked out perfectly...for someone else? It's been 18 years since Ava spent the summer on the Greek island of Corfu, but she has never forgotten what happened during those months - or who she left behind. Now single, estranged from her family, and preparing to wave her daughter off to university, Ava's life seems a million miles away from the one she dreamed about as a teenager - a life now being lived by her sister instead.

Jess is a single mother to two teenage children, and although life can be tough, she’s just about keeping things together. But when her landlord asks her to move on so he can sell the house they’re living in without warning, Jess’ worries take on a whole new meaning. As Jess struggles to regain her footing, cracks begin to appear in other areas of her life, and suddenly she feels she’s failing at everything. 

This debut collection movingly explores how women and girls are looked at, look at one another and look at themselves, and how living as an object can shape their passions, fears and joys. With a clear eye and dark humour, Danielle Pender considers sex, parenting, grief and class as lenses for the ways in which the world watches women—and how women are always watching back.

Bristol - 1953. It’s Coronation Year. A new beginning in the aftermath of war, but there are still battles to be fought and secrets to be kept. Charlotte Hennessey-White copes with the shortcomings of her marriage and throws herself into helping refugees unwelcome by some and exploited by others. Edna Burbage has three beautiful children and considers herself lucky until the advent of a deadly twentieth century disease makes her think otherwise. Polly Chandler still hopes for a better life, but there are too many obstacles standing in her way.

The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond rings exclusively for proposals, they started a tradition that has defined engagements ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead. Now, over a decade later, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death.

Ethan is a 30-year-old Black security guard who struggles with the stresses of the night shift as well as being the single carer for his disabled grandmother, who is deteriorating with dementia, while making time for his much-loved girlfriend Catrina. He struggles on, stubbornly believing that he can manage everything on his own, until tragedy strikes and he is forced to put his priorities in order....

Bristol 1939. At forty years of age, Mary Anne Randall still turns heads. With an abusive husband spending most of his wages on beer, she has resigned herself to be the sole breadwinner to protect her family and keep the wolves from the door. In order to make ends meet, Mary Anne runs a pawnbroking business from the wash house at the end of the garden. Following the outbreak of war an opportunity presents itself to escape her loveless marriage and find true love. Will she take that chance, or carry on living just for her children and not for herself?

Zannah and Adrian are planning a May wedding. But before that they must endure the one thing that happens before all weddings—the meeting of the families. Will the gathering go smoothly? Will they like each other—the slightly bohemian Gratrixes from Cheshire and the wealthy Ashtons from the Home Counties? The meeting will take place on neutral territory, at a lunch party in the home of Zannah's great-aunt Charlotte in London. A mood of festivity and celebration prevails. Then Adrian's stepfather arrives and Zannah's mother turns frighteningly pale and hurries away from the party.

Aurelia and Septima Vesta did everything together—including fleeing the only home they’d ever known to escape the fate their father had arranged for them. They ran into the Howling Forest without so much as a glance behind them. But they never imagined the dangers they would face. When their jaunt through the dark forest that surrounded their home leads them to another world, they find themselves amidst a sea of friends and foes as a vicious war rages throughout the foreign, magical land. 

“I live in a holler, and I’ve heard some folks talk that holler bunch won’t amount to a hill of beans, and I’ve heard others say that the sun never shines in those hollers.” “My mother let me know I was as good as anyone. ‘Ralph, don’t walk with your head down. There’s nothing shameful about running out of taters.’” “My daddy said, ‘Ralph, don’t quit. Quitting follows you to the grave.’” The philosophy in these words was with Ralph from the time of his childhood. He heard them from relatives and witnessed the people around him live them.

Colum McCann's first novel goes back to the years before the Spanish Civil War, following the adventures of a peripatetic Irish photographer from the war-strewn shores of Europe to the exotic plains of Mexico. The story is told in the words of the photographer's only son, a wanderer himself, who uses his father's unreliable memories and the fading remnants of his art to piece together his family history and explain the mystery surrounding his mother—a Mexican beauty brought back by his father to Ireland.