Item category 1: Adult Paperback

The children of the four Collins sisters - Cassandra, Lela, Suzette and Felice - have a complicated inheritance. It includes unbreakable rules for navigating society, contested stories about their grandparents' early lives, capacious musical talents, and an opal necklace of uncertain origin. In t...

In stories of astonishing compression and insight, Mavis Gallant wrote of characters severed from their home, exiles disconnected from each other and from themselves. Tracing the fault lines of the post-war world in the intimate lives of her characters, she could conjure an entire worldview in a ...

Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together - everybody but Shiloh and Cary. They were best friends, that's all. But, somehow, everything changed. Both left town - took different paths - and suddenly it's fourteen years since Shiloh last spoke to Cary. She's been ...

When Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy left London four years ago, Europe was facing war and Billy Cavendish, the man she loved, had told her he could never marry her. Now, as London stands a shell of its former self, Kick returns to volunteer with the Red Cross, determined to do what she can for the city ...

Things change; we have to recognise that; the world will not stay still. What we must hope is that the new is better and stronger than the old. Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a...

As Jo's 65th birthday looms, she's left wondering: Is this it? Enter Susie, her best friend, with an offer Jo can't quite refuse: an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy to honour their late friend Ellen. Jo's not sure she wants to go all the way to Italy, but with nothing else to do and if only to ma...

1990: In a hot, humid Hong Kong summer, three young singers are loving life, performing to packed crowds every night in a swanky hotel bar. Twenty-three-year-old Scottish songbird, Moira Chiles is living the dream alongside Carina Lloyd and Lisa Dixon. They work hard, play hard, and always stick ...

When Bee loses her job, home and boyfriend - all on the same day that a man accidentally spills coffee all over her; she decides life can't get any worse. So when her mother finally tells Bee the name of the father she's never met - a musician named Luke Friday - she decides to take a risk and go...

Frankie Howe has lived a long life, her small flat is crammed full of art, furniture - and memories. Damian, her young carer, listens as she gradually tells him parts of her story - a story that takes us into a progressive, daring world of New York artists on the brink of fame, aspiring writers a...