Land

by Maggie O'Farrell

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

ISBN 978-1472289087

A Gentleman in Moscow 

by Amor Towles

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

ISBN 978-0099558781

Kirkus Prize (2016): Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction & Literature.

Goodreads Choice Awards (2016): Nominee for Best Historical Fiction.

International Dublin Literary Award (2018): Longlisted for this prestigious prize.

Independent Booksellers Week Award (2018): Nominated for this industry award.

AudioFile Earphones Award (2016): The audiobook, narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith, was a winner of this award. 

49 Miles Alone 

by Natalie D. Richards

A year ago, Katie and her cousin Aster survived a night that left their world and easy friendship fractured. Desperate to heal and leave the past behind them, they tackle four days of hiking in the Utah backcountry. But the desert they've loved for years has tricks up its sleeve.

An illness, an injury, and a freak storm leave them short on confidence and supplies. When they come across a young couple with extra supplies on the trail, they're grateful and relieved—at first. Riley exudes friendliness, but everything about her boyfriend Finn spells trouble. That night, after some chilling admissions about Finn from Riley, Katie and Aster wake to hear the couple fighting. Helpless and trapped in the darkness, they witness Riley's desperate race into the night, with Finn chasing after.

In the morning, they find the couple's camp, but Riley and Finn? Vanished. Katie is sure Riley is in trouble. And with help a two-day hike away, they know they are the only ones who can save her before something terrible happens. The clock is ticking and their supplies are dwindling, but Katie and Aster know t

ISBN 978-1728276007

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel!

All the Colours of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker 

Two childhood best friends. Torn apart by tragedy. Reunited by their search for the truth.
Even if finding it means losing each other forever...
For Joseph 'Patch' Macauley and Saint Brown, it comes late one summer as Patch is abducted from their hometown. Devastated, Saint devotes her days to finding her best friend.
Held in total darkness, Patch is hopeless and alone - until he feels a hand in his. Though he never sees the girl, they fall in love. When he escapes, he's left with only her voice and name - and promises to spend the rest of his life searching for her.
As Saint's heart breaks for the boy she lost - and the man he becomes - she will shadow his journey, to uncover the truth behind who took him.
Over a lifetime driven by obsession, Patch and Saint must sacrifice everything for redemption, justice, and, ultimately, love - even if that means losing each other forever...

ISBN 9781398707672

The Sunday Times Bestseller
The New York Times Bestseller
The British Book Awards Nominee
The BBC Between The Covers Book Club Selection

My Best Friend's Girl 

by Dorothy Koomson

Kamryn Matika has no responsibilities - one birthday card will change that forever...
Best friends Kamryn Matika and Adele Brannon though nothing could come between them - until Adele di the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn's fiancé Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again.
Years later, Kamryn receives a letter from Adele asking her to visit her in hospital. Adele is dying and begs Kamryn to adopt her daughter Tegan. With a great job and hectic social life, the last thing Kamryn needs is a five-year-old daughter to disrupt things. Especially not one who reminds her of Nate. But with n on else to take care of Tegan and Adele fading fast, does she have any other choice? So begins a difficult journey that leads Kamryn towards forgiveness, love, responsibility and, ultimately, a better understanding of herself.

ISBN 978-1472261625

Richard & Judy Summer Reads (2006): This was the book's most significant boost, as it was shortlisted for the prestigious TV book club.

International Bestseller: The novel reached number 2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list and became a number 1 bestseller in multiple other countries.

International Dublin Literary Award (2008): It was nominated for this award, which is one of the world's richest literary prizes for fiction.

Sales Recognition: The author has stated that the book won an award specifically for its massive sales after it surpassed 500,000 copies sold.

Dart 

by Alice Oswald

Over the past three years Alice Oswald has been recording conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart in Devon. Using these records and voices as a sort of poetic census, she creates a narrative of the river, tracking its life from source to sea. The voices are wonderfully varied and idiomatic - they include a poacher, a ferryman, a sewage worker and milk worker, a forester, swimmers and canoeists - and are interlinked with historic and mythic voices: drowned voices, dreaming voices and marginal notes which act as markers along the way.

ISBN 978-0571214105

WINNER of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2002

Hidden Pictures

by Jason Rekulak

Mallory is delighted to have a new job looking after gorgeous four-year-old, Teddy. She's sure her new nannying role in the affluent suburbs will help keep her on the straight and narrow.

That is until Teddy starts to draw pictures of his imaginary friend, Anya. It is quite clear to Mallory and to Teddy's parents, even in his crude childlike style, that the woman Teddy is drawing in his pictures is dead.

Teddy's crayons are confiscated, and his paper locked away. But the drawings somehow keep coming, telling a frightening story of a woman murdered... and they're getting more sophisticated. But if Teddy isn't drawing the pictures anymore, who is? And what are they trying to tell Mallory about her new home?  

ISBN 9780751583700

2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror

The Balloon Thief

by Aneesa Marufu 

Burn the flame. Seek the night.

For Khadija, the only escape from her father’s arranged betrothal is the sky.

When she spots a rogue hot air balloon fighting against its ropes, she leaps at the chance for adventure. Khadija soon finds an unlikely ally in a poor glass maker's apprentice, Jacob.

But Jacob is a hāri, and Khadija a Ghadaean. The hāri are oppressed and restless – their infamous terrorist group, the Hāreef, have a new fearsome leader. And the ruling Ghadaeans are brutal in their repression.

Soon, a deadly revolution threatens their friendship and their world. The Hāreef use forbidden magic, summoning jinn – wicked spirits made of fire – to enact their revenge, forcing Jacob and Khadija to choose what kind of a world they want to save …

ISBN-13 978-1913696078

Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi 

As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two - and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.

Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother's life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family's story through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.

Transcendent Kingdom is a searing story of love, loss and redemption, and the myriad ways we try to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our collective pasts. Y12/13

ISBN-13  978-0241988664

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 

Liberty Bound (Dystopian)

by Nathaniel M Wrey

Society has turned on its head. The 'free' hide behind fortifications and the 'imprisoned' roam the wild, barren land beyond.

Finbarl-apcula guards the town of Athenia, an oasis in a parched, sparsely populated world. He keeps the citizens safe, ensures those who break the draconian laws lose their freedom, and protects what he prizes above all else: civilisation.

When Finbarl is made to lie to help convict a mother he once rescued from a bully, it delivers the first crack in his unquestionable faith in the system. As further lies and corruption are exposed, Finbarl's world crumbles, allowing him to finally see that 'prison walls' exist everywhere, within himself, throughout society and in the very landscape he calls home.

No one is free and the civilisation he was willing to die for is at the root of the problem.

Finbarl begins a thrilling adventure of twists, rebellion, danger, discovery and tragedy to break the bonds imprisoning a world, himself and the future. Will he find what he really treasures most: true freedom?

ISBN-13 978-1916370500

Winner of the readers favorite International Book Award 2021

 Millennium Book Awards 2021 longlisted author

Finalist in the 2020 Wishing Shelf Book Awards 

Semi-finalist in the Indiereader Awards 2021.

Yellowface

by Rebecca F Kuang

THIS IS ONE HELL OF A STORY.

IT’S JUST NOT HERS TO TELL.

When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.

So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript?

So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity?

And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…

Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her…

What happens next is entirely everyone else's fault. 

ISBN-13 978-0008532819

Foyle’s Fiction Book of the Year 2023

Amazon Book of the Year 2023

Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2023

Fiction Book of the Year 2023 and  2024 – British Book Awards

Audie Awards for Fiction Winner 2024

Orbital

by Samantha Harvey

Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts--from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan--have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. 

ISBN-13 978-1529922936

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 

Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

The Red Market

Scott Carney

On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

“An unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported….A tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities.”

—Michael Largo, author of Final Exits Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired editor Scott Carney leads readers on a breathtaking journey through the macabre underworld of the global body bazaar, where organs, bones, and even live people are bought and sold on The Red Market . As gripping as CSI and as eye-opening as Mary Roach’s Stiff , Carney’s The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine. Y12/13

ISBN-13 978-0061936463

A Colourful View From the Top:

Twenty-One Extraordinary Stories of Leaders of Colour Achieving Excellence in Business

You might not think, right now, that you have what it takes to succeed. But incredible things do happen when you believe. We hope this book will stoke your sense of belief in what it is you can achieve and the gifts you have the potential to give to the world.

Relentless in its inspiration, candour and warmth, A Colourful View From the Top is a vital anthology of twenty-one voices who are at the top of their game in business and beyond. Whether their specialism be advertising, tech, law or art, each luminary offers a unique and deeply meaningful collection of lessons and affirmations to draw upon time and time again.

Discover how they became influential figures in culture and corporate life; how their achievements haven't been defined or limited by their race, gender or age; how sometimes the most fulfilling careers involve twists, turns and side hustles; how corporate success need not preclude social awareness.

ISBN-13 978-1408715819

The Girl With No Reflection

by Keshe Chow

A princess. A portal. A prophecy.

Ying Yue believed in love . . . once. Yet when she's chosen to wed the Crown Prince, Ying's dreams of a fairy tale marriage fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won't explain. And whispers swirl: of seven other brides who mysteriously disappeared after their own weddings.

Left alone with only her reflection for company, Ying begins to see strange things in her mirror. And on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway and is pulled into another world. The realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. He is kind and compassionate, unlike his real-world counterpart, and before long Ying falls in love.

But soon she discovers that the two worlds have a blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in both. And the brides who came before her? By the time they discovered their roles, it was already too late . . .

ISBN-13 978-1399733793

Winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript 2022

Shortlisted for the 2025 ABIA Awards John Marsden Book of the Year for Older Children.

Open Water

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists -- he a photographer, she a dancer -- trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. 

ISBN-13 978-0241448786

WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2021

WINNER OF DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2022

A No.1 BESTSELLER IN THE TIMES

You Can Change the World!: Everyday Teen Heroes Making a Difference Everywhere

by Margaret Rooke

This inspirational book tells the stories of more than 50 of today's teenagers who've dared to change the world they live in. It's been written to show other teens they can do the same. Bestselling author Margaret Rooke asks teens about their experiences of being volunteers, social entrepreneurs and campaigners, online and beyond. They explain how they have survived in a world often obsessed by celebrity, social media and appearance, by refusing to conform to other's expectations. If you want to achieve against the odds and create genuine impact, this book may be the encouragement you need. The interviews cover race, sexuality, violence, grief, neurodiversity, bullying and other issues central to life today. Read about teens from around the world including

- Trisha, 18, who has invented a way of preventing bullying online

- Dillon, 18, who takes damaged and donated clothing and upcycles it for the homeless

- Guro, 13, who persuaded a pop band to portray women differently in its video

- 'Happy D', 19, who learned to read at 14 and found ways to build his confidence

- Heraa, 19, who fights Islamophobia online.

- Ruben, 18, bullied because of Down's Syndrome, now a successful actor

- Lucy who, at 14, walked into Tesco head office and persuaded them not to sell eggs from caged hens.

- Cameron, 17, who has cerebral palsy and was side-lined by soccer teams who set up his own team 'Adversity United'

- Alex, 18, who broke his back on his 15th birthday and says his injury has taught him to care for others

- Amika, 18, who fights 'Period Poverty'

- Jesse, 15, who's seven feet tall and embraces his stature

- Billy, 18, who wore full make up every day at high school

ISBN-13 978-1785925023

Gold Winner of the Moonbeam Multicultural Non-Fiction Award 2019