Fiction

As the global COVID-19 pandemic reaches the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand, four women find themselves in novel circumstances as healthcare professionals, and in their personal lives. In these new fictional tales from the author of Admissions, we meet doctors, nurses and other workers as a public hospital struggles to prepare for the worst.In the days before lockdown, a nurse's visit to the supermarket has an unexpected outcome... A medical student employed in the hospital kitchens begins a relationship with another essential worker who provides her with an alternative education... When her daughter returns home with the virus, a professor of obstetrics faces the challenges of her hospital work while meeting the demands of motherhood under lockdown... Home alone after her husband is taken away, a retired surgeon reflects on life, love and death in the time of COVID...In New Admissions, each woman's voice draws back the curtain on the lives of healthcare workers as they face the pandemic. These four highly engaging stories explore themes of caring and coping, joy and passion, fear and death - and most importantly of love, in all its complicated forms - in the time of lockdown.

In June 1889, Mrs Humphry Ward''s open letter "An Appeal Against Female Suffrage" was published with over a hundred other female signatories against the extension of Parliamentary suffrage to women. Inflamed by this "most despicable piece of treachery ever perpetrated towards women by women", Corbett wrote and published New Amazonia.In her novel, Corbett envisions a successful suffragette movement eventually giving rise to a breed of highly evolved "Amazonians" who turn Ireland into a utopian society. The book''s female narrator wakes up in the year 2472, much like Julian West awakens in the year 2000 in Edward Bellamy''s Looking Backward. Corbett''s heroine, however, is accompanied by a man of her own time, who has similarly awakened from a hashish dream to find himself in New Amazonia.The narrator reacts very positively to what she sees and learns; but her male companion reacts precisely oppositely and adjusts badly. Read on to know more! Excerpt: "The next event I can chronicle was opening my eyes on a scene at once so beautiful and strange that I started to my feet in amaze. This was not my study, and I beheld nothing of the magazine which was the last thing I remembered seeing before I went to sleep. ... I was recalled to the necessity of behaving more decorously by hearing someone near me exclaim in mystified accents, "By Jove! But isn''t this extraordinary? I say, do you live here, or have you been taking hasheesh too?"...

The Tales of the Otori continue...After the devastating battle of Takahara, the Otori have allied with the Saga clan to defeat the Arai and give their clan any chance of survival. But their fragile alliance is threatened by Lord Saga''s descent into paranoia and brutality-and so are the last children of the Arai, renamed and hidden in the temple at Terayama.Arai Sunaomi is training as a warrior monk, but finds himself drawn to the other world and discovering talents he cannot understand-the legacy of his connections in the mysterious Tribe. He soon attracts the attention of the most powerful warlords and sorcerers in the Eight Islands with their demands for loyalty and vengeance.Orphan Warriors brings together the stories that began with The Tale of Shikanoko and the Tales of the Otori as Lian Hearn''s epic saga approaches its thrilling conclusion.

The Tales of the Otori end here...Arai Sunaomi has grown into a warrior on the verge of his coming-of-age, and powerful figures across the clans want him for adoptions and tactical marriages. But he is unable to forget his ghost lover Utahime, who has waited seven years for his return; or her brother Masao, his fellow orphan warrior and the heir to the Saga clan, now a wanted man.As Sunaomi tracks Masao across the Eight Islands he is increasingly torn between the demands of this world and the spirit realm, between life and death. As Masao seems to slip from his grasp, so does any chance of peace between the clans. And his cousins from the Tribe, the sibling assassins Kiyoko and Kichizo, have their own plans...Sibling Assassins builds to a collision of family loyalties and personal enmities, debts and desires, the old world and the new-and a final confrontation that brings the Tales of the Otori to a thrilling conclusion.

This is my offering to the heart and soul of the reader: Some warmth for the winter wind, a light that can be held in the palm of your hands. Allow these words to once more; find you where you''ve been and take them wherever you wish to go.

'A surreal, hilarious and dark story of a troubled adolescence deep in the wilds of Scotland' Maggie O'Farrell, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020

Ukraine's most famous novelist dramatises the conflict raging in his country through the adventures of a mild-mannered beekeeper. From the author of the bestselling Death and the Penguin.

The first time you see them, out for an evening walk on the cliffs, you'll think they're the perfect family. You'll see a wife who looks so happy, strolling peacefully beside her husband in his dark winter coat, holding her daughter's hand. But you have no idea what's really happening in their house If you come a little closer you might hear the way the man speaks to his wife. You might notice that the woman doesn't have any close friends. That sometimes her husband doesn't want her to leave the house. You might wonder if that's a scar her beautiful daughter is hiding on her neck. When you read the local newspaper and hear the news that the wife has fallen from the cliffs, you'll question whether it was really an accident at all. And when the husband starts dating someone new a woman with the same long dark hair and big blue eyes as his wife will you say something this time? Because someone has to protect the little girl and stop history from repeating itself. And it may already be too late. A thrilling and twisty tale, His Hidden Wife will keep you up all night, desperate to race through to its final conclusion. Readers of Gone Girl, The Couple Next Door and Lisa Jewell will be hooked. What readers are saying about His Hidden Wife:';A real rollercoaster of suspense, lies & twists. One of the best psychological thrillers I've read this year. I made my mind up many times, only to be proven wrong each time. The last 30 pages had me almost holding my breath.' @raena_reads, 5 stars ';This book is a highly addictive, fast-paced read indeed!... I read this book in one day in the end something very shocking was revealed! Do not hesitate when it comes to reading this book! Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ';Gasp yes this book made me gasp out loud!!!! What a great ride. Pulls you in like nothing else. One of the best books that I have read this year. It's over but I don't want it to be.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ';A book to put on your must-have list! What an absolutely amazing read! You'll be racing to the last page In addition to this five-star read being a little intense with a high level of anticipation, it's also full of uncertainty, anxiety and rounded out with nerve-wracking tension.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ';I double dare you to try to figure this thriller out! This mind-blowing thriller by Clarke should be the 1st to-be-read thriller of 2021 for you! You will not regret it.' Nicki's Book Blog, 5 stars ';A rollercoaster of twists.' NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars ';An excellent psychological thriller

The Winter Rose is a sweeping saga by Rita Bradshaw, author of the bestselling One Snowy Night, and is set at the turn of the twentieth century.

In this new rugby adventure for Jimmy and his friends, James Hook and David Brayley examine concussion, tackling, and the true bravery thatâEUR(TM)s needed to overcome your fears.

The Service is a powerful and challenging novel about women's bodies, sex and relationships, mental health, entitlement, privilege and power.

County Donegal, Ireland. 1884.Your island home is threatened with evictions.What would you be willing to do to stop them?

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Peter Banyard (1931-2018) was born in Birmingham and educated in London and Oxfordshire. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1961 and spent the greater part of his working life as teacher and chaplain in St Aloysius'' College, Glasgow. The predominant topics of his poetry are the natural world and especially the Hebridean island of Vatersay. His deftly crafted compositions were clearly inspired by his Victorian Jesuit predecessor Gerard Manley Hopkins. And, like Hopkins, he saw God in everything and good in everyone.

What does one say about this collection of short stories? Well, it's filled with the feeling of a quiet December morning, held with a warm cup of coffee around the corner. It is filled with people you meet as you walk along the dusty mud roads and the conversations you have with them and yourself. These stories remind one of the different shades of strength; be it "vasanthi" or Rosakutty from "freedom". They point out how there are endless shades of grey between the right and the wrong; from the Vicar in "the priest" or the group of friends from "maruthan". They show how life can take unexpected turns, drawing strangers closer, be it in a brief encounter or in the simple act of giving water. The book takes you across the fields of love lost and found, both profound and all-encompassing. It takes you along the journeys that one takes on the path of self-healing, and draws you to look up at the skies occasionally, feeling that things can and will get better.- Rose Taniya Joly

Jack West is Indiana Jones meet Jason Bourne with a rocket launcher. A secret mythological sect seeks to rule the world. History, legend and global conspiracy abound and Jack and his motley crew are the only people who can stop it.

An uncanny and eye-opening journey into a mysterious building, adapted from a short story by Jeff VanderMeer

A hilarious and moving poetry collection from bestselling poet, Costa Prize shortlisted novelist and Twitter laureate, Brian Bilston.

Reads from right to left in the traditional Japanese manga format.