Packards is an Oxford Street Department store founded in the mid-nineteenth century by Sir Thomas Packard. In 1908 he is old and seeks his successor. His only daughter and her feckless husband spend his fortune but despise its provenance so he looks to his grandchildren: EDWARD has all his grandfather's ruthlessness but none of his vision; PERRY is a good-time boy and AMELIE, intelligent and ambitious, is willing to take anyone on to gain control of the store. Alongside their story is that of Pa...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present. The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirat...
When internet millionaire and philanthropist Harry Melville dies in a car crash at the age of forty four, the lives of his wife, Sarah, and twin brother, Ben, are thrown into turmoil. Harry seemed to have it all; a close-knit family and a happy marriage - along with all the trappings of wealth. Yet as he recalls his past from the afterlife, a story emerges of the unspoken and bitter jealousies between brothers and of an unhappy wife burdened by loneliness and guilt. When Ben takes over the runni...
AVAILABLE DIGITALLY FOR THE FIRST TIMEAdrift in a storm, Professor Max Quartermain believes he hallucinated the beautiful mermaid who rescued him from certain death. But Lilah Calhoun is no mystical creature - she's a flesh and blood woman. Lilah is surprised by the intense attraction she feels for the man she saved. She's never met a man like him before - reserved and intelligent, but with a deep, passionate side she wants to know better. But how can she truly give her heart to Max when he is k...
WINNER OF THE WINGATE PRIZE 2021SUNDAY TIMES "MUST READS" PICKECONOMIST "BEST BOOKS OF 2020" PICKKIRKUS REVIEWS "10 BOOKS TO LOOK FOR IN 2021" PICK"Boundless imagination and a vibrant style . . . a heroine of unforgettable grit" DAVID GROSSMAN"A story of great beauty and surprise" GARY SHTEYNGARTThe townsfolk of Motal, an isolated, godforsaken town in the Pale of Settlement, are shocked when Fanny Keismann - devoted wife, mother of five, and celebrated cheese-maker - leaves her home at two hours...
New Beginning (Badger Brook, #3) (A Badgers Brook Saga, #3)
by Grace Thompson
Badgers Brook offers her the chance for a fresh start. As the Second World War ends, Sophie Daniels quits the WAAF with nowhere to go. She wanders around the country searching for a place where she can settle, living in bedsits, barns, and small guesthouses in the meantime. Eventually she finds Badgers Brook, where she meets and befriends nine-year-old Bertie, neglected and running wild.The neighbours warm to her, the place is welcoming, and Sophie knows she has found her home. Friendly local Ry...
Lavina traverses the near present, in the 1990's and the segregated South of the 1960's. It is the story of Mary Jacob, a children's book author who has virtually no memory of her early life. Billy Ray, Lavina's son and a musical genius, remembers all too well what happened to them on a hot August day in 1963 when their lives changed forever. When the two of them meet again in their hometown, it propels them back to their childhoods. In the second part of the novel, Lavina herself speaks. She is...
Old Moorhen's Shredded Sporran (The Belchester Chronicles, #4) (Belchester Chronicle)
by Andrea Frazer
Another tongue - in - cheek romp for our intrepid decrepit heroes. Lady Amanda Golightly and her housemate Hugo Cholmondeley - Crichton - Crump return from their visit to Scotland to find a letter informing them that Hugo's sister will be arriving the following day for a month's visit, which sours Lady A's mood as Tabitha constantly bullied her at school.Her manservant's announcement that he is now betrothed to Enid Tweedie, sort of friend and general gopher for his employer, has already unsettl...
The thrilling new book from Sheila Riley in her Liverpool Saga series 1916 LIVERPOOLFollowing the death of her father, Ruby Swift, and husband Archie finally move back into Ashland Hall.As the Great War rages, fathers and sons take the King's Shilling and head off to fight the unknown enemy, not knowing what horrors lie ahead. With Ned Kincaid in the Navy, Archie signs up to the volunteer constabulary and nurses Anna Cassidy and Ellie Harrington enlist to do their bit for King and Country. Soon...
By the school house at Shancarrig stands a copper beech, its bark scarred with the names and dreams of the pupils who have grown up under its branches. Under Junior Assistant Mistress Maddy Ross's careful gaze the children play, but out of school Maddy's gaze lingers where it shouldn't. Maura Brennan, a bundle of fun from the rough end of town, plays with her pals: leap year baby Eddie Barton, the apple of his mother's eye, and Nessa Ryan, who little realises as she carves his name at the roots...
Laura, now wealthy and successful, had survived a bitter past and endured poverty, fear and pain. Then along had come the older and wiser Ben, who had smoothed her path and given her love and security - but now Ben had become a stranger beyond her reach. By the author of "Spinning Jenny".
Lydia Halley longs to leave home. At twenty-one and working in the local button factory her life seems empty and unfulfilled. After the tragedy of her mother's death she decides to take up a position in a city many miles from home. Her father laments her departure but for Lydia it is the freedom she has yearned for. Taking up lodgings her new life begins. It was in the beautiful city gardens that she first met Guy Anderson but thought no more about the handsome stranger. Until she chances upon h...
A "fresh, funny, and satisfying" (New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner) about the complicated bonds of sisterhood. Twenty-nine-year-old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her ravishingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of eighty-plus-hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But durin...