Modern Fiction

A baby is born in privilege, blooming under the warmth of his parents' love. Jealousy sprouts and brings with it malevolent intentions. A king and queen cursed with an empty kingdom. A child abandoned in revenge. A misfit, the boy should turn hard and cold among the thorns he grows in. Despite lifelong attempts to destroy him, this child does not wither. Underneath his insecurity, he maintains a heart with the tenderest center. A heart that plays the most beautiful music.

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of unhoused people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family's remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than 20 years, she was host to and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the 20th century.

Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan '80s, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future - or even the present - who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle.

When a groundbreaking experiment in 2029 goes disastrously wrong, the entire United States is transported to 1938, replacing the America of that era. Suddenly, modern technology, culture, and people are thrust into a world on the brink of World War II. For President Luke Stuart, who was optimistic about the start of his era as the youngest President ever, this is no longer the future he was elected to lead—it’s a past fraught with peril, prejudice, and the looming shadow of global war. Faced with hardened leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Churchill, Stuart must navigate alliances, ...

Savushun chronicles the life of a Persian family during the Allied occupation of Iran during World War II. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-Islamic monuments, the great poets, the shrines, Sufis, and nomadic tribes within a historical web of the interests, privilege, and influence of foreign powers; corruption, incompetence, and arrogance of persons in authority; the paternalistic landowner-peasant relationship; tribalism; and the fear of famine.

Fifteen years ago, in Mitch Albom’s beloved novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the world fell in love with Eddie, a grizzled war veteran turned amusement park mechanic who died saving the life of a young girl named Annie. Eddie’s journey to heaven taught him that every life matters. Now, in this magical sequel, Mitch Albom reveals Annie’s story.

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they're changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. They have insatiable appetites yet never gain weight. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful, and inexplicably dangerous.

I fell for a woman for the first time in my life. I never thought the winds of Montana could carry in a storm like Isha George. She's stunningly beautiful. Years younger than me. Definitely a gold digger. She's charming, elegant—and my younger brother's girlfriend. When Isha sweeps into my life, I'm sure she's a tempest hiding behind a smile as bright as sunshine. And, she has her eyes on the prize—a piece of the Ledger Ranch. My ranch. So, I do what any good brother and ranch owner would. I steal her away and then proceed to break her heart.

Twenty-two-year-old Beth Ann is content with her small-town life. That is, until the day America’s electric grid is destroyed by terrorists. What starts out as an inconvenience quickly becomes a catastrophe - not only do the lights stay off, but cars won’t run and phones are dead. The world screeches to a halt. Without communication and basic supplies like food and water, widespread confusion spirals into deadly chaos within days.

I'm Remi Drake, the king of Memphis nightlife. At under thirty, I own the hottest spots in town, and believe me, I enjoy every perk that comes with it. Echo is my sister's friend. She was the designated ugly fat friend (DUFF) in high school. Now, she's a cancer researcher with a PhD. She's no longer fat but curvy and sexy. Then there's that amazing brain of hers. Plus, she's always had a thing for me. One night, things get out of hand, and I pitch the idea of an acquaintance-with-benefits relationship: no strings, no promises, and most importantly, no one can ever know.

In the ever-changing modern international landscape, men serving at the tip of the spear need to be able to adapt, adjust, and excel in any environment, under any rules of engagement, at any time. This can lead to men making hard decisions that toe, and sometimes cross, the line between right and wrong.

The Ultimate Modern Classics Collection: Volume One is the first instalment in our classics collection focusing on the most important and iconic novels, stories, and poems of the 20th century. Featuring 18 essential modern classics from Orwell, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Woolf, and many more, and read by a cast of incredible narrators including Iwan Rheon, Ben Allen, Karen Cass, Nathan Osgood, amongst others, this is an essential addition to your library.

This collection of masterful reinterpretations brilliantly demystifies and breathes new life into Shakespeare's work, demonstrating the continued resonance of a playwright whose popularity remains more than 400 years after his death. Now, the passion, heartbreak, deception, reconciliation, and mortality of Shakespeare’s originals can be understood by all, without the need to cross-reference to an enjoyment-sapping study guide.

In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.

The future wasn’t supposed to look like this. Norman turned to cutting-edge technology in a desperate attempt to save his fading mind. But when the AI meant to help him woke up, and took control, his good intentions became a living nightmare. Now, Norman’s body is a battleground, and the clock is ticking. Samantha Moon, vampire, private investigator, and now reluctant tech sleuth, must track him down before the rogue intelligence fully consumes its human host. If she fails, Norm won’t just disappear into the shadows; he’ll seize control of a nuclear facility and unleash devastation ...

On the last day of her mother’s life, Rebecca learns she has a family in Cornwall and sets out to find the grandfather and cousin she has never known. But only the enigmatic Joss Gardner, the outsider who seems to be the apple of her grandfather’s eye, can help her understand the dark currents that lie behind her family’s loving reception.

A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.

In this captivating dual narrative novel, a modern-day woman finds inspiration in hidden notes left by her home’s previous owner, a quintessential 1950s housewife. As she discovers remarkable parallels between this woman’s life and her own, it causes her to question the foundation of her own relationship with her husband - and what it means to be a wife fighting for her place in a patriarchal society.