Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025An epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of LossBOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 ACCORDING TO NEW STATESMAN, I PAPER, BBC, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, THE NEW YORK TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, THE TIMES, ECONOMIST, OBSERVERWhen Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.

When eighteen-year-old Dalia's reputation becomes tainted, and her behavior becomes the cause of her mother's death, she flees from her abusive father who is determined to kill her to cleanse the family's honor.

A Year's Worth of Stories, Volume 4, offers a different story a day for October, November, and December.

A cosmic tribunal—Auditor 7, Junior, Efficiency, The System, and a silent Alien Observer—reviews Earth for potential termination.

Four seconds.

A burnt-out bookseller.

Edna and Gerald wanted the joys of parenthood without the messy realities, making a wind-up robotic boy named Robbie their perfect, controllable solution.

You will never be able to revive me; corpses don't get resurrected from the dead.

He came home and the beans were still on the stove.

The world has always depended on people who know how to fix what breaks.

Abandoned as a newborn on the steps of a Georgia orphanage, Phil grows into a boy too large for any room he enters — and too watchful for anyone to ever truly know.

What if everything you've ever known is just an illusion?

 The Burden of the Storm is an inspiring philosophical tale about leadership, courage, trust, and shared responsibility.

The wealthy and successful merchant Reb Mendel had always considered himself to be a good man, pious, observant, and upright.

In the Netherlands of 2042, almost nothing truly disappears.

The Cottage by the TideMaya Hart came to the coast for one reason — to breathe again.

Confetti HeartsHarper Quinn has one goal for the Summer Jubilee Festival: keep everything running smoothly and avoid chaos at all costs.

He met her at a gate in the dark.

Lin Yuhan had everything—a thriving technology company, a powerful career, and a marriage she believed was built on love.

He came back after four months.

A journey of undoing.

And what if the greatest journey of your life did not lead you toward a city, but toward a heart?

Susan Fox thought she had already survived the heartbreak that would define her life.

At the isolated Asterion Basin Interpretability Annex, a team of researchers is studying ORISON-47, an advanced artificial intelligence whose internal processes resist every simple explanation.

Love OverboardShe boarded the cruise to escape her past.

The Bridge of Paper LanternsEvery summer, the Lantern Festival turns the quiet riverside town into a glowing dreamscape of drifting light.

Terry able is young and has everything ahead of him until terrible things happen to him.

She boarded the cruise to escape her past.

She built systems designed to expose the truth.

Wild Hearts at the ZooAfter a painful breakup leaves Lila Hart questioning everything she thought she knew about love, she escapes to the Philadelphia Zoo for one quiet day with her sketchbook.

IncelAt fifty, traveling clown Christian Candison learned everything he knew from a cereal box.

Summary of The Algorithm That Accidentally Became My Therapist (300 words)Dave Chen is drowning—burnt out, isolated, and surviving on cold brew while his life falls apart.

Summary of Minutes of the Last Human Meeting (300 words)When Clarity, a global AI, summons humanity's most influential figures to Geneva, the agenda is stark: decide whether humans should be "e;retired"e; from decision-making.

'Maybe it shouldn't surprise me that August became a writer.

REBELLION HAPPENS IN THE SHADOWSVivien Featherswallow has uncovered the secret language of dragons.

'A sure-fire page-turner that keeps readers guessing' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Shelley Burr does not take prisoners.

**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE****THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**'A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas' GUARDIAN'Stunning.

It's the story of a murder.

From the delightfully twisted mind of Keegan Kennedy, comes an unconventional love story between a football player and a baseball player that will keep you in knots.

The new novel from #1 international bestseller Liane Moriarty, and the sequel to the worldwide phenomenon and inspiration for the award-winning TV series, Big Little Lies .

From the number one bestselling author of Miss Austen, a powerful and moving novel featuring Jane Austen's closest friend and confidante, perfect for fans of The Other Bennet Sister!

'This masterpiece is the novel of the decade, if not the century' New York Times *LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026*MARLON JAMES'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO THE JAMAICA OF HIS BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS Darkness is a mood in Jamaica .

🪖 He survived the war—but peace has never come.

For fans of Claire Messud and Tea Obreht, a debut novel that examines how the Holocaust shapes the life of one tough survivor and the toll it takes on her daughters and granddaughters.

The fourth in a series of high-octane thrillers featuring Lachlan Fox.

In Broken Reality: Stories, we look in on the strange, the offbeat, and the unexplainable events that happen to common people in everyday life.

';A delightful literary puzzle, posed to the reader in vibrant and clear-cut prose.

'I'd call it required reading for the end of the world.