How can you ever know yourself when you were deprived of love as a child? It's the 1970s, and Sarah has spent a lifetime trying to bury her disjointed childhood, the loneliness of her school days, and Fane, the vast and crumbling family home so loved - and hated - by her mother, Iris, a woman as cruel as she is beautiful. Sarah's solace has been he...

A long time ago Magic faded away, leaving behind only yo-yos, the extremely useful compass-pointing-to-North enchantment and the spell that keeps bicycles from falling over. Things are about to change. Magical power is on the rise and King Snodd IV of Hereford has realised that he who controls Magic controls almost anything. Only one person stands...

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for 15 years, with not so much as a speeding ticket since. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father,...

In the good old days, magic was powerful, unregulated by government, and even the largest spell could be woven without filling in magic release form B1-7g. Then the magic started fading away.... Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for soothsayers and sorcerers. But work is drying up. Drain cleaner is cheaper than a sp...

Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekick and fellow orphan Tiger Prawns have been driven to the tip of the UnUnited Kingdoms - Cornwall - by the invasion of the Trolls. Their one defence is a six-foot-wide trench full of buttons, something which the Trolls find unaccountably terrifying (it's their clickiness). Worse than being eaten by Tr...

The Mighty Shandar, the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, returns to the Ununited Kingdoms. Clearly, he didn't solve the Dragon Problem, and must hand over his fee: Eighteen dray-weights of gold. But the Mighty Shandar doesn't do refunds, and vows to eliminate the dragons once and for all - unless sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and h...

Catherine, a successful barrister, vanishes from a train station on the eve of her anniversary. Is it because she saw a figure - someone she believed long dead? Or was it a shadow cast by her troubled, fractured mind? The answer lies buried in the past. It lies in the events of the hot seismic summer of 1989, at Vanes - a mysterious West Country ma...

Nadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues. Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined...

AD 1203: Robin Hood must turn the tide of war. Normandy ablaze... AD 1203: England and France are locked in a brutal struggle for power. The fate of the embattled duchy of Normandy is in the hands of the weak and untrustworthy King John. Facing disaster, he calls for help from a former outlaw - Robin Hood. The Earl of Locksley... As King Philip II'...

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre. The "War in Heaven", a simulated war game, rages between civilisations. Its virt...

The intricate structure of a Shellworld - an arti­ficial planet of spheres-within-spheres - is matched only by the machinations of its inhabitants. On the eighth sphere of Sursamen, a man witnesses the murder of his father and flees, searching for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother, this means a life lived un...

Dara Gaffney is fresh out of drama school when she lands the leading role in the revival of Eabha de Lacey's hugely successful yet controversial play. Based on the true story of the death of Cillian Butler, many claim that Eabha had an ulterior motive when she penned it. Cillian's death remains a mystery to this day, and Eabha and her brother, Aust...

England’s bravest monarch, history’s deadliest outlaw, this year’s greatest adventure. May 1194: Richard the Lionheart is in Normandy, locked in a long and bloody war with the French. By his side are Robert Odo, Earl of Locksley - the former outlaw Robin Hood - and Sir Alan Dale, Robin's protégé, a musician and warri...

From the Sunday Times best-selling author. In a time of war, what's holding them together could tear them all apart.... London, 1940. Winnie Berry is at the heart of the community in her pub, The Battersea Tavern. Her door is always open to those in need of a cup of tea and sympathy. Winnie's abusive husband has left, and she finds herself foolishl...

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 A RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME IN APRIL PROVENCE, 1920 Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle's artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he'll make his name by interviewing the reclusive pa...

San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city centre. Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life - painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure. She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of 1990s South Korea. But over the course of one summer, San meets a cur...

London, 1944. With bombs raining over London, keeping the Battersea Tavern open is no easy feat for owner Winnie Berry - but the community need the warmth and familiarity of the pub more than ever. After marriage, Maureen Fanning had moved out to Wandsworth with her bad-tempered husband Brancher. But when he loses both his job and their lodgings, t...

The man known as Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. Though the woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and aided his stratospheric rise, she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone Ska­ffen-A...

The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a gam...

When he's caught stealing, young Alan Dale is forced to leave his family and go to live with a notorious band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Their leader is the infamous Robin Hood. A tough, bloodthirsty warrior, Robin is more feared than any man in the county. And he becomes a mentor for Alan; with his fellow outlaws, Robin teaches Alan how to fig...

History’s most dangerous outlaw. England’s most famous ruler. The year’s most exciting adventure. The third crusade is over. Richard the Lion heart is bound for England. But with the princes of Europe united against him, can the greatest warrior in Christendom make it safely home? The Lion is Chained. Captured. Bound. Imprisoned....