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‘Perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy’ – CandisA heartwarming new Christmas novel from Debbie Macomber, internationally bestselling author of Rose Harbor in Bloom, Blossom Street Brides and Starry Night.Experience the true meaning of Christmas… Jane Patterson thought her marriage to Cal would last forever until it suddenly came under threat. Jane has left, taking their children with her, but can she really leave Cal behind? Especially when all she hopes for is a reunion, just in time for Christmas…On December 24th, a crowded train is taking holiday travellers home for Christmas. Then a snowstorm hits, leaving this group of strangers stranded. Now they must band together and as they do they’re reminded of what Christmas really means.Make time for friends. Make time for Debbie Macomber.

A major new novel from the critically acclaimed author of IF THE INVADER COMES.On Boxing Day 1962 it began to snow. Over the next two months England froze. It was the coldest winter since 1740. The sea iced over. Cars could be driven across the Thames.Riding home from London in that first snowfall, on the powerful motorbike he has been given for Christmas, seventeen-year-old Alan Rae has a brush with death. Immediately he meets a girl, Cynthia, who will change his life. But someone else is equally preoccupied with her, Geoffrey, a young scientist who works with Alan's father in the race with the Americans and the Russians to develop the microchip. Alan, Geoffrey and Cynthia become linked by a web of secrets which, while the country remains in icy suspension, threatens everything they ever trusted.Derek Beaven's new novel is a moral drama. It demands that we question who our real friends are, and asks us to reconsider the scientific assumptions upon which all of modern life, and much of modern fiction, is based.

Back at dinner, somebody said that the goose thinks it’s a dog. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t think it’s a dog. The goose doesn’t think. The goose just is. And what the goose is is goose. But goose is not goose, Robert thinks. Even the goose isn’t goose.In Good Trouble, the first story collection from Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland, characters are forced to discover exactly who they are, and who they can never quite be.There’s Rob, who swears he is a dependable member of society, but can’t scrape together a character reference to prove that’s the case. And Jayne, who has no choice but to investigate a strange noise downstairs while her husband lies glued to the bed with fear. A mother tries to find where she fits into her son’s new life of semi-soft rind-washed cheeses, and a poet tries to fathom what makes a poet. Do you even have to write poetry?Packed with O’Neill’s trademark acerbic humour, Good Trouble explores the maddening and secretly political space between thoughts and deeds, between men and women, between goose and not-goose.

A quick read from the bestselling storyteller, Josephine Cox. Love at first sight and a mysterious disappearance.Best friends Mark and Pete board a train to London for a night out.As Pete finds a seat he notices a girl sitting on a bench. She looks sad and lonely. When the train leaves, he can't get her out of his mind because in her he has seen a glimpse of himself.Over the coming months Pete sees the girl often, but when tempted to speak to her, his courage fails. Then one day she simply disappears. Hopelessly besotted by this girl he believes to be his kindred spirit, Pete will not rest until he finds her…

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARAN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR‘What was it about complaining that felt so good? You and your fellow sufferer emerging from a thorough session as if from a spa bath, refreshed and tingling?’The first-ever collection of short stories from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies.We meet Kendall, a failed poet who, envious of other people’s wealth during the real estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; and Mitchell, a lovelorn liberal arts graduate on a search for enlightenment; and Prakrti, a high school student whose wish to escape the strictures of her family leads to a drastic decision that upends the life of a middle-aged academic.Jeffrey Eugenides’s bestselling novels Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides and The Marriage Plot have shown him to be an astute observer of the crises of adolescence, self-discovery and family love. These stories, from one of our greatest authors, explore equally rich and intriguing territory.Narratively compelling and beautifully written, Fresh Complaint shows all of Eugenides’s trademark humour, compassion and complex understanding of what it is to be human.

Spirited, elegant, fun, with an enchanting authorial voice, For Matrimonial Purposes is a remarkable achievement, an original in the contemporary women’s market.The main character, Anju, born and raised in Bombay, is now a fashion journalist in New York. But twinned with her enjoyment of the American scene, her single, glamorous life and the fashion perks it brings, is her determination to remain true to her Indian roots and her love of her extensive family.Marriage is the most important role for an Indian woman, and arranged marriages are still the custom: ‘I am not working for your happiness, but for you to be married,’ says Anju’s mother. Anju is 30, old in Indian terms, and her mother and aunt fear that her independent ways might make her less acceptable to other family’s eyes. They set about organising possible contacts in their home town, Bombay. But now a prospective bride or groom, or their families, can decline the suggested marriage after a meeting.For Matrimonial Purposes is the hilarious, poignant, loving story of Anju’s journey, the rare selection of men and their families that she meets, and the choices that she must make while trying to remain true to herself and satisfy her family and tradition.

From the acclaimed author of CLOUD NINE, a new novel that ‘touches the deepest, most tender corners of the heart’, a story of poignance and heartbreak, grace and courage.Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Diane Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband Tom received the news every parent fears. Tom had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled, leaving Diane with a newborn baby – almost alone.It was Tom’s brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Diane and her exceptional daughter. Throughout years of waiting, watching and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother’s wife. But Diane has closed her heart to any man – especially this one. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them that love comes in many forms, and can be received with as much grace as it is given.

The Brothers Grimm take lessons in fiction from Angela Carter to produce this uncanny and surreal work.Judy Budnitz might just be the most exciting and unusual literary figure to emerge from the US literary thicket in 2000. She marries great technical skill to quirky humour and dizzying metaphor. She has an uncanny knack for the destabilizing and indelible image, but does not abandon sense for sensibility. She is always readable, albeit strangely so. She might yet be an Americanized heir to the throne left vacant by Angela Carter.This collection of stories is strikingly surreal and hugely entertaining. It will appeal to fans of everyone from Tibor Fischer via Lorrie Moore to Nicholson Baker, or put another way, from Heathers to Edward Scissorhands via Annie Hall.Among the storylines: a young man is persuaded to donate his heart to his dying mother; a girl comes of age in strange suburbia, her only friend a man dressed in a dogsuit; a man and a woman conduct a passionate love affair on a park bench.