The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its tenth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or, more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the ...

What I did to them was terrible, but you have to understand the context. This was London, 2016 . . .Bohemia is history. Paul has awoken to the fact that he will always be better known for reviewing haircuts than for his literary journalism. He is about to be kicked out of his cheap flat in east London and his sister has gone missing after an argument about what to do with the house where they grew up. Now that their mother is dead this is the last link they have to the dec...

'The morning after the best day of my life - it must have been years, but it felt like a day - I woke up in bed in another country with the wrong woman . . .'Liam has it all. In front of him glitters an exciting career and a life with the woman he has loved from the moment he saw her. But on a feverish night out he loses his job, his home and his girlfriend. He is lucky to escape with his life.Trying to leave his shame behind in London, he flees to Argentin...

"A raw, funny, surprisingly tender novel about belonging, class, and what makes a life a success. I loved the central brother/sister relationship and how the book confronted masculinity and the disparity between womanhood and the male experience. I grew so fond of the protagonist, and devoured the book in a day." Dolly Alderton."What I did to them was terrible, but you have to understand the context. This was London, 2016.."Bohemia is history. Paul has awoken to the fact th...

The Winter Folly is a gripping mystery of family secrets and past sins by Lulu Taylor, author of The Snow Angel.In this house there are many secrets . . .It is 1965 and young Alexandra Crewe obediently marries the man her father has selected for her. But, very soon, both she and her husband Laurence realize that their marriage is a disaster. When real love finds Alexandra, plucking her out of her unhappy existence, she is powerless to resi...

The highly anticipated sequel to The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a VampireHer fate is set in stone…Autumn Rose lives in a sleepy seaside town in the south-west of England, but buried deep under the surface of her quiet life are dark secrets. Swirling marks on her skin mark her out as having extraordinary power, but at school she is shunned and condemned by the very people she is sworn to protect.But the appearance of a handsome young man at her school – who has the sa...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Wych Elm by Tara Elm**, read by Paul Nugent.**For me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.One night changes everything for Toby. A brutal attack leaves him traumatised, unsure even...

"I wait for him, the cold seeping through my clothes, until it finally dawns on me that he's not coming back. And I wonder why he chose her instead of me? Why he went looking for her when I was right there."Tai and Juliet have been best friends forever - since they met at kindy and decided to get married in first grade.They understand each other in the way that only best friends can.They love music, beach walks, energy drinks and, they are slowly discoverin...

This autobiographical coming of age classic offers a "visceral, comic and tragic" portrait of rural life in Wales during the Great War ( The Guardian, UK).Named the greatest Welsh novel by the Wales Arts Review, this beautifully rendered novel tells of a boy's hardscrabble life in rural Wales and his challenging—yet at times transcendent—journey into adulthood. In the 1910s, the village of Bethesda is a place of poverty and religion; illn...

For too long, Kitsy has had to satisfy her dreams of becoming a real artist by giving her friends makeovers before prom. So when her best friend Corrinne's family offers to sponsor her for a summer art course in New York City, Kitsy bids a temporary good-bye to Texas to say hello to the West Village.Between navigating the subway and the New Yorkers—namely, the Art Boy who has a nice trick of getting under her skin—Kitsy knows that this summer is going to be about a lot more than fi...

‘KISS ME,’ Isaiah whispers.My heart beats franticallyIsaiah is hot and scary and hot.Why would a guy like him want to be anywhere near A GIRL LIKE ME?People expect Rachel Young to be the good girl who always gets straight As.But Rachel’s keeping her real life secret.Her wealthy family have no idea that she loves racing strangers in her mustang. Or about dangerous, in...

Can murder and mercy go hand in hand?In The Grand Hotel, a homeless woman charms a businessman into paying for dinner and a room. When his dead body is discovered the following morning she becomes the prime suspect. When a second person is killed in similar circumstances, Sybilla, having left her comfortable middle-class upbringing for the anonymity of the streets, becomes the most wanted person in Sweden . . .Missing is a gripping, multi-faceted thriller; more than a murder-...