Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989, Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education is a semi-autobiographical novel that tells the story of Billi, a girl growing up in Europe between the two World Wars. Upon the death of her German baron father, Billi moves from the family château to live with her vibrant and erratic English mother on the French Riviera. From there she is sent for schooling in England, where she lives an itinerant life, boarding among a bohemian crowd, attending galleries and pu...

Bloomsbury presents Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding, read by Sian ThomasSHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2012Iasi, Romania, the early 1950s. A nameless man is found on the steps of a hospital. Deaf and mute, he is unable to communicate until a young nurse called Safta brings paper and pencils with which he can draw. Slowly, painstakingly, memories appear on the page.The memories are Safta's also. For the man is Augustin, son of the cook a...

When lawyer Jenny Cooper is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she's hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence. Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny's curiosity is aroused. Why was Marshall behaving so st...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny and What She Knew comes the terrifying story of what can happen after all your dreams come trueBe careful what you wish for...Childhood sweethearts Nicole and Tom are a normal, loving couple—until a massive lottery win changes their lives overnight.Soon they’ve moved into a custom-built state-of-the-art Glass Barn on the stunning grounds of Lancaut Manor in G...

“*Then She Vanishes***lifts the stone on a cold case disappearance and asks chilling questions about friendship, loyalty, love, and obsession.”—**New York Times bestselling author Gilly MacmillanA twisty, compulsive thriller full of jolting shocks and startling secrets involving two sisters, a disappearance, a double murder, and a reporter determined to find the truth from the bestselling author of Local Girl M...

Two young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan, vanish without a trace. The police write them off as runaways, but seven years later, Nazim's grief stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is finally settling into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley; the ghosts of her past banished to the sidelines once more. But as an inquest into Nazim's disappearance gets underway, the stink of corruption and conspiracy becomes clear. As the pressure from above increases, a code...

In Jilly Cooper’s latest, raciest novel, Rupert Campbell-Black takes centre stage in the cut-throat world of flat racing.Rupert is consumed by one obsession: that Love Rat, his adored grey horse, be proclaimed champion stallion. He longs to trounce Roberto’s Revenge, the stallion owned by his detested rival Cosmo Rannaldini, which means abandoning his racing empire at Penscombe and his darling wife Taggie, and chasing winners in the richest races worldwide, from Du...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Frozen River, this enthralling feat of historical suspense unravels the extraordinary twists and turns in Anna Anderson’s claim to be Anastasia Romanov. Is she the Russian Grand Duchess or the thief of another woman's legacy?"Tantalizing, surprising, compelling, and utterly fascinating."—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours**Russia, July 17,...

A Life to Kill is the seventh thrilling installment in Matthew Hall's twice CWA Gold Dagger nominated Coroner Jenny Cooper series.If they're hiding something, we've got a right to know. We've got a right to know what Kenny died for . . .The day they've all been waiting for is at hand. The last British combat soldiers in Helmand are counting the minutes until their departure for home. For their excited families in Highcliffe, it spells the ...

The Chosen Dead is the fifth gripping installment in Matthew Hall's twice CWA Gold Dagger nominated Coroner Jenny Cooper series, from the creator of BBC One's Keeping Faith.An unlikely suicide or a deadly conspiracy?When Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates the fatal plunge of a man from a motorway bridge, she little suspects that it has any connection with the sudden death of a friend’s thirteen year old daughter from a deadly strain...

BBC radio adaptations of four acclaimed works from the bestselling Ukrainian-born author Irène NémirovskyBest known for her posthumously published novel Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903. Her family fled the Russian Revolution for Paris, where she found fame as a novelist. But when the Nazis occupied France, she was arrested as a Jew and sent to Auschwitz, where she died aged just 39. This collection includes four of her best works...

Three of Federico García Lorca's best-known plays, as heard on BBC Radio 3Poet and playwright Federico García Lorca is one of the most famous figures in 20th-century Spanish literature. A member of the 'Generation of '27' avant-garde movement that included Dalí and Buñuel, he became well known for his lyrical, symbolic works mixing modernism and the folkloric traditions of his native Andalusia. He was executed by Nationalist forces at the start of the Spanish Civil...