Modern Fiction

The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan can be a bit challenging, even for the best of listeners. Not so with this new, easy-to-understand version that translates the original archaic language into simple conversational English, allowing listeners of all ages to easily navigate this popular Christian story considered by many to be the third part of The Pilgrim’s Progress series. This story depicts the stages of life—from cradle to grave—of a very wicked man in an evil age and the miserable consequences that undoubtedly follow such wretched living.

Der Geschmack einer Madeleine, das Licht einer Laterna Magica, der Duft der Weißdornhecke: Schlüsselerlebnisse, die im Kopf des Erzählers Marcel unwillkürlich Erinnerungen hervorrufen. Kunstfertig und detailgetreu entsteht das Panorama des alten Combray und der Stadt Paris mit ihren Salons und Bällen. Kurz: einer Zeit, die verloren und doch gegenwärtig scheint.

Billy Phelan, small-time bookie, pool hustler, and poker player, becomes an unlikely go-between in the 1938 kidnapping of an Albany, New York, political boss' son.

When Sam meets Leah in a bar one night, he's tongue-tied and leaves her with the mistaken impression that he's not interested because she's not thin enough. But when he finds himself helping Leah deliver a wedding cake to her ex-boyfriend's wedding, he comes to her rescue after a pushy woman insults Leah about her dating prospects and her weight - by proclaiming he's her fiancé. Leah is furious. Because that pushy woman is her mom, and now her family can't wait for the wedding.

President William Darcy has it all: wealth, intelligence, and the most powerful job in the country. Despite what his friends say, he is not lonely in the White House. He’s not. And he has vowed not to date while he’s in office. Nor is he interested in Elizabeth Bennet. She might be pretty and funny and smart, but her family is nouveau riche and unbearable. Unfortunately, he encounters her everywhere in Washington, DC - making her harder and harder to ignore.

Loosely inspired by the legend of Camelot, Dark Sexy Knight tells the story of dinner theater knight Colt Lane, who meets down-on-her-luck Verity Gwynn on the worst day of her life. Evicted from their home, Verity and her special-needs brother, Ryan, must find jobs or risk being separated. Colt, who is the furthest-possible thing from a white knight in real life, comes to their unlikely rescue, quickly cementing his place in Verity's heart.

Just when Agent Mendoza is settling into his new job with the shadowy paranormal law enforcement agency known as CERBERUS, he’s thrust into an investigation that has him questioning his career...and his sanity! The ghosts of Austin are angry—and some of them have gone stark raving mad. Now Agent Mendoza is following a trail of necromancy and grave-digging that’s leading him to the source of all this ectoplasmic trouble.

I've wasted years waiting to get my life back, and I finally have an opportunity. It's a simple undercover job-but with a catch. A thirteen month-old, crying, diaper-wearing catch. Because I'm not going undercover as a cook, or a driver. I'm the new manny. If it will get me back in the royal family's good graces, I'll grin and bear it. Even on the worst days, I know this will be worth it. I'll keep my head down and do my job. But it's getting harder and harder to ignore my forbidden attraction to the baby's mother.

Two murderous Celtic goddesses...a journeyman druid on the run...and a sealed grimoire that holds the key to his survival. Can Colin unlock it in time to save the people he loves? Colin McCool here, junkyard druid and trouble magnet extraordinaire. Recently, I fought the giant king of Jotunheim in a bid to save my druid master’s life. I failed in that task - now it’s up to me to keep druidry alive. Problem is, the Mórrígan and her sorceress sidekick Fuamnach are out to erase me from the face of the Earth.

In the beautiful lavender fields of Provence, harvest season – the busiest time of the year – is about to start. Del is looking forward to a new group of pickers arriving from all over the world to help out at her little lavender farm. But just as they’re due to appear, some bad news turns her world upside down. Then Del’s partner Fabien is given the chance to rejoin his old band for one last tour – and Del wants him to seize the day. But is sending him away the right decision? As the pickers arrive and the harvest gets underway, Del feels the pressure of trying to keep everyone happy.

Jenny is unloved, unemployable and emotionally unfiltered. Her long-suffering friends seem sick of her, and whilst her social media portrays her life as a bed of roses, it is more of a dying succulent. Adults is what you want it to be. A misadventure of maturity, a satire on our age of self-promotion, a tender look at the impossibility of womanhood, a love story, a riot. And Emma Jane Unsworth is the only voice to hear it from. Adults is excruciating, a gut punch of hilarity and an audiobook laden with truth that you will listen to again and again.

When Kate Quaile meets Max Rippon in the first week of university, so begins a life-changing friendship. Over the next four years, the two become inseparable. For him, she breaks her solitude; for her, he leaves his busy circles behind. But knowing Max means knowing his family: the wealthy Rippons, all generosity, social ease, and quiet repression. Theirs is a very different world from Kate’s own upbringing, and yet she finds herself quickly drawn into their gilded lives, and the secrets that lie beneath.

The Wright family is in ruins. Sue Ellen Wright has what she thinks is a close-to-perfect life. A terrific career as a classics professor, a loving husband, and a son who is just about to safely leave the nest. But then disaster strikes. She learns her husband is cheating and that her son has made a complete mess of his life. So when the opportunity to take her family to a Greek island for a month presents itself, she jumps at the chance.

It's a period of turmoil in Britain, with the country's politicians electing to remove the UK from the European Union, despite ever-increasing evidence that the public no longer supports it. And the small town of Lychford is suffering. But what can three rural witches do to guard against the unknown? And why are unwary hikers being led over the magical borders by their smartphones' mapping software? And is the immigration question really important enough to kill for?

I.L. Peretz, the acknowledged "Father of Yiddish Literature", captured the essence of Eastern European Jewish life. He wrote of the magical quality of kindness, and the bitter fruits of blind faith.

In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: To cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Tracy Kidder’s magnificent account shows how one person can make a difference in solving global health problems through a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems, and disease.

Meet Mercy Blain, whose house has just burnt down. Unfortunately for Mercy, this goes beyond the disaster it would be for most people: she hasn't been outside that house for two years now. Flung out into the world she's been studiously ignoring, Mercy goes to the only place she can: her not-quite-ex-husband Eugene's house. But it turns out she can't stay there either.

Long ago and far away (and somewhere south of France) lies the kingdom of Esquaveta. There, Princess Tullia is in nearly as much peril as her struggling kingdom. Esquaveta desperately needs to forge an alliance, and to that end, Tullia's father has arranged a marriage between her and an odious prince. However, one month before the "wedding of the century," Tullia falls in love with a lowly apprentice scribe. The king turns to Anatole, his much-maligned magician. Seventeen years earlier, when Anatole first came to the castle, he was regarded as something of a prodigy.

From mingling with tabloid millionaires to trading favours and fortunes with royalty, she will stop at nothing to reach the top of the career ladder at the Mercury newspaper. Landing scoop after scoop, Becky ruthlessly carves a place for herself in a society determined to ignore her. These are the biggest stories and scandals of the decade, and she has something to do with every one of them. But Becky may have more in common with the people she writes about than she thinks – what takes a lifetime to build takes only a moment to destroy...

Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name.