British Literature

Bournville is a rich and poignant new novel from the bestselling, Costa award-winning author of Middle England. It is the story of a woman, of a nation's love affair with chocolate, of Britain itself.

When an American tourist is murdered with a scone in Gemma Rose's quaint English tearoom, she suddenly finds herself apron-deep in a mystery involving long-buried secrets from Oxford's past. Armed with her insider knowledge of the university and with the help of four nosy old ladies from her local Cotswolds village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery - all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O'Connor, now a dashing CID detective.

An extraordinary first novel that tells the story of a British piano tuner sent deep into Burma in the nineteenth century. In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma...

With the Cold War drawing to a close in the East, Bernard Samson is still haunted by the events that have turned his life upside down over the last ten years. But when he takes a train from Moscow to Berlin, he stumbles across a clue that may lead him to the truth at last—even though, in finding the answers, he could lose everything. Bringing the Faith, Hope, and Charity trilogy and Bernard Samson's story to a stunning conclusion, this final volume brilliantly shows the human cost of the spying game.

December 1801. The Peace of Amiens end the long war with Napoleon Bonaparte's France, but Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, is appalled by its consequences. First, he's been in the Navy since 1780 (most unwillingly, most of the time!) and at sea for the better part of nine years, since 1793, so what is a dashing and successful frigate captain to do with himself, if he's ashore on half-pay, and if so, for how long? Second, and even worse, is where will Lewrie twiddle his thumbs and be bored to death until the war begins again, as he's sure it will?

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

1894. A well-respected academic is found dead in a gentlemen’s convenience cubicle at the British Museum, the stall locked from the inside. Professor Lance Pickering had been due to give a talk promoting the museum’s new 'Age of King Arthur' exhibition when he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Having forged a strong reputation working alongside the inimitable Inspector Abberline on the Jack the Ripper case, Daniel Wilson is called in to solve the mystery, and he brings his expertise and archaeologist Abigail Fenton with him.

In Agatha Christie’s classic mystery 4:50 From Paddington, a woman in one train witnesses a murder occurring in another passing one…and only Miss Marple believes her story. For an instant the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy stared helplessly out of...

England, 1903. Giles, the new Earl of Stainton, is struggling to bring his family's estate back to order after the death of his father, and he has little time to spare for his young pregnant wife, Kitty. She lives in fear of her mother-in-law, who won't give up the reins of the household. Will she ever truly be mistress of Ashmore Castle? Perhaps if her coming child is a boy, that will change the balance of power...

England, 1941. When Jane Treen is summoned to her boss’s office at the end of a long day, she smooths down her tweed skirt and makes them both another strong pot of coffee. Brigadier Remmington-Blythe slides a folded copy of the evening newspaper towards her, with one small article circled in red ink. A body has been found on an English beach in the little seaside town where she grew up, and he wants her to investigate. Jane is used to managing secret agents and spies, but she is now part of The Secret Detective Agency, England’s answer to solving the most mysterious murders.

From the Nobel Prize winner, a coming-of-age story that illuminates the harshness and beauty of an Africa on the brink of colonization Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award, Paradise was characterized by the Nobel Prize committee as Abdulrazak Gurnah’s “breakthrough”...

An extraordinary novel that brings into vivid focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song. This is a readable, entertaining, tour de force that captures the essence of the Sixteenth Century, in all its drama and atmosphere. A can't-miss...

Returning to the Broads after nearly two years at sea, John Tanner moors up next to a boat to find the body of a man whose five-year-old daughter is nowhere to be seen. As a torrent of unwanted memories begins flooding through his mind, an attractive Broads Ranger arrives at the scene with a disturbing tale; one of children being taken by a ghostly figure, standing at the helm of an old wooden boat.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a powerful mage and master of illusions. His abilities make him the perfect man for a dangerous mission to end the devastating war with Napoleon—a mission that would leave him little chance of returning alive. When he meets the enchanting Elizabeth Bennet, whose magical talents are as deep as they are inexplicable, he knows he needs her help. There's only one way to get that—marriage. Immediately.

The setting itself is elemental P. D. James: the bleak coast of East Anglia, where atop a sweep of low cliffs stands the small theological college of St. Anselm’s. On the shore not far away, smothered beneath a fall of sand, lies the body of one of the school’s young ordinands. He is the son...

A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London’s most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue. "Fagin the Thief takes one of literature's greatest rogues and gives him a soul, a backstory, and a spotlight. Layered and clever...

Stranded in India after being dismissed without a reference, governess Beatrice Layton exchanges her freedom for passage home to England, taking a position with the only family that will hire her. But Bea hasn’t reckoned for just how dreadful her new employers will be. Stuck with them at sea in increasingly desperate circumstances, she finds an unlikely champion in the injured ex-soldier traveling aboard their ship.

When 16-year-old, Ashlyn Brooks, runs into a sweet British guy in the dark Chemistry lab, she has no idea she's actually sitting in the pitch black room with her longtime rival, Luke Davenport. She also doesn't know that she's stepped into another one of the football captain's pranks. It isn't long before she's sharing things she's never told anyone, and starting to fall for the mysterious guy with a sexy accent who seems to understand her in a way no one ever has before.

When a body is discovered during the building of the new Govan-Partick Bridge, it forces the reopening of a case that DCI Lomond would rather forget.

In Agatha Christie’s baffling detective story, Nemesis, a letter from a dead man instructs Miss Marple how to conduct an investigation into a puzzlingly unspecific crime. In utter disbelief, Miss Marple read the letter addressed to her from the recently deceased Mr. Rafiel—an acquaintance...