Poverty Fiction

Alone and on the streets after their mother ends up in hospital, Charlie has promised his little sister, Maisie, he’ll never let her feel frightened again. That promise is hard to keep when Maisie falls ill. Hope comes in the shape of Susan and the other nurses at the local hospital. Times are tough, and lately they’ve seen even more children come through their doors who need kindness and a loving home. The only way to keep Charlie and Maisie out of the orphanage is to find them a good foster home, but there are far too many people who’d take them in for their own ruthless ends.

Eliza was left as a small baby at the workhouse in Whitechapel, wrapped in her mother’s shawl, which is all she has of the mother she never knew. At 11 years old, she has survived sickness, near starvation and harsh beatings. Master Simpkins and his cruel daughter rule the workhouse with a rod of iron, but when Romany boy Joe arrives at the workhouse, his spirit and courage give Eliza hope. When she is sold into service, Eliza is relieved to be out of the workhouse and hopes her fortunes are changing for the better, but cruelty and unkindness are everywhere....

St Saviours children’s home in London’s East End has provided a safe refuge for local children for decades, and Sister Beatrice and her team are as busy as ever. New staff member Jinny is glad to escape the lewd advances of her drunken and slovenly mother’s rotten boyfriends, but can she prove she isn’t a chip off the old block? As ever, the staff are tested when orphaned brother and sister Andy and Beth are brought to the home - they are clearly terrified of something, and Andy refuses to be sent home, but can Sister Beatrice get to the bottom of their story before they are returned to their stepfather?

In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again. For 17-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home, every day. Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world.

Celebrated author Jim Harrison, whose robust, tender, and deeply felt books have made their mark on the American literary landscape, here delivers a collection of three novellas infused with all the wisdom and generous spirit that his readers have come to expect.

One of the earliest novels in English, Moll Flanders is the purported autobiography of a heroine who is undoubtedly one of the most lively, convincing, and delightful rogues in literature. Born in Newgate Prison and orphaned soon after, Moll is provided with no opportunities in life, yet she is propelled by an unrelenting drive to overcome her background of impoverishment.

Biltmore House, a palatial mansion being built by the Vanderbilts, American “royalty,” is in its final stages of construction in North Carolina. The country’s grandest example of privilege, it symbolizes the aspirations of its owner and the dreams of a girl, just as driven, who lives in its shadow. Kerry MacGregor’s future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians.

Danny gets a terrible start in life and runs away from his drunken father when he thrashes him to within an inch of his life. But life on the streets is no better, and he falls into the clutches of evil men, finding that being big and strong for his age is no protection from the people who want to do him harm. Help comes in the form of Constable Jones, who is determined to help out the children who need it, and new friends Ron and Cassie, who are also runaways. Can Danny’s dream of a loving home ever be a reality?

Jonny has had a bad start in life and has been taken in by a neighbour after the death of his mother. Small for his age, he is prey to a band of local thugs, so he joins the boxing club and learns to defend himself. When a violent altercation ends in tragedy, Jonny runs away and meets a homeless young girl called Cassie, who has been living in an abandoned house - touched by her predicament, Jonny vows to look after her, whatever that takes. Cassie desperately needs love and a safe place to call home, and there are kind hearts who want to help.

Healing is a hanging offense, and Ena is done risking her neck to watch her patients die. Fleeing a future of blood and death, Ena braves the dark unknown. Life taught her the cruelty of the world. But she never imagined the dangers of her journey. As evil surrounds her, Ena is threatened with a fate worse than the one she escaped. Legends and dark magic stand between her and the future she dreams of. A future that will cost more than pain. When innocent lives depend on her mercy, Ena must face an enemy with the power to set the sky on fire.

När Samir och hans familj får veta att de inte får stanna i Sverige och kommer att tvingas återvända till Afghanistan fattar han ett drastiskt beslut. De kan inte skicka tillbaka honom om de inte vet var han finns ... Mitt i natten rymmer han och gömmer sig ute i skogen, men livet på flykt är tufft och han kommer att behöva vänner om han ska klara sig.

The legend of the famous hero Robin Hood originates in dramatic pieces and ballads from the 15th century in England. His story has been given shape and retold through the centuries, and is still universally known to children nowadays. "The Tales of Robin Hood and his Merry Men", as retold by Mary Macleod, is a faithful rendition of the original medieval legend full of colorful and moral adventures. It is read by Katie Haigh, for the delight of children and as well as adults sensitive to literary style.

Benito's father, Xavier, has been in Iraq for more than a year. When he returns, Benito's family life is not the same. Xavier suffers from PTSD - post-traumatic stress disorder - and yells constantly. He causes such a scene at a school function that Benny is embarrassed to go to back to Southside High. Benny can't handle seeing his dad so crazy, so he decides to run away. Will Benny find a new life? Or will he learn how to deal with his dad - through good times and bad?

For a quarter century in more than ninety countries, Habitat for Humanity has built homes with and for the people who are most in need of them, aided by more than a million volunteers - two of the most devoted of whom are former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

Is Justine crazy? Everyone thinks so… Her mother. The kids at school, and the teachers and administrators too. Even the police who pick her up from her night rambles. Maybe them most of all. Justine’s therapist says she is ‘troubled’, but it means the same thing. He thinks that her vivid, reoccurring nightmares and atrocious behavior point to some trauma in her past; but Em, Justine’s mother, can’t explain it. Justine used to have Christian, her best friend and skateboard partner. He was the only one who accepted her.

When home is a car, life is unpredictable. School, friends, and three meals a day aren't guaranteed. Not every town has a shelter where a family can sleep for a night or two, and places with parking lots don't welcome overnight stays. Opin, his brother Emjay, and their mother are trying to get to Los Angeles, where they hope an uncle and a new life are waiting. Emjay has taken to disappearing for days, slowing down the family's progress and adding to their worry.

"My imagination is always skulking about in a wrong place." And now Doyle Redmond, thirty-five-year-old nowhere writer, has crossed the line between imagination and real live trouble. On the lam in his soon-to-be ex-wife's Volvo, he's running a family errand back in his boyhood home of West...

A sharp and funny addition to Daniel Woodrell's collection of "country noir" novels, featuring anti-hero Sammy Barlach and Jamalee Merridew, her hair tomato red with rage and ambition. In the Ozarks, what you are is where you are born. If you're born in Venus Holler, you're not much. For Jamalee...

At 12, Emily Parmenter is left mostly to herself after her mother disappears and her beloved older brother dies. Emily has built a life around the faded plantation where her remote father and hunting-obsessed brothers raise hunting spaniels. It is a meager, masculine world, but to Emily it has magic. And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled daughter of a truly grand plantation, who has run away from her hectic Charleston debutante season.

In a crumbling neighbourhood in New Delhi, a child waits for a mother to return home from work. And, in parallel, in a snow-swept town in Germany on the Baltic Sea coast a woman, her memory fading, shows up at a deserted hotel. Worlds apart, both embark, in the course of that night, on...