Showing titles in Coming of Age

A young farmer named Chinonso prevents a woman from falling to her death. Bonded by this strange night on the bridge, he and Ndali fall in love, but it is a mismatch according to her family who reject him because of his lowly status. Is it love or madness that makes Chinonso think he can change his destiny? Set across Nigeria and Cyprus, An Orchestra of Minorities, written in the mythic style of the Igbo tradition, weaves a heart-wrenching tale about fate versus free will.   

Monsters and beasts roamed the earth and were slain by soldiers and adventurers who were, in turn, killed by stronger threats. Heroes and villains created new epics and were forgotten when their successors appeared. This was the way of the Infinite World. Summoned into this chaotic place, a young boy with no name and no past must learn to survive. Bound to a master who doesn't care whether he lives or dies, he must become stronger. The question is: how?

In a world ravaged by monsters and ambition, survival demands impossible choices. Metamorphistry has torn civilization apart. Cities have fallen. Kingdoms lie in ruin. From the chaos stalks a relentless golem, hunting a single prize—the angel sworn Cimree, whose curse turns any who behold her...

This is a story of something like survival. Sal planned it for almost a year before they ran. She nicked an Ordnance Survey map from the school library. She bought a compass, a Bear Grylls knife, waterproofs and a first aid kit from Amazon using credit cards she'd robbed. She read the SAS Survival Handbook and watched loads of YouTube videos. And now Sal knows a lot of stuff. Like how to build a shelter and start a fire. How to estimate distances, snare rabbits and shoot an airgun.

The day we lost Josh, a part of me broke. He was only three-and-a-half years old. His twin, Ruby, suddenly an only child. But then I see him too. A boy with Josh's same pale blue eyes, the silvery-white hair that falls across his forehead in exactly the same way. I know I have to listen to my rational brain, that this must be my grief messing with my mind. But I can't let go of the feeling that something is going on. Who is this boy? And does someone know more than they're letting on?

'If I turn out to be mentally deranged in adult life, it will be all my mother's fault.' Adrian Mole continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life in this second volume of his secret diary. 'I not only wept, I...

Bloomsbury presents The Great Passion by James Runcie, read by Pip Torrens. A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A masterpiece' SCOTSMAN 'A wise, refreshing novel, and a touching human story ... Runcie has an expert imagination' HILARY MANTEL Love and Death. Grief and Joy. Music that lasts forever...

We’re all playing a dangerous game. One where there are no winners. Only survivors. I’m in love with my enemies, but obviously they don’t feel the same way. When their lies and betrayal surface, I have no choice but to leave. They’ve broken my heart, but not my spirit. They think they’ve won. They think they’ve ruined me. The only thing they’ve done is made me stronger.

Mordecai has discovered his heritage and must take up the mantle of a lord of the realm, while figuring out what it really means to be a mage of the line of Illeniel. He is beset on both sides by allies and enemies trying to control or destroy his future. Gods and kings both seek to manipulate him for their own ends, and no matter what he chooses his loved ones will suffer. Will he risk destroying his love with a bond that might be her death, or face the madness that comes to wizards who embrace power without restraint?

Abby Lamb has done it. She's found the Great Good in her husband, Ralph, and together they will start a family and put all the darkness in her childhood to rest. But then the Lambs move in with Ralph's mother, Laura, whose depression has made it impossible for her to live on her own. She's venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, who has a complicated understanding of motherhood given the way her own, now-estranged, mother raised her. When Laura takes her own life, her ghost starts to haunt Abby and Ralph in very different ways. 

Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient, and eager to please, she accepts this closed world where, with all the enthusiasm of the outsider, her desires and passions become only those the school permits. Her only deviation from total obedience is the passionate friendships she makes.

This fictionalized portrait of Joyce's youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

You’ve heard of the Afterlife. Welcome to the Beforelife. There are four of us: Samuel, Lucy, Thomas, and me – Eliza. We came into being the day Becca Valentine was born. We’ve been by her side ever since. What she doesn’t know yet, is that one day she might become our mother. Then two men come into her life. Both seeking her heart. And then we realise: everything rests on Becca’s love story. Because one of the men is Lucy and Thomas’s father. And the other is mine and Samuel’s. And there’s simply no way we can all be born.

Arriving on the Isle of Harris with swash and bluster, three young American students are set to run a marathon the islanders know nothing about.

Maureen Bancroft has never learned the art of putting herself first. As a widow with a gentle temperament and humble ways, she’s been easy to take advantage of. All that changes when an unexpected windfall comes her way. Determined to make up for lost time, she decides to take a holiday and, needing a companion, looks up her friend Barbara Hayle. Glamorous, and with a successful career on the stage, Barbara seems to be everything that Maureen is not. But things aren’t as they seem, and what starts out as a nostalgic trip between friends becomes something different altogether.

Marguerite Demers is 24 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint-Sulpice, to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier, once one of the most powerful men in the village, and now dying alone in his large and secluded house, surrounded by rambling gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all his previous nurses. 

Afi Tekple is a young seamstress living in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother. Afi's future doesn't seem to hold much excitement. Until, that is, she is offered a life-changing opportunity - a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo. She barely knows Elikem, but that seems a small price to pay for a marriage that could offer her family financial security, as well as the key to the glitzy city lifestyle she's always wanted. But when Afi arrives in Accra, she realises that her fairy-tale ending might not be all that she'd hoped for.

Born into the Scottish Clan MacBain and Drumblair Castle, Liv MacBain has always dreamt of leaving the ancient homestead and becoming her own person in the world of fashion. From a young age, she worshipped the trailblazing designs of the haute couture glitterati, hoping one day to join them. With older brother Kerr, the rightful heir, Liv has been free to spread her wings. Fast forward. Liv is now 28 years old, working at a high-end fashion house and living her dream life in New York. She’s never been happier. Until everything changes with one devastating phone call from her brother.

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune and terrible loss.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Reasons to Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe. 18 year old Lizzie Vogel finds herself a new job in a dentist's surgery after answering a classified advert in the Leicester Mercury for a 'mature lady with a strong interest in dental issues'. Working for an...