The second novel from Costa First Novel Award shortlisted author Nikesh Shukla.'The first and last thing I do every day is see what strangers are saying about me.'Kitab Balasubramanyam has had a rough few months. His girlfriend left him. He got fired from the job he hated for writing a novel on company time, but the novel didn’t sell and now he’s burning through his mum’s life insurance money. His father has more success with women than he does, and his Facebook comments get more likes. Kitab is reduced to spending all of his time in his flat with his brother Aziz, coming up with ideas for novelty Tumblrs and composing amusing tweets. But now even Aziz has left him, travelling to America to find his doppelganger.So what happens when Kitab Balasubramanyam’s only internet namesake turns up on his doorstep and insists that they are meant to be friends?Meatspace is a hilarious and troubling analysis of what happens when our lives become nothing more than an aggregation of shared content, when our online personas are more interesting than real life. A brilliant follow-up from an acclaimed young novelist writing at the sharp edge of modern life.
The first in the new PLEASURE PRINCIPLE series from the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling authorOvertime has never felt so good…Marin Rush loves studying sex. Doing it? That’s another story. In the research lab, Marin’s lack of practical knowledge didn’t matter, but now that she’s landed a job at The Grove, a high-end, experimental sex therapy institute, she can’t ignore the fact that the person most in need of sexual healing may be her.Dr. Donovan West, her new hotshot colleague, couldn’t agree more. Donovan knows that Marin’s clients are going to eat her alive unless she gets some hands-on experience. And if she fails at the job, he can say goodbye to a promotion, so he assigns her a list of R-rated tasks to prepare her for the wild clientele of The Grove’s X-wing.But some of those tasks are built for two, and when he finds Marin searching for a candidate to help her check off her list, Donovan decides there’s only one man for the job – him. As long as they keep their erotic, off-the-clock activities strictly confidential and without strings, no one will get fired – or worse, get attached…
Pulitzer-winning, scintillating studies in yearning and exile from a Bengali Bostonian woman of immense promise.A couple exchange unprecedented confessions during nightly blackouts in their Boston apartment as they struggle to cope with a heartbreaking loss; a student arrives in new lodgings in a mystifying new land and, while he awaits the arrival of his arranged-marriage wife from Bengal, he finds his first bearings with the aid of the curious evening rituals that his centenarian landlady orchestrates; a schoolboy looks on while his childminder finds that the smallest dislocation can unbalance her new American life all too easily and send her spiralling into nostalgia for her homeland…Jhumpa Lahiri’s prose is beautifully measured, subtle and sober, and she is a writer who leaves a lot unsaid, but this work is rich in observational detail, evocative of the yearnings of the exile (mostly Indians in Boston here), and full of emotional pull and reverberation.
A captivating World War II romance from the author of WAIT FOR ME, perfect for fans of CODE NAME VERITY and SALT TO THE SEA.It’s 1942, and Maisie McCall is in the Scottish Highlands doing her bit for the war effort in the Women’s Timber Corps.As Maisie works felling trees alongside the enigmatic John Lindsay, Maisie can’t help but feel like their friendship has the spark of something more to it. And yet every time she gets close to him, John pulls away. It’s not until Maisie rescues John from a terrible logging accident that he begins to open up to her about the truth of his past, and the pain he’s been hiding.Suddenly everything is more complicated than Maisie expected. And as she helps John to untangle his shattered history, she must decide if she’s willing to risk her heart to help heal his. But in a world devastated by war, love might be the only thing left that can begin to heal what’s broken.
There are some people you can’t imagine life without.What, at the end of it all, is really important?Liv and her friends can’t imagine a life different from now: freedom, lifelong friendships, and dreams that are still within their reach.Then, Liv dies.For those left behind – Mia, Fraser, Anna, Norm and Melody – everything stops. Their lives and dreams are frozen in time.In the years that follow, they decide to meet on Liv’s birthday to raise a toast and celebrate her life, even though none of them are living their own – not really. Time marches inexorably on, and yet without Liv, the lynchpin of the group, they are all flailing. Mia and Fraser are quietly falling apart because of the secret they share and, as truths are unearthed and their friendships are tested to the limit, they have to ask themselves – is it time to get on with the business of actually living?
Allow yourself to be drawn into a fantasy world like no other…Where a beautiful princess is seduced into a love triangle with a handsome prince and her winsome maid…Where a mysterious gentleman`s young bride is deliciously disciplined for her unchecked curiosity…Where a naive daughter is married off to a beast of a man whose carnal appetites awaken her budding desire….With a unique and decidedly adult twist on thirteen classic fairy tales, Nancy Madore intrigues and arouses with her titillating, sizzling anthology of erotic stories guaranteed to keep you up late into the night. You`ll never look at fairy tales the same way again.
From the two-time Man Booker Prize winner, a prescient and haunting novel of life in Saudi Arabia.Frances Shore is a cartographer by trade, a maker of maps, but when her husband's work takes her to Saudi Arabia she finds herself unable to map the Kingdom's areas of internal darkness. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive, watchful. The streets are not a woman's territory; confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self begin to dissolve. She hears whispers, sounds of distress from the 'empty' flat above her head. She has only rumours, no facts to hang on to, and no one with whom to share her creeping unease. As her days empty of certainty and purpose, her life becomes a blank – waiting to be filled by violence and disaster.
Bill Williams is lost, Aunty Maggie longs to be young and attractive, Crystal is searching to find out more about Adam. Tales of debt, infidelity, incest, love and loss all combine and weave into a mosaic of working class life. As the characters featured within Caroline Smailes' debut novel «In Search of Adam» are given individual voice, the flashes connect into the making of Disraeli Avenue.When Caroline Smailes' critically-acclaimed debut novel «In Search of Adam» was published she was overwhelmed by the response of her readers. Exploring themes of sexual abuse and self-harm, the book prompted many people to contact her to tell her of their own experiences. Smailes said 'when I realised what a chord had been struck with so many people I knew I wanted to find a way to give something back to those whose lives have been touched by abuse'. A talented author, Caroline began to craft a novella that she could publish as an eBook.All author royalties from sales of this ebook will be donated to One in Four, a charity which provides support and resources to people who have experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence.