The best fiction books of 2023 & all time

Paris, 1928. A boy is found, moments from death, and taken in by a kindly family who gives him a life he could never have dreamed of, but he refuses to tell anyone who he truly is. As he grows into a young man, an evil is rising across Europe and he knows he must soon flee again. The final novel in the Seven Sisters series, Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, reveals how the sisters came to be adopted by their beloved, mysterious father, drawing the epic series to a stunning, unforgettable conclusion. Finally, readers will know the answer to the ultimate question: who is Pa Salt?

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Trust is undoubtedly one of the novels of the year. Everyone in 1920s New York knows of Benjamin and Helen Rask, the Wall Street tycoon and the daughter of bohemian aristocrats. They live in a sphere of untold wealth, but what is the true cost of their fortune? This mystery sits at the heart of a bestselling novel that all of New York has read. But, like all stories, there are different perspectives. Hernan Diaz tracks these narratives across a century and documents the truth-bending power of money, with provocative revelations at each turn.

This novel from the author of A Little Life spans stories of love, family, and loss over three centuries. 1893: New York is part of the Free States, and a member of a privileged family falls for an impoverished music teacher. 1993: Manhattan is being swept by the AIDS epidemic, and a Hawaiian man with a wealthy older partner must hide his family background. 2093: a world where plague and totalitarian rule is rife, a woman tries to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance. This symphonic vision of America is a demonstration of Hanya Yanagihara's literary genius as she weaves three stories together. 

This stunning debut is a whip-smart exploration of an age-old question: what have you got to lose when you fall in love? When Jess first meets Josh at their Ivy League college she dislikes him immediately: an entitled guy in chinos, ready to take over the world. Meanwhile, Jess is almost always the only Black woman in their class. And Josh can’t accept that life might be easier for him because he’s white. But when they end up working for the same investment bank, their tempestuous friendship soon turns into an electrifying romance, forcing Jess to question who she is and what she's willing to compromise for love. 

Devoted siblings Mimi and Art Brotherton have always come as a pair, bound together by the tragic death of their parents. Art is a mathematical genius, and believes everything – even love –  can be boiled down to equations and algorithms. Then Mimi meets Frank, who definitely isn't algorithm approved and soon the siblings' relationship is pushed to breaking point. Something about Frank doesn't quite add up, and only Art can see it. This tale of love and loss is unique, funny and uplifting – true love, in all its forms, is more than a numbers game.  

Aspiring journalist Becky Sharp has one goal: to reach the top of the career ladder at the Mercury, London’s top tabloid during the industry’s celebrity-obsessed 1990s heyday. But for Becky, no matter how many champagne-fuelled parties she covers or celebrity scoops she publishes, her past threatens to stop her from bagging her dream job. A nostalgia-filled trip through the heady, Britpop-obsessed world of 90s London Becky is a dark, witty novel that you won’t want to put down.

The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

A gripping mystery set between Australia and London, Homecoming, is the long-awaited new novel by Kate Morton. When 89-year-old Nora's health takes an unexpected turn for the worse, Jess boards the first plane out of London, her home of twenty years, to be by her grandmother's bedside in Sydney. Soon, she discovers that the usually stoic Nora has been hiding a family secret and vows to get to the heart of the mystery of what happened on a fateful Christmas Eve sixty years before. 

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023, this retelling of the famed myth of Medusa asks who the real monsters are. The sole mortal raised in a family of gods, Medusa is alone in her ability to experience change and to be hurt. Then, when the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can – and she is changed forever. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. Unable to control her new power, she is condemned to a life of shadows and darkness. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest . . .

The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone is a charming and magical debut novel, with a love story at its heart. Thirty-four year-old Myra Malone blogs about a dolls' house online. Across the country, Alex Rakes, heir of a furniture business, encounters two Mansion fans trying to recreate a room from Myra's stories. To his disbelief, Alex soon recognizes that it's his own bedroom being recreated, in minute scale. Searching for answers, Alex begins corresponding with Myra. Together, the two unwind the lonely paths of their twin worlds. 

Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess. Only a year before, Lady Christian was newly married, leading a life of privilege and respectability. What led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? Inspired by a real-life case, this is a remarkable story with a feminist revisionist twist, giving a voice to women otherwise silenced by history.

Liv Brooks is in shock at the turn her life has taken. She has just got divorced and her life feels unsteady when she swaps London life for the Yorkshire Dales, trying to start life afresh. But new starts can be tricky, and lonesome Liv adopts Harry, an ageing dog from a local shelter. Walking round the village with Harry, Liv encounters others who need a new start too, from a lonely old man called Valentine to fearful child Stanley and angry teen Maya. This funny, honest and heart-tugging tale is about having the courage to turn life around and find new meanings.

Small-town detective Aaron Falk returns in Exiles, the new novel from the bestselling author of The Dry, Jane Harper. When a young mother disappears on a warm spring night, leaving her baby alone in her pram at a busy festival, Falk begins to suspect that this is more than a cut-and-dry missing person’s case. A thrilling mystery novel with an evocative outback setting and heart-pounding twists, Exiles is a book you’ll want to discuss with everyone you know. 

A historical fiction novel packed with fortune-telling, travels and mystery, The Sqaure of Sevens an epic and sweeping novel set in Georgian high society. A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar. But soon, she can't ignore the burning questions about her family. The pursuit of these mysteries takes her across the country in an tale of intrigue, heartbreak and audacious twists. 

In New York City, two rival witch families fight for the upper hand in Olivie Blake's new romance fantasy fiction. The Antonova sisters and their mother, Baba Yaga, are the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants while the Fedorov brothers and their crime boss father, Koschei the Deathless, dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan. For twelve years, the two families have been in stalemate, but that is about to change. While fate draws together a brother and sister from either side, the siblings still struggle for power, and internal conflicts could destroy each family from within. 

Thought-provoking and timely, Promise Boys is the new YA mystery novel that will have everyone talking in 2023. For J.B., Ramón, and Trey, attending the prestigious and ultra-strict Urban Promise Prep School is a golden ticket to college and avoiding the fates of many of the men they grew up around. That is until their principal is brutally murdered, and the boys emerge as the police’s main suspects. As they fight to investigate the crime and fight the prejudice of those around them, the trio are locked in a battle to find the real culprit and clear their names before it’s too late.

It's 1988 in Pencalenick, Cornwall, and seventeen-year-old Jason feels there's more to life than working in his Dad's pub. Then in walk glamorous twins Daisy and Bea, and a heady entrancing summer begins. By the end of that summer, someone is dead. Thirty years on, renowned actress Daisy Hemmings decides to publish her autobiography, with the help of James Tate who is an expert ghost writer. The reason he is so good at inhabiting the lives of others though, is that he has spent years pretending to be someone he is not . . .

When Tara and Colin’s marriage starts to fall apart, they both find themselves looking to a controversial new dating app called Fling to find someone new. After meeting someone who is a 100% match, they both embark on affairs with who they believe are exciting new partners. A hilarious romance novel that will make you question what true love really means, Fling is a novel that asks – what if the person you were looking for was in front of you all along?

It's summer on the wild Scottish island of St Kilda, and free-spirited Effie Gillies is showing a visitor, handsome Lord Sholto, around the island. She falls in love for the first time, bur then a storm hits and wrecks her world. Three months later, and the islanders are being evacuated to the mainland. Sholto returns, to offer her a job on his estate, and their differences seem insurmountable, even as the connection between them sizzles. Then there is a shock discovery on St Kilda, and a bright new life is clouded by dark secrets.

Gemma is scared that if life slows down she'll have to face up to how lonely she is having lost her true love. She crams her days with work and taking her dog Bear to visit young hospital patients. Dan is scared of anyone knowing the real him. He is the life and soul of the party, but he's hiding a deep secret. And Casey is Dan's twelve-year-old daughter, though they hardly know each other. She's scared too, as she begins treatment for a tumour. When the three meet one hot July day, they instantly bond. Fate – and a scruffy terrier - have brought them together. But can they overcome their fears and truly connect?

Soon to be a major TV series, this serial-killer thriller is packed full of mystery with a fascinating lead character. Antonia doesn’t go outside much. Why would she when she can solve crimes from her attic in Madrid? She also never gets visitors. That's why she really doesn't like it when she hears unknown footsteps coming up the stairs. And whoever it is, Antonia is sure that they are coming to look for her. . .

At the point of turning thirty, Jessica Jackson has everything in place: a job, a great boyfriend and a snug London flat they share with their cat. Then a sudden diagnosis of breast cancer causes Jess's world to implode. As friends move forward with baby scans and weddings, Jess feels alone and left behind. And then she mets Annabel, a mysterious young woman with incurable cancer. Annabel may not have long left to live, but she wants to show Jess how it's possible to make every day meaningful.

The acclaimed author of Euphoria, Lily King writes with minimalistic grace about the characters and lives contained within this book of short stories. A bookseller cannot contain his love for his employee, a lonely teenager is looked after by a couple of college students, a girl loses her innocence in an encounter with her employer's son but gains strength in the aftermath, and a nonagenarian sits distraught at his granddaughter's hospital bed. Spiced with romance, honesty and a hint of the surreal, these musings on love are unmissable.

When a pupil suddenly dies at an exclusive boarding school in deepest Norfolk, the headmaster is keen to brand it a tragic accident. But the local police are not so sure, and Detective Inspector Jazmine ‘Jazz’ Hunter returns to the force to investigate. Together with trusty sergeant Alastair Miles, she enters the closed universe of the school. And as Jazz begins to probe Charlie Cavendish’s unsettling demise, things take a deeply troubling turn.

Emma Flint’s evocative historical novels transport you to another time and place. In her new book, Other Women, the destination is London, devastated by the impact of the Great War. For unmarried Beatrice Cade, the war has robbed her of the chance to find true love and have a family, just like it has for millions of others. One day a chance encounter changes her life, and she falls head over heels in love with someone she should never have met. An enthralling tale of obsession, murder and lives intertwined by forbidden love, Other Women is a novel that you won’t be able to put down. 

What would you do if you could start your life anew? This is the choice facing Janet Brown, who becomes a hero after surviving a devastating train crash, giving her a chance to erase the memory of the tragic events that clouded her life eleven years ago. But if Janet washes away the lies, what long-buried truths will she finally have to face? A dark, rich novel about our choices’ impact and how lies can spiral out of control, If I Let You Go is both thought-provoking and uplifting –  a perfect book club read for 2023. 

When Franny Doyle is rescued from outfit embarrassment by a mysterious stranger with a Gucci jacket who can’t escape her fast enough, she thinks nothing of it and gets on with her fateful day. Until she logs onto social media and sees that the meet-cute has gone viral and users are shipping her non-existent love story with her rescuer, Hayes Montgomery. When Franny and Hayes keep running into each other, it seems they may be meant to be, but can they get over their differences and give love a chance? 

When an Irish priest has a dream in which God tells him to leave sin behind, he embarks on a journey with two monks down the River Shannon to find a place to settle and worship. As they drift onto the Atlantic, the three discover a rocky, uninhabited island and choose it as their new home. But, as they devote their lives to God, they soon find a life away from humanity more complicated than they imagined. As they become more desperate, the trio realise they must do anything they can to survive. Beautifully written, bold and unpredictable, Haven is the breathtaking new historical novel by the author of Room, Emma Donoghue.

In a world where reputation is everything, some people will do anything to keep their secrets hidden. When a group of celebrities arrive at the opening party for Island Home, an ultra-exclusive private members’ island, they’re ready for the event of the decade. Soon, the guests realise that their weekend has more to it than meets the eye and that their ugly secrets are set to be exposed, with fatal consequences. With jaw-dropping twists and characters you love to hate, if you’re a fan of Knives Out: Glass Onion and The White Lotus, The Club is a must-read this summer. 

Making friends has never come easy to Hanne. That is until she meets Thea, a newcomer to her close-knit community, and suddenly has the companion she’s always longed for. When the girls find themselves on the move as the community decides to search for new freedoms in Australia, their friendship is pushed to the limit as they face a devastating disaster. A new historical novel from the bestselling author of Burial Rites, Devotion is a gripping story of love with a heartbreaking twist you’ll never see coming. 

Danielle Steel takes us from the Hamptons to Manhattan’s private members’ clubs with wedding planner Faith Ferguson in this heartwarming story set in the exclusive world of New York’s power couples. Devoted to her career, Faith has made happily ever happen for hundreds of couples, but despite coming close to tying the knot twice, her big days have been over before they’ve even begun. When her personal and professional lives begin to collide, Faith is offered a second chance at happiness, but only if she’s brave enough to say, “I do”. The Wedding Planner, the new book by Danielle Steel, is a must-read this summer. 

A sunken jet. Nine passengers. A missing body. The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God. The first of two eagerly anticipated novels from literary great Cormac McCarthy The Passenger is followed by Stella Maris  – both are too good to be missed. 

Dubbed by Big Little Lies star Reese Witherspoon as ‘a great story you can’t put down’, debut thriller Luckiest Girl Alive will keep you turning the pages until the end. Ani FaNelli has the perfect life and a fabulous wedding planned, but beyond the facade her lies hide a much darker past. A documentary producer wants Ani to tell her side of a chilling incident that happened when she was a teenager, and she wants to show the world how much she’s changed, but will her past threaten everything she’s worked so hard to build?

From the no. 1 international bestselling author of The Atlas Six, comes the unmissable Alone With You in the Ether. Aldo and Charlotte meet in Chicago's Art Institute by chance. He is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. Once they meet, those things do not change. But everything else, is slightly different. Both obsessive, eccentric personalities they instantly struggle to be apart, and the deeper they fall in love, the more troubling their reliance on each other becomes . . .

Bestselling fantasy sensation The Atlas Six follows six young magical practitioners as they compete to join the secretive Alexandrian Society, whose custodians guard lost knowledge from ancient civilizations. Their members enjoy a lifetime of power and prestige. Yet each decade, only six practitioners are invited – to fill five places. Following recruitment by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they travel to the Society’s London headquarters. Here, each must study and innovate within esoteric subject areas. And if they can prove themselves, over the course of a year, they’ll survive. Most of them.

The course of love – and sexuality – never did run smooth. Ophelia Rojas knows what she likes and who she is,  but when she finds herself thinking more about cute, quiet Talia Sanchez than the loss of a perfect prom with her ex-boyfriend, seeds of doubt take root in Ophelia’s image of herself. Add to that the impending end of high school and the fracturing of her once-solid friend group, and things are spiraling a little out of control. Soon, Ophelia must make a choice between clinging to the version of herself she’s always imagined or discovering who she really is, after all.

For fans of Bridgerton who'd like to welcome magic into their lives. Set in an alternative Edwardian England, this is a comedy of manners, manor houses, and hedge mazes: including a magic-infused murder mystery and a delightful queer romance. Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he's actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society, and he’ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his adversarial magical-society counterpart, as together they discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles.

It's 1838, and Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and her children make a voyage to a Mallorcan monastery, in an attempt to recover from the excesses of Paris. Looking on curiously is Blanca, the sparky ghost of a teenage girl whose life was cut short. She has discovered over the last three hundred years that her passion is women, and when George Sand arrives wearing a man's clothes, Blanca is in love. As winter sets in the neighbours grow suspicious, and George tries to hold herself and her family together, as Chopin writes despairing preludes on an untuned piano.

When twenty-nine-year-old Ingrid Yang finally completes her dissertation on canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou she never wants to hear about 'Chinese-y' things ever again. Finding a strange note in the Chou archives, she thinks she has found a way out of the academic labyrinth. But Ingrid is accidentally in deep, and the note leads to a huge discovery, one which upsets her life and the lives of those around her. With two trusty friends Ingrid sets off on a rollercoaster of campus protests and drug hallucinations, leading her to confront her relationships with white men and institutions – and herself.

It's 1907, and twelve-year-old Celestine is locked in the attic of a house by the sea. He has been forcibly removed from his home in Africa and is treated as a servant. He dreams of home and family, even as his mother's face, and his real name, begin to fade. Decades later a young orphan girl is banished to the same attic. Under the floorboards she finds mysterious artefacts, and on a wall there is a sentence etched in a language she does not recognise. What she does recognise though, is that she is not the first child to be held captive in the attic. This must-read novel is a tale of love, loss and family secrets that shines a light on the early Black British experience. 

Inspired by true events, Emma Stonex’s debut novel is a riveting mystery which will grip the reader, and a beautifully written exploration of love and grief. In Cornwall in 1972, three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from shore. The door is locked from the inside, and the clocks have stopped. What happened to those men, and to the women they left behind? 

What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales? Alex Claremont-Diaz is handsome and charismatic. There’s only one problem. When the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an altercation between Alex and Prince Henry, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family and state devise a plan for damage control. But what begins as a fake, Instagrammable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon they are hurtling into a secret romance that could derail the presidential campaign and upend two nations.

It's 1518 in Strasbourg, and in the intense summer heat a solitary woman starts to dance in the main square. She dances for days without rest, and is joined by hundreds of other women. The city authorities declare a state of emergency, and bring in musicians to play the devil out of the dancing women. Meanwhile pregnant Lisbet, who lives at the edge of the city, is tending to the family's bees. The dancing plague intensifies, as Lisbet is drawn into a net of secret passions and deceptions. Inspired by true events, this is a compelling story of superstition, transformative change and women pushed to their limits.

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022, in The Exhibitionist we meet the Hanrahan family. They are gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art. His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, sensitive Patrick, and insecure Jess. And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. But Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice. 

Raven Leilani is a funny and original new voice in fiction, and Luster is one of the best novels of 2021. Her razor-sharp yet surprisingly tender debut is an essential novel about what it means to be young now. Edie is messing up her life, and no one seems to care. Then she meets Eric, who is white, middle-aged and comes with a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. And as if life wasn’t hard enough, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s family.

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for eleven days. Only one person knows the truth of her disappearance – her husband's mistress. The world of Agatha Christie is glamourous parties full of socialites, and country house weekends. But the world of Nan O'Dea is very different. A tough London upbringing followed by a life in Ireland marred by tragedy, Nan has fought her way back to England – with her sights set on Agatha. Despite their differences, the two women will become the most unlikely of allies. And during the mysterious eleven days that Agatha goes missing, they will unravel a dark secret that only Nan holds the key to . . .

Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing, called Kristin Hannah's novel ‘powerful and compelling.’ Elsa Martinelli finally has everything she had wished for – a family, a home and a livelihood on a farm on the Great Plains. But when drought threatens her family and community, Elsa must decide whether to stay and fight for the land she loves or flee to California in search of a better life. 

On a crisp autumn day a woman travels to London, having left her post at a London girls school in murky circumstances. She starts to explore the land around her cottage on the isolated Hare House estate, walking the moors and woodland. And she begins to hear unsettling stories, of witches, strange clay figures, and young men scared out of their wits. Having made friends with her landlord Grant and his sister Cass, doubts begin to descend. And when a snowfall traps the inhabitants of the house together, the tension escalates . . .

The Ophelia Girls is a visceral exploration of desire, infatuation and the perils and power of being a young woman. In the summer of 1973, teenage Ruth and her four friends are obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings and each other. But by the end of the summer, tragedy has found them. Twenty-four years later, Ruth moves her family into her childhood home following the death of her father. Her daughter Maeve is in remission but when Stuart, an old friend of her parents comes to stay, Maeve finds that there is something about him that makes her feel more alive than all of her life-saving treatments put together. 

The sequel to bestselling author Kate Mosse’s epic historical fiction novel The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears is set in France in 1572, when the Wars of Religion have been raging for ten violent years. A royal wedding may mean peace at last, but when Minou Joubert receives a wedding invitation she has no idea that in the days following the marriage her own family will be ripped apart. 

Neema Shah’s impressive debut literary novel is set amidst the turmoil of the expulsion of Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin. When a devastating decree is announced which says all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in ninety days, Asha and Pran and Pran’s mother Jaya, must leave everything they’ve ever known for a new life in Britain. But as they try to rebuild their lives, a terrible secret hangs over them.

The highly anticipated third novel from million-copy bestselling author Jessie Burton is a powerful and deeply moving story about secrets, motherhood and friendship. In 1980 Elise meets Constance, a successful writer, and quickly falls under her spell, moving to LA to be with her. Three decades later, Rose Simmons is looking for answers about her mother, who disappeared after she was born. When she learns that reclusive novelist Constance Holden was the last person to see her mother alive, she is drawn to her door in search of a confession.

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. This opportunity is not without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful novel stole the hearts of readers the world over. Through it, we meet four visitors to the café and explore the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time?

Douglas Stuart’s blistering, Booker Prize-winning debut is set in a poverty-stricken Glasgow in the early 1980s. Agnes Bain has always dreamed of greater things, but when her husband abandons her she finds herself trapped in a decimated mining town with her three children, and descends deeper and deeper into drink. Her son Shuggie tries to help Agnes long after her other children have fled, but he too must abandon her to save himself. But he believes that if he tries his hardest he can be like other boys and escape this hopeless place.

One of the most influential fiction books of all time, 1984 is George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime led by The Party. The novel has a fascinating history, from the phenomenon it became on publication to the impact it has had on the English language.

Inspired by the real Vardø storm and the subsequent witch hunt, when a catastrophic storm wipes out almost the entirety of the male population of the island, the women who are left are forced to fend for themselves. Eighteen months later, the sinister new commissioner, Absolom Cornet, arrives with his young wife Ursa. Ursa sees independent women for the first time in her life, and she is drawn to Maren, the young woman who helps her navigate life in this harsh new world. But Absolom is convinced that the women’s behaviour is ungodly and he must bring them to heel by any means necessary.

From cosmologists who can control matter with their minds to magicians who can see inside your mind’s darkest recesses and spellbinding sorcerers, the members of the Alexandria Society hold the key to the world’s magical secrets. Just once a decade, six of the world’s best magicians travel to the mysterious Society’s London headquarters to begin a year-long test and fight it out for a chance to join the society and all of the power and prestige it brings. Six will begin, but only five will survive. Once you step inside the magical and mysterious world of The Atlas Six, the must-read TikTok sensation by Olivia Blake, you won’t want to return to reality.  

Jane Austen’s best-loved novel is an unforgettable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, the power of reason and, above all, the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions. A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice shows how the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and the aristocratic Mr Darcy must have their pride humbled and their prejudices dissolved before they can acknowledge their love for each other. With original illustrations by the celebrated Hugh Thomson, this Macmillan Collector’s Library edition also features bonus material by Jane Austen expert Sophie Reynolds. 

Introducing indomitable Detective Vera Stanhope, The Crow Trap is the first book in Ann Cleeves’ best-loved crime series. When Grace, Rachael and Anne are sent to a remote cottage in Northumberland’s stark and striking North Pennines to complete an environmental survey, each has their reasons for wanting to escape reality for a while. But when a series of unexplained deaths occur soon after the women arrive, it appears that each of them has a secret to hide; it’s up to Vera to unearth them and discover the truth about the newcomers’ tangled pasts.