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An outrageous, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the trading game and then blew it all wide open 'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around? Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger. Then he won a competition run by a bank: 'The Trading Game'. The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day. Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all. But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves. Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything?

The beloved Australian classic, published in a stunning Penguin Clothbound Classics edition for the first time Miles Franklin's debut novel follows the vivacious and rebellious sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn - closely modelled on Franklin herself - as she fights to break free of restrictive bush life. Growing up on her parents' outback farm, Sybylla is desperate to read, write, sing and achieve great things. Yet her aspirations for a 'brilliant career' are persistently thwarted, first by the arduous demands of rural family life, and later by the shackles of a proposed conventional marriage to the wealthy Harold Beecham. With only her brilliant, conflicted mind to guide her, Sybylla is forced to define a life on her own terms. My Brilliant Career is acclaimed for capturing the spirit of Australia at the turn of the twentieth century. The struggles of its fiery, precocious protagonist shine a light on the emergent women's rights and suffrage movement during this period, and memorably evoke the intensity of youth.

Three women. One Killer. Talking to strangers has never been more dangerous... When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined this will be the big break she so desperately needs. Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers on the beach under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers and the creeps... While the police appear to be focusing on local suspects, Kiki sets out to write the definitive piece on one woman's fatal search for love. But she will soon learn that the search for truth can be just as deadly... A phenomenal, unputdownable standalone thriller from the author of the record-breaking Sunday Times bestseller and Richard & Judy Book Club pick The Widow.

A stunning new edition of one of the most iconic fictional debuts of all time, to mark the 25th anniversary of this modern classic - perfect for any Zadie Smith fan! 'What's past is prologue…' First published in the year 2000, Zadie Smith's White Teeth was one of the most celebrated novels of the new millennium. Adored by critics and readers alike, it remains a perennial bestseller, which still delights with the audacity of its scope and vision, its fresh-minted style, and the wit and warmth of its voice. Funny, generous and big-hearted, it deals - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle. A life affirming, riotous must-read of a book, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award.

Haunting and powerfully resonant... this is a story not just of remarkable individuals, but also a tribute to the wider indomitability of the human spirit at the darkest moment in European history' - Sinclair McKay, bestselling author of Berlin and DresdenZippi Spitzer and David Wisnia’s story began when they first locked eyes across the work floor. It was the start of a romance that could have unfolded anywhere if it weren’t for one key difference: Zippi and David were prisoners in history’s most infamous death camp. David and Zippi defied the odds by surviving for years beneath the ash-choked skies of Auschwitz. Shielded by the protection of their fellow inmates, saved on occasion by their own ingenuity and twists of fate, their love affair reminded them that their old world still existed – a world of possibilities, of freedom and desire. As the war’s end drew near, little did they know just how far their lives would diverge, and how many years would pass before they would meet again. An unbelievable true story of romance, sacrifice, loss, and resilience, Lovers in Auschwitz chronicles the lives of two young people ensnared in the Nazis’ horrific creation, who discovered hope and humanity in history’s darkest hour.

Her life is so full, so why is she hungry? For Piglet – an unshakable childhood nickname – getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss – effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding... But if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is. Thirteen days before they are due to be married, Kit reveals an awful truth, cracking the façade Piglet has created. It has the power to strip her of the life she has so carefully built, so smugly shared. To do something about it would be to self-destruct. But what will it cost her to do nothing? As the hours count down to their wedding, Piglet is torn between a growing appetite and the desire to follow the recipe, follow the rules. Surely, with her husband, she could be herself again. Wouldn’t it be a waste for everything to curdle now? Piglet is a searing, unforgettable and original debut which is taking readers by storm.

Vladimir Nabokov's early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world a phantom. As he confronts the fiery, swift-swooping Italian Grandmaster Turati, he brings into play his carefully devised defence. Making masterly play of metaphor and imagery, The Defense is the book that, of his early works, Nabokov felt 'contains and diffuses the greatest warmth'.

Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all? 1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles. She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache of family letters which hold secrets she can never allow to be revealed. As Cassandra recalls her youth and her relationship with her brilliant yet complex sister, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history, and her own. And she faces a stark choice: should she act to protect Jane's reputation, or leave the contents of the letters to go unguarded into posterity? Based on a literary mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics, Miss Austen is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the loves and lives of Cassandra and Jane Austen.

World War One, and as shells fall in Northern France, a Canadian nurse searches for her brother believed dead in the trenches. January 1918. Laura Iven has been discharged from her nurse duties and sent back to Halifax, Canada. Now home, she receives word of her brother's death on the fields of Passchendaele. Believing he is still alive, and determined to find him, Laura returns to France as a volunteer for a hospital near the front line of battle. She soon hears whispers of ghosts, and a man known to many as the fiddler whose music allows soldiers to forget the traumas of war. Could her brother’s disappearance have anything to do with him?November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped underground with an enemy soldier. Against all odds, the two men manage to dig themselves out and, having saved each other’s lives, form an intense bond of friendship.

Mia Sokolov, Mafia heiress and selective mute, holds no prisoners. But when she gives Landon King a taste of his own medicine, she quickly learns that some moves come with dangerous consequences. Landon King is a genius artist, a posh rich boy, and now obsessed with Mia and the dark secret she’s hiding. Despite Landon’s psychotic tendencies that push Mia to the edge, his obsession pulls them closer together in ways neither expected. But as Landon gets nearer to the truth about Mia’s past, so do the horrors that haunt her. She may have learnt to trust him. But when it all comes crashing down, will he protect or ruin her? This book is a dark unconventional romance and contains themes that aren't to everyone's liking. Please check the author's note for content warnings before reading.

Pumkin Patterson dreams of a life beyond her Jamaican hometown. But what we dream of and where we belong aren't always the same thing… Eleven-year-old Pumpin knows a few things: That her mother has never loved her That Aunt Sophie does That baking makes everything better And France is a long way from her Jamaican home What Pumkin doesn't know is: What will happen when Aunt Sophie leaves for France How far a mother can go to hurt a daughter Why a secret can rot a family That her cakes might just help save her life Whatever happens, Pumkin knows she needs someone to love her. But she just doesn't know who . . .

The Explosive New Thriller from the Author of the International Bestseller, The Snow Girl - Soon to Be a Major Netflix Series! When investigative journalist Miren Triggs is sent a photo of a missing girl, it's the first promising lead in a decade long cold case that continues to haunt her family. Miren is instantly intrigued by this new clue. Could it be the first step in finding the missing girl - and could Miren be the one to do it? Before she has a chance to follow the trail, though, she's called to report on a shocking murder. A crucified body has been found in the suburbs of Queens. Miren is torn between the crimes of past and present. But could it be possible these cases are linked? And in searching for the truth, is Miren putting herself in the sights of a killer?

Whose life do you want? Elena and her partner Adam are house-sitting in Wimbledon and find themselves instantly seduced by their upscale surroundings and their enigmatic new neighbours Sophia and Finn. When Sophia proposes a wicked game to Elena whereby they will swap partners in secret, it's not long before Elena starts to experience a sexual awakening that blossoms into an illicit love affair. But Sophia's plans are far more complex and dangerous than Elena could ever have imagined… How far will she go to fulfil her desires?

Rosie Maxwell has a plan: move to New York, get her creative writing degree from NYU, become a bestselling romance writer. But that plan is derailed when she ends up in class with her archnemesis and ex-crush, Aiden Huntington, an obnoxious, surly, unreasonably gorgeous literary fiction writer who has no patience for romance – or for Rosie. Exhausted by Rosie and Aiden’s constant verbal sparring, their professor gives them an ultimatum: leave her class, or cowrite a novel that blends their respective genres. As Rosie and Aiden collaborate on their (accidentally steamy) novel, they try to put their differences aside. Could their manuscript-in-progress be just the outlet they need to confess their feelings – and explore their mutual attraction? But a potentially career-changing opportunity soon reignites the flames of their old rivalry. Rosie and Aiden’s once-in-a-lifetime love story is once again at risk of being shelved – unless they can find a way to end the book on their own terms . . .

Raised in a small village near the spirit-wood, Liska Radost knows that Magic is monstrous, and its practitioners, monsters. After Liska unleashes her own powers with devastating consequences, she is caught by the demon warden of the wood - the Leszy - who offers her a bargain: one year of servitude in exchange for a wish. Whisked away to his crumbling manor, Liska makes an unsettling discovery: she is not the first person to strike this bargain and all of her predecessors have mysteriously vanished. If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her host's spool of secrets and face the ghosts of his past. Those who enter the wood do not always return . . .

What is the key to a good life? It is a question that preoccupies us all and one that the longest and most successful study of happiness ever conducted strives to answer. In this groundbreaking book, directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, bring together over 80 years of research to reveal the true components of a happy, fulfilled life. The Good Life makes clear that what truly makes a rich and happy life is not synonymous with financial success and achievement, but is rather the result of our relationships. This remarkable work brings together scientific precision, traditional wisdom, incredible real-life stories and actionable insights to prove once and for all that our own wellbeing and ability to flourish is absolutely within our control.