Bloomsbury Paperbacks imprint: 99 books

A collection of interwoven stories, this is a portrait of two worlds - a small Alpine village bound to the earth and by tradition, and the restless, future-driven culture that will invade it - at their moment of collision. The instrument of entrapment is love. Lives are lost and hearts broken.

Didn't anyone tell you that divas don't knit? Knit-one... Jo Mackenzie needs a new start and jumps at the chance to take over her grandmother's wool shop in a small seaside town. Purl-one... But it's not going to be easy with two young sons to cope with, an A-list actress...

Each story in this series offers a poignant glimpse of family life – the ties we cling to; the ties we try to sever; and the ties that make us who we are. Told from a myriad of perspectives, from a dazzling array of some of the finest short story writers of our generation (including Jhumpa Lahiri,...

Cape Town, 1899. Diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes believes that he has only months to live, and that the only thing that can save him is the sound of English birdsong. He recruits Francis Wills to transport 200 birds to Cape Town, but on arrival the birds refuse to sing. This is but the first obstacle for Wills, who finds himself irresistibly drawn to intrigue, in a country on the brink of war.

Only since Victorian times has it been standard practice for mothers and fathers to send their babies to sleep alone, away from the parental bed - often in another room. This book reveals how babies who sleep with their parents benefit by getting virtually a full night's sleep.;The author explains...

Most people would think Annie Baker had it all: an idyllic life in the country and a fabulous job as a film producer. And so would she, if it weren't for the men in her life. Her six-year-old son Charlie gets traumatised if she buys the wrong kind of sausages. Her tempestuous boss Barney is a Great...

Is it better to forgive and forget, or should you just get even?  Is it possible to live in the country and not lose your mind completely?  Do chickens really make good pets? And what exactly is a hardy perennial? Alice Mayhew, part-time architect and full-time mother to Alfie, is to gardening...

Venetia Summers appears to lead a fairy-tale rural existence with her husband and two sons in her tumbledown Norfolk cottage. But when her husband leaves her for his masseuse, not even the arrival of a splendid baby daughter can make up for the sense of loss she feels for her newly lopsided family....

Maja was five years old when her black Cuban family emigrated from the Caribbean to London, leaving her with one complete memory: a woman singing - in a voice both eerie and enthralling - at their farewell party. Now, almost twenty years later, Maja herself is a singer, pregnant and haunted by what she calls 'her Cuba'.

Recently separated Phil Ockerman falls hard for Bertha Strunk at a tango lesson in Clerkenwell. Bertha also bears a strong resemblance to the seventeenth-century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi (with whom Phil happens to be obsessed), to the point where Phil is no longer sure which is...

A man is haunted by the memory of his mother with a rope round her neck. It is the American War of Independence, and having defied the British forces occupying New York she must pay for her revolutionary activities. But fifty years on her son harbours a festering guilt for his inadvertent part in...

It is 1953 in Canvey Island. Len and Violet are at a dance. Violet's husband George sits and watches them sway and glide across the dance floor, his mind far away, trapped by a war that ended nearly ten years ago. Meanwhile, at home, a storm rages and Len's wife Lily and his young son Martin fight...

From the Oscar-nominated screenplay writer of the British cult classic Withnail & I comes a black comedy that takes us into the mind of an eccentric psychotic and etches at the heart of fear itself.

When Carl moves into Ben and Olly's street, things instantly get more exciting. His games are strange, unpredictable, and thrillingly violent. But why is he so fearless? Why are they never allowed into his house? And why does it begin to feel as if he is taking control of their lives? It isn't...