In rural Somerset, in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. From the wounded headmaster in the library, unable to help his trapped pupils and staff, to teenage Hannah in love for the first time, to the parents gathering, desperate for news, to the 16 year old Syrian refugee trying to rescue his little brother, to the police psychologist who must identify the gunmen, to the students taking refuge in the school theatre, all experience the most intense hours of their lives, where evil and terror are met by courage, love and redemption.

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.

A stand-up with writer's block embarks upon his last gig as a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator. Reflecting on a childhood holiday, a father is faced with the limit to which he can keep his daughters safe. These characters search without knowing what they seek. At the heart of this work is Eva, whom we meet in childhood, locked in an enigmatic relationship with her mother; as a woman stumbling from youth into middle age; and in later life as the mother to a daughter of her own. Each story lays bare the emotional and psychic damage of life, love and abandonment.

What is the moment, that exact moment when everything changes and the friends you have been become the lovers you might be? Soulmates from birth Karim and Raheen finish each other's sentences, speak in anagrams, and lie spine to spine as children. They are irrevocably bound to each other and to Karachi, Pakistan. It beats in their hearts - violent, polluted, corrupt, vibrant, brave, and ultimately, home. However, Raheen is fiercely loyal and naively blinkered and she resents Karim's need to map their city, his need to name its streets and to expand the privileged world they know.

While the celebrated opera singer Terri Ivory is in hospital, facing what could be the end of her career, her daughter Julie stumbles upon a long-buried secret that forces her to question her past and her place in her mother’s affection. In their empty house that no longer seems like a home, mother and daughter try to keep their closeness to each other and to the men they love.

Tom Connolly's dazzling second novel is a funny, turbulent and heartfelt study of male relationships and a glorious love letter to the city of New York. It is April in Manhattan, and the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen-year-old Finn has just arrived in the city with his irrepressible and volatile girlfriend, Dilly, determined to even the score with his older brother, Jack, for abandoning him in the UK in the aftermath of their parents' deaths.

How does the world see you? Nine characters illuminate an unknowable woman. From the school art teacher who sees a spark of talent in her, to the man whose fleeting passion with her could change his life, to the female student whose friendship turns into love. Deeply affecting and luminous, this kaleidoscopic novella explores the nature of intimacy and how each connection you make forms who you are. 

A psychological thriller set in Tuscany. Doctor Abby Fenton has a rewarding career, a loving family, an enviable lifestyle, and a secret that could destroy everything. When human remains are discovered in the grounds of an idyllic Tuscan holiday home she is forced to confront the memories she has suppressed until now and relive the summer she spent at the villa in 1992. A summer that ended in tragedy. The nearer she gets to the truth the closer she comes to losing her sanity. In order to hold onto the people she loves most, she must make sure they never discover what she did.

When Anjali finds out that Jack, her boyfriend of 10 years, has been cheating on her, it throws her world into chaos. Heartbroken, she fills the emptiness by embarking on a series of flings that her traditional Sri Lankan mother would (mostly) disapprove of. Yet she can no longer avoid her mother or Shanthi, her distant older sister. And so begins her real journey, one that will make Anjali confront a past she's been desperate to forget. But maybe the past can also be the bridge to her future....

If families are like solar systems - bodies that orbit in time around one another, sometimes close and sometimes far away - what is the force that moves them? And what are the consequences when one planet tugs others off course? Lotte is an astronomer who spends her nights peering into deep space rather than looking too closely at herself. Returning to her hometown after years abroad, and reeling from a devastating diagnosis, she finds that much has changed. Lotte’s father has remarried, and she’s estranged from her former best friend, Eve. 

In a secret, subterranean world beneath the prairie of the Old West, a homesteader risks her life in search of a safe haven. A workman in Andrew Carnegie's steel mills is turned into a medical oddity by the brutal power of the furnaces. A young woman created through genetic manipulation is destroyed by the same force that gave her life. With her distinctive blend of magical realism, science, and poetic prose, Anjali Sachdeva demonstrates a preternatural ability to laser in on our fears, our hopes, and our longings in order to point out intrinsic truths about society and humanity.

Spanning four centuries, The Long Gaze Back features 22 new stories by some of the most talented Irish women writers working today. Taken together, the collected works of these writers reveal an enrapturing, unnerving, and piercingly beautiful mosaic of a lively literary landscape. The anthology presents an inclusive and celebratory portrait of the high calibre of contemporary literature in Ireland. These stories run the gamut from heartbreaking to humorous, but each leaves a lasting impression. They chart the passions, obligations, trials and tribulations of a variety of vividly drawn characters with unflinching honesty and relentless compassion. These are stories to savour.

Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.

Janice Galloway redefined contemporary Scottish fiction with the extraordinary The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, first published in 1989, going on to become a towering presence in British literature, winning the McVitie's Prize, the EM Forster Award, the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award and the SMIT Non-fiction Book of the Year. She is a novelist, short story writer, memoiriere, librettist, essayist and poet.

This is a story about a brother and a sister. It's a story about childhood and growing up, friendships and families, triumph and tragedy, and everything in between. More than anything, it's a story about love in all its forms.