Picador Maggsie McNaughton's Second Chance Maynard Frances

Funny, heart-warming and ultimately triumphant, The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard is a story for anyone who doesn't quite fit in - and for everyone who chooses not to. Perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine • Elvira Carr is twenty-seven, neuro-atypical, and has never lived alone. But her father - who she suspects was in the secret service - is dead, and when her mother has a stroke and is taken into care, Elvira suddenly finds herself home alone. In order to cope, Elvira - who knows a lot about biscuits and supermarkets, but not much about life - develops Seven Rules for interacting with others. Not even her rules can help her, however, when she's faced with solving a mystery she didn't know existed

It's never too late to change the habits of a lifetime • Evelyn Pringle isn't the sort to make rash decisions. Or any decisions, really – she's always left that sort of thing up to her husband. But he's been found dead, wearing his best suit, with a diamond ring in his pocket that doesn't fit her. When Evelyn finds a letter addressed to a woman on the Isle of Wight, she decides to deliver it. By hand • So begins a very unusual holiday, and an adventure no one could have predicted – least of all Evelyn herself. With the help of some unexpected new friends, and a little effort on her part, Evelyn discovers that it's never too late to have a second chance at life and forge friendships that are well-worth living for • The Second Chance Holiday Club is a heartwarming and funny later-life uplit for fans of Judy Leigh, Hazel Prior and Maddie Please

In life and love, it's never too late for a second chance • As editor-in-chief of New York's leading fashion magazine, Fiona Monaghan was utterly content with her life, jetting back and forth between Manhattan and Europe-until the day John Anderson strolled into her office.A widower with two daughters, John was as conservative as Fiona was freewheeling, and was both amused and appalled by her world of high-strung designers, anorexic models, and Sir Winston, her snoring bulldog.But after Fiona impulsively invited John to the Paris couture shows, somewhere between the magic of the catwalk and the stroll along the Seine, she let him into her heart • Within weeks of their return to New York, John was making friends with Sir Winston - and Fiona was making room in her closets

This is a brilliant collection of six short stories and a novella, set in the same universe as Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. The author presents us with a compelling mix of human dilemmas, imagined technologies and extraordinary new cultures • Among others, this collection includes Sonnie's Edge - featuring contests to the death between constructed monsters. But one has a special advantage . . . We also visit an abandoned alien spacecraft in Escape Route. However, is it really as empty as it seems? And in the title novella, A Second Chance at Eden, a habitat creator is murdered. But nobody can identify the perpetrator - or the motive • This is a must-have collection from a writer at the top of his game

If you pitched a movie about a recently-widowed woman in her seventies who reconnects with a man she dated in college, leading to an exchange of emails and the pair falling in love fifty years after their first date, the studio exec would say it's too far-fetched. Yet that's just what happened to Delia Ephron, writer, bestselling novelist and screenwriter of You've Got Mail • When Delia's beloved first husband Jerry died of cancer in 2015, after thirty-three years of marriage, she struggled without him. Focusing on the day-to-day, she decided to make one small move forward and cancel Jerry's dedicated landline. This spiralled into days of frustration, prompting Delia to turn to words to process her grief and bewilderment • Her New York Times piece about the woes of customer service caught the eye of Peter, who emailed to commiserate

Если вы любите Джаспера Ффорда или Бена Аароновича, вы не сможете устоять перед Джоди Тейлор • История происходит вокруг вас. А иногда и с вами • Я могла бы стать специалистом по обезвреживанию бомб, или добровольцем марсианской миссии, или пожарным, кем-нибудь безопасным и разумным. Но нет, я должна была стать историком • Все начиналось хорошо. Успешное путешествие в Кембридж 17-го века, чтобы встретиться с Исааком Ньютоном, и еще одно — чтобы стать свидетелем исторических событий у Врат Скорби. Пока все хорошо. Но затем произошел долгожданный скачок к Троянской войне, который изменил все. И для Макс уже никогда ничего не будет по-прежнему • В то время как вокруг нее разворачивается кровопролитная битва при Азенкуре, Макс рискует всем в последней отчаянной авантюре, чтобы спасти жизнь, и узнает истинное значение «второго шанса»

Following the astonishing Plainsong, Eventide is Kent Haruf's second novel set in his imaginary landscape of Holt, Colorado • Harold and Raymond McPheron are finally waving goodbye to their beloved Victoria, a young mother with a first chance at an education. Betty and Luther Wallace are struggling to keep their heads above water and their children out of care, and in the same town young friends Dena and DJ find solace away from their own troubled homes. As these stories unfold and entwine, tragedy strikes the McPheron household and life is thrown irrevocably off course • Heart-breaking yet hopeful, Kent Haruf's Eventide is an unflinching depiction of the hardships of small-town life, lit up by astonishing moments of redemption

The Pyramid of Mud is the twenty-second Montalbano mystery from Italy's finest crime writer, Andrea Camilleri • It's been raining for days in Vigata, and the persistent downpours have led to violent floods overwhelming the Inspector's beloved hometown, sweeping across the land and leaving only a sea of mud behind. It is on one of these endless grey days that a man - a Mr Giuglu Nicotra - is found dead, his body discovered in a large sewage tunnel, half naked and with a bullet in his back • The investigation is slow and slippery to start with, but when Montalbano realizes that every clue he uncovers and every person he interviews is leading to the same place - the world of public spending and, with it, the Mafia - the case begins to pick up pace

Set in Sicily, The Terracotta Dog is the second novel in the humorous Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri • After a cloak and dagger exchange with an ageing Mafioso, Inspector Montalbano is left haunted by the man's dying words, which lead him to a mountainside just west of Vigata where he unearths two young lovers, dead fifty years and still embracing, watched over by a life-size terracotta dog • Heedless of personal danger, Montalbano's drive to solve this old crime forces him on a journey through Sicily's World War II history and to the dark heart of one family…

Grass for His Pillow is the second novel in Lian Hearn's astonishingly beautiful series inspired by feudal Japan, Tales of the Otori • In the ancient Oriental lands of the Otori, amidst a time of violent war, famine and treacherous alliances, the fate of the young lovers Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede hangs in the balance • Takeo, heir to the great Otori clan, has pledged his life to the secret Tribe. His supernatural skills of virtual invisibility and acute hearing make him their most deadly assassin. But he must deny the solemn oath of vengeance he made, his adopted birthright of wealth, land and power - and his love for Kaede. If he does not devote himself entirely to the brutal ways of the Tribe, they will kill him. Whichever path he chooses, it will lead to hardship and sacrifice in the bitter winter of the high mountains, and test him to the limits of his being

Clive James was one of our finest critics and best-loved cultural voices. He was also a prize-winning poet. Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, he has been a dedicated student. In fact, for him, poetry was nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime, and in this book Poetry Notebook, he presents a distillation of everything he learned about the art form that matters to him most • With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, James explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory. A committed formalist and an astute commentator, he offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets (from Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life - just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time! Whether discussing technical details of metaphorical creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating

In this provocative, bitingly funny debut collection, people attempt to use technology to escape their uncontrollable feelings of grief, rage or despair, only to reveal their most flawed and human selves • An architect draws questionable inspiration from her daughter's birth defect. A content moderator for 'the world's biggest search engine', who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child • In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection