Scribner The Light of Day Swift Graham

Small-time hustler Arthur Abdel Simpson ekes out a living in Athens by robbing gullible tourists. But when an attempted theft backfires, he finds himself out-smarted and blackmailed into driving a highly suspicious car across the border to Istanbul. Then the Turkish secret police get involved, and Simpson becomes embroiled in something far deeper, and more dangerous, than he could imagine. Featuring a heart-stopping jewel heist, this compulsive, morally complex thriller became the basis for the classic film Topkapi

The definitive post-Brexit novel, and long-awaited sequel to the bestselling A Very British Coup • 'Brexit Britain was a gloomy place. True, the Armageddon that some had prophesied had not occurred, but neither had economic miracle promised by the Brexiteers. Instead there had been a long, slow decline into insularity and irrelevance. The value of the pound had fallen steadily against the Euro, the dollar and the Yuan. The much vaunted increase in trade with the Commonwealth had not materialised. The Americans, too, were proving particularly obstreperous. Even now after a nearly decade of negotiations no significant agreements had been reached. At the UN there was talk of relieving the UK of its seat on the Security Council.' • In post-Brexit Britain, the country's international standing is the lowest it's ever been, and social tensions have reached boiling point

It is the summer of 1962 and sixteen-year-old Evie Epworth stands on the cusp of womanhood. But what kind of a woman will she be? • Up until now, Evie’s life has been nothing special: a patchwork of school, Guides, cows, lost mothers, lacrosse and village fetes. But, inspired by her idols (Charlotte Bronte, Shirley MacLaine, the Queen), she dreams of a world far away from rural East Yorkshire, a world of glamour lived under the bright lights of London (or Leeds). Standing in the way of these dreams, though, is Christine, Evie’s soon-to-be stepmother, a manipulative and money-grubbing schemer who is lining Evie up for a life of shampoo-and-set drudgery at the stinky local salon • Luckily Evie is not alone. With the help of a few friends, and the wise counsel of the two Adam Faith posters on her bedroom wall (‘brooding Adam’ and ‘sophisticated Adam’), Evie comes up with a plan to rescue her future from Christine’s pink and over-perfumed clutches

It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall • Nine-year-old Deqo has left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes • Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station • Filsan, a young female soldier, has moved from Mogadishu to suppress the rebellion growing in the north • And as the country is unravelled by a civil war that will shock the world, the fates of the three women are twisted irrevocably together • Intimate, frank, brimming with beauty and fierce love, The Orchard of Lost Souls is an unforgettable account of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary times

For centuries, the Owens family has been cursed in matters of love. When beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the sound of the deathwatch beetle, she knows that it is a signal. She has finally discovered the secret to breaking the curse, but time is running out. She has only seven days to live • Unaware of the family’s witchcraft lineage and all it entails, one of the young sisters of the new Owens generation has fallen in love. As the curse strikes once again, her love’s fate hangs in the balance, spurring three generations of Owens to venture back to where it all began and use their gifts to break the spell that has marked all their lives • But doing so threatens to destroy everything the family has fought so hard to protect. How much will they give up for the greatest gift of all?

Ten years ago, I began to explore the country on which I was supposed to be an authority • France is a country famous for its intellectuals, its philosophers and writers, its fashion, food and wine. And yet the notion of 'the French' as one nation is relatively recent and - historically speaking - quite misleading. In order to discover the 'real' past of France, Graham Robb realized it was not only necessary to go back in time, but also to go at a slower pace than modern life generally allows. The Discovery of France, illuminating, engrossing and full of surprises, is the result of Robb's 14,000 mile journey across France on a bicycle • Winner of both the Duff Cooper and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prizes, The Discovery of France is a modern non-fiction classic, a literary exploration of a remarkable nation

Discover the classic, Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel from one of India's finest ever writers • To the family living in the shabby, dusty house in Delhi, Tara's visit brings a sharp reminder of life outside tradition. For Bim, coping endlessly with their problems, there is a renewal of the old jealousies for, unlike her sister, she has failed to escape • Looking at both the cruelty and the beauty of family life and the harshness of India's modern history, Clear Light of Day brilliantly evokes the painful process of confronting and healing old wounds

One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his marriage unravelling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London home. He struggles to place the dishevelled figure carrying a backpack, until he recognizes a friend from his student days, a brilliant man who disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced to make a confession of unsettling power • Theirs is the age-old story of the bond between two men and the betrayal of one by the other. As the friends begin to talk, and as their room becomes a world, a journey begins that is by turns exhilarating, shocking, intimate and strange. Set against the breaking of nations and beneath the clouds of economic crisis, and moving between Kabul, New York, Oxford, London and Islamabad, In the Light of What We Know tells the story of people wrestling with unshakeable legacies of class and culture, and pushes at the great questions of love, origins, science, faith and war

May 1944: High above the mountains of occupied Slovenia an aeroplane drops three British parachutists – brash MP Major Jack Farwell, radio operator Sid Dixon, and young academic Lieutenant Tom Freedman • Greeted upon arrival by a group of Partisans, the men are led off into the countryside. Despite the distant crackle of gunfire, the war feels a long way off for Tom. The Partisans, too, are not what he was expecting – courageous, kind, and alluring, especially Jovan, their commander, and the hauntingly beautiful Marija • As the enemy’s net begins to tighten, they find evidence of massacres, of a dark and terrible band of men pursuing them. As they stumble their way towards a final, tragic battle, so the relationships within the group begin to fray, with Tom finding himself forced to face up to his deepest, most secret desires

It is December in Belfast, Christmas is approaching and three sets of people are about to make their way to Amsterdam • Alan, a university art teacher, goes on a pilgrimage to the city of his youth with troubled teenage son Jack; middle-aged couple Marion and Richard take a break from running their garden centre to celebrate Marion's birthday; and Karen, a single mother struggling to make ends meet, joins her daughter's hen party • As these people brush against each other in the squares, museums and parks of Amsterdam, their lives are transfigured as they encounter the complexities of love in a city that challenges what has gone before

The first novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a compelling and provocative story of love and how we suffer for it • Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible-and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence • When young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love-before an amazed Errol's eyes. As he follows their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the sidelines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through miserable dependence