General Fiction

Robbie is an ordinary Dublin boy until he hurts his head in an accident on St Patrick's Day. His injury changes everything. When he returns to conciousness, Robbie believes that God has given him the power to perform miracles. At first he contents himself with winning the spot-the-ball competition in the newspaper, but when he sent to hospital for 'observation' he decides to cure the other boys of their various ailments. Then tragedy strikes closer to home and Robbie needs all his powers to keep his world intact.

It is 1875 and Ann Eliza Young, nineteenth wife of the second Prophet of the Mormon Church, battles for freedom from her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. Richard & Judy Bookclub

Monty Brogan starts a seven-year prison sentence for dealing drugs tomorrow. As he re-evaluates his life in the remaining 24 hours of his freedom, he knows one thing for sure; after he goes in, he will never be the same. X rated, contains offensive language.

Everything is falling to pieces for Francesca Thayer. Her relationship collapses and she can't possibly manage the mortgage alone, so she is forced to do the one thing she never imagined she would: she advertises for lodgers. But soon she finds that her tenants have become the most important people in her life and Francesca discovers that she might be able to open her heart again after all...

The complete BBC radio adaptations of Alexander McCall's bestselling series Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City 44 Scotland Street started life as a serial in The Scotsman. It was a huge hit and was soon novelised adapted on stage and dramatised for BBC Radio 4.

Collected here are all five radio series in which we follow the interconnected lives of the residents of adjoining flats in a tenement in Edinburgh's Georgian New Town. There's Pat a young tenant who arrives at 44 Scotland Street to flat-share with handsome surveyor Bruce (a man with more of an eye for the ladies than for a sound property); Matthew setting up the Something Special Gallery with little knowledge of art; and child prodigy Bertie Pollock who wants the life of an ordinary little boy but instead has psychotherapy yoga and Italian conversation lessons. And at the local cafA owner Big Lou is looking for love - but seems doomed to romantic disappointment... Their chance day-to-day criss-crossings quirky foibles and comic adventures are all observed by Number 44's longest-term resident anthropologist Domenica MacDonald her painter friend Angus Lordie - and Angus' dog Cyril the only canine in Scotland with a gold tooth.

Full of charm humour and empathy these delightful dramas star Carol Ann Crawford and Crawford Logan with a superb cast including James Mackenzie Samuel Keefe Belle Jones and Anita Vettesse. Also included is an edition of Radio 4's Bookclub in which Alexander McCall Smith talks about his novel 44 Scotland Street with James Naughtie and readers.

The story revolves around the comings and goings at No. 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in Edinburgh. Immediately recognisable are the Edinburgh chartered surveyor, stalwart of the Conservative Association, who dreams of membership of Scotland's most exclusive golf club. We have the pushy Stockbridge mother, and her prodigiously talented five-year-old son, who is making good progress with the saxophone and with his Italian. Then there is Domenica Macdonald who is that type of Edinburgh lady who sees herself as a citizen of a broader intellectual world.

In McCall Smith's hands such characters retain charm and novelty, simultaneously arousing both mirth and empathy. 44 Scotland Street is vintage McCall Smith, tackling issues of trust and honesty, snobbery and hypocrisy, love and loss, but all with great lightness of touch. Clever, elegant and funny, this is a novel that provides huge entertainment but which is underpinned by the moral dilemmas of everyday life and the characters' struggles to resolve them.  Book 1 of series.

When Edie Budd arrives at a shabby West London boarding house in October 1958, carrying nothing except a broken suitcase and an envelope full of cash, it's clear she's hiding a terrible secret. And she's not the only one; the other women of 73 Dove Street have secrets of their own . . . Tommie, who lives on the second floor, waits on the eccentric Mrs Vee by day. After dark, she harbours an addiction to seedy Soho nightlife - and a man she can't quit.

Phyllis, 73 Dove Street's formidable landlady, has set fire to her husband's belongings after discovering a heart-breaking betrayal - yet her fierce bravado hides a past she doesn't want to talk about. At first, the three women keep to themselves. But as Edie's past catches up with her, Tommie becomes caught in her web of lies - forcing her to make a decision that will change everything . . .

Tyler Caskey has grown to love his home and congregation in Maine. After suffering a terrible loss he finds it hard to be the person he once was, and his leadership is questioned. A startling discovery will test the humanity of Tyler and his congregation.

The body of Diana Duprey is found floating face down in her swimming pool. When detective Huck Berlin is brought in to investigate it soon becomes clear that she was murdered. Richard & Judy Bookclub

Will is single and doesn't want children but when he meets Marcus, aged 12, they both discover they can benefit from their friendship. Strong language.

Ted Mundy, the son of a British soldier, first met Sasha, the refugee son of an East German pastor, when they were students in Berlin. Their paths crossed as espionage operatives in the Cold War era, and they finally meet again in today's world of terrorism. X rated, contains offensive language and graphic violence.

Sequel to: 'Mystical Paths' (4076). When Charles Ashworth, the Bishop of Starbridge, is confronted with a catastrophe, which tears his life apart he has to fight a complete breakdown and rebuild his private and professional life.

Page Clarke is a good mother to seven-year-old Andy and fifteen-year-old Allyson. Page's husband Brad is frequently away on business trips, but overall Page feels blessed with her comfortable life in her suburban San Francisco home. Then one Saturday night everything falls apart as, in an instant, the lives of five families are changed forever.

When impulsive, thirty-something Fleur accidentally finds herself training for the London Marathon she hopes it will lend her life some focus. But she suddenly finds herself in prison, as her haphazard life is ripped apart.

For years after the death of Christ, Mary Magdalene lived tranquilly trying to forget the young man she met when she was twenty. The young man from Nazareth who changed her life irrevocably and chose a cruel death rather than life with her.

Sequel to 'An Act of Treachery' (6366). Klaus-Pierre, the love child of a French woman and a German officer, lives with hostility from his French family. When his father's family learn of his existence he goes to live in Germany, where he is loved and happy. Eventually he tries to make his own peace with his French family.

Written in 1938, this is a prophetic novel about the effects of Naziism. Through a series of letters it charts the disintegration of a friendship between an American Jew and his German business partner.

Conflicting loyalties come to the fore when Isabel finds herself attracted to her new boss. As lust turns to love, and love to obsession the question is - can an adulterous wife be a good mother? X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

Carla is visiting Zanzibar again after 40 years to revive memories of a long-past, never-spoken of love. Francesca is there to escape from a relationship in London. The two women become friends and gradually find what they are looking for. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

Set in tranquil Umbria, Italy, a story of betrayal and gain amongst people with their own reasons for settling in the neighbourhood.

It is twenty years since Julius died, but his last heroic action still affects the lives of his widow Esme, and his two daughters, Emma and Cressida.

In 1964, an Australian girl is eager to find the wreckage of the bomber in which her father died when it crashed in Italy in 1944. She employs Jack Kirby who also served in Italy. He is keen to find Francesca, the Partisan leader he fell in love with. What they uncover is more complex and dangerous than they imagined.

On May 3rd, 1942, Alma Braithwaite and her fellow boarders at Goldwyn's school huddle in an air-raid shelter as bombs rain down on Exeter. When the girls emerge, the school is in ruins. Twenty-one years on, Alma teaches music at her old school. The arrival of a new student takes Alma back to that summer and the long shadow it cast on her life.

Alice boards a train at King's Cross heading home to her family in Scotland. Hours later she steps into traffic on a busy London road. As she lies in a coma we travel through her memories to discover what drove her to this desperate act.

After the breakdown of a turbulent relationship, Frank moves from Canberra to a shack on the east coast once owned by his grandparents. He wants to put his violent past and bad memories of his father behind him, but he soon finds it is not easy to let go of the past.

A school is on fire. Grace knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her. Afterwards, Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her family from the person who's still intent on destroying them.

Tessa and Becky, who have been friends since the beginning of their City careers, face many choices in their lives, not least the choice presented by biology - children.

When Lord Lucan walks into psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf's Paris office, there is one problem: she already has a patient who says he's Lucan, the fugitive murderer who bludgeoned his children's nanny in a botched attempt to kill his wife. As Dr Wolf sets about deciding which of her patients, if either, is the real Lucan, she finds herself in a fierce battle of wills and an exciting chase across Europe. For someone is deceiving someone, and it may be the good doctor, who, despite her unorthodox therapeutic method (she talks mainly about her own life), has a sinister past, too.

This is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, who travels to Tangiers and Egypt where he has a fateful encounter with the Alchemist.

Colleagues and family regard Colin as a model citizen who visits his mother to care for her. They don't know about his secret life, but due to a problem insurance policy his two lives are set to collide and there is nothing Colin can do to stop them.

It is the 1950s and as the Duchy, the Cazalets’ beloved matriarch, dies, she takes with her the last remnants of a disappearing world – of houses with servants, of class and tradition – in which the Cazalets have thrived. Only one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same again.  Book 5 of series.

Through the eyes of the narrator, a visiting Spanish lecturer, we see the world of an Oxford college, which is politeness and light on the surface, but hides a poisonous and immoral underbelly.

When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they must flee the country. But England is not the safe-haven they think it to be and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart...

1946. Three years after a cataclysmic event which tore their lives apart, a mother and daughter flee Poland for Paris, shame, and fear at their heels, not knowing how hard it is to escape your past.

Nearly eighty years later, Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far cry from her traumatic childhood. When a couple moves into the flat below her in her London mansion block, it should be nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. However, the appearance of their nine-year-old son Henry brings back memories she would rather forget.

Faced with a choice between her own safety and his, Gretel is taken back to a similar crossroads she encountered long ago. Back then, her complicity dishonoured her life, but to interfere now could risk revealing the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting.

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a miniature version of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorise it. But when the Nazis invade, they flee with a dangerous secret to St Malo. Werner is a German orphan destined to labour in the mines, until he discovers a knack for engineering. As Europe is engulfed by war their lives collide unpredictably.

A gentle comedy drama about the reunion of three old school friends When unemployed teacher Patrick and his wife, high-flying professional Helen, move back to the town where Patrick grew up, they thought life would be simpler. But Patrick's hazy and fond memories of his schooldays are brought back into sharp relief once he's surrounded by the people and places he'd long stopped thinking about, and he realises things were not always as he'd seen them. As Patrick begins to rebuild bonds and make new discoveries with his old school friends, Helen is making friends of her own, and the couple and their neighbours begin to build the community both Patrick and Helen have been missing.

Based on Jim Sweeney's first play, Danny's Wake, which won a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival and a Grand Media Comedy Award, All the Young Dudes is a charming nostalgic comedy about growing up and staying the same. Starring Jim Sweeney (Who's Line is it Anyway?, Just a Minute), Cathryn Harrison (Soldier Soldier, A Handful of Dust), Steve Steen (Spitting Image, Blackadder the Third), Sadie Shimmin (Wallander, Mr Selfridge), Stephen Frost (The Young Ones, Never Mind the Buzzcocks), and Flaminia Cinque (Waking the Dead, Any Human Heart), the gentle wit and musical flashbacks are perfect for fans of It's Not Us, It's Them, Up the Garden Path, and North by Northamptonshire.