Every journey is an adventure, especially one into the unknown. The shocking discovery of her lover with someone else, propels Roxanne into escaping to France, and seeking work as a grape-picker. She’s never been abroad before or travelled alone....

To the casual observer, the great enlightened city of Edinburgh, home of no-nonsense philosophers and cream teas, might appear immune to the rollercoaster of strong emotions. But at 44 Scotland Street, as Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky...

A traditional couple from southern India, Balu and Janaki Shankar are in their late fifties and have been married for 26 years in reasonable harmony. They go to visit their son, their first trip to Great Britain, but he...

Desperate to escape the Eastern Front, Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier, marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met; it is a marriage of convenience that promises ‘honeymoon’ leave for him and a pension for her should...

While the vastly outnumbered Boer commandos fight in the field, half a million British soldiers torch a flaming path across the South African veld. As they go, the British imprison thousands of displaced Boer families, including Aletta Venter’s, and...

Having shot someone in what he believed was self-defense in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Wilderness finds himself locked up with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means...

In Chia-Chia Lin’s debut novel, The Unpassing, we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and repairman,...

One man is dead. But thousands were his victims. Can a single murder avenge that of many? Scarborough Bluffs, Toronto: the body of Christopher Drayton is found at the foot of the cliffs. Muslim Detective Esa Khattak, head of...

After travelling to India on leaving school, Catriona intended to make a life for herself in Asia until an injury forced her to return to the UK. A promise made at closing time in a Cambridge pub then took...

In fin de siècle Shanghai, Violet Minturn grows up at Hidden Jade Path, the city’s most exclusive courtesan house. But when revolution comes, she is separated from her mother and forced to become a “virgin courtesan.” Both Chinese and...