Books from United Kingdom

London becomes a battleground when the long-standing alliance between American and British intelligence begins to unravel. A new CIA director arrives determined to disrupt the agency and rethink its relationship with MI6. When the veteran chief of the CIA’s London Station is forced out, he makes an extraordinary decision: to work for the British instead. His betrayal is uncovered by his successor, Artemis Aphrodite Procter, who suddenly finds herself caught between a treacherous former superior and an increasingly ruthless leadership back in Washington. As intelligence sources begin dying and the identities of covert agents are exposed, Procter and her team must uncover who is leaking secrets—and why. Their investigation draws them into a dangerous world of private intelligence companies, technological surveillance, and competing agendas, where allies become adversaries and loyalty can be fatal. In this fifth novel featuring Artemis Procter, David McCloskey explores the fragile relationship between intelligence agencies and the political forces that shape their work. Combining intricate espionage operations with a story of institutional betrayal, London Station asks what happens when serving your country means disobeying the people who claim to represent it.

Sometimes, the family that saves us is the one we never expected to find. When Paulette arrives in England as a young girl, she leaves behind the grandmother who calls her Sweet Pea and teaches her that love and forgiveness should guide her life. Years later, at twenty-nine, Paulette seems close to everything she has dreamed of: a loving partner, a child, and a home of her own. But when tragedy shatters her plans, she is left to navigate grief and motherhood while trying to build a future for herself and her son, Bird. Then an unexpected encounter brings her face-to-face with Frank, the man responsible for the accident that killed the man she loved. Frank is struggling to raise his own young grandson, Nellie, alone. Despite the pain connecting their lives, Paulette finds herself drawn into the boy’s world, offering him the care and tenderness he desperately needs. As the children grow and the two families become intertwined, Paulette must confront the complicated boundaries between anger and compassion, justice and forgiveness. Set in 1970s England, Sweet Pea is a tender, emotionally rich story about motherhood, migration, grief, and the unexpected ways love can transform a life. It asks whether forgiveness means forgetting the past—or finding the strength to make room for something new.

Set in the affluent suburbs of Surrey, England, The Squatters follows Dalia Waheed, a second-generation immigrant who appears to have achieved the perfect life. Married to a British husband and surrounded by the comforts of an upper-middle-class community, Dalia nevertheless feels disconnected from the world she inhabits and longs to do something meaningful. While volunteering with a refugee resettlement organisation, Dalia meets Hajira, a heavily pregnant woman who has fled her home country with her husband in search of asylum in the United Kingdom. Moved by Hajira’s desperate circumstances and the inadequate accommodation provided to refugees, Dalia offers to help the couple find somewhere more suitable to live. What begins as a compassionate gesture soon spirals into a complicated conflict that threatens Dalia’s marriage, friendships, and place in her community. As tensions rise, she must confront the limits of her idealism and decide how much she is truly willing to sacrifice for another woman’s safety and dignity. Through the collision of these two families, Saba Brelvi explores displacement, belonging, motherhood, class privilege, and the moral responsibilities people have towards those seeking refuge. The novel asks difficult questions about compassion: whether it can survive when helping others threatens our own security, and what it really means to stand by our convictions.

Alison Solomon is facing a spectacular catalogue of midlife disasters. Her husband has left her for a younger woman, her elderly mother is struggling with dementia, and she has received a cancer diagnosis. As if that weren’t enough, a mysterious woman appears outside her house, and an actual rat seems to have moved into her kitchen. Encouraged by everyone around her to seek therapy, Alison embarks on a chaotic search for someone who can help her make sense of her unraveling life. With the support of sharp-witted friends, unexpected family revelations, and an eccentric rat catcher, she navigates heartbreak, grief, and the absurdities of everyday existence. Funny, tender, and refreshingly honest, My Husband and Other Rats explores the messiness of middle age, the resilience of women, and the possibility of finding laughter even when everything seems to be falling apart.

Clara and Seb are about to fall in love. They just don’t know it yet. When they meet in a quiet corner of London, an unexpected connection sparks a romance that captivates everyone around them. Clara dreams of becoming a film director, while Seb, an aspiring actor who has drifted between different careers, is still searching for his purpose. As their relationship deepens, Clara casts Seb in the film that could launch her career, but what should be the happiest moment of their lives ends in a devastating betrayal. Spanning two decades, Main Characters tells their love story through the eyes of the people who witness it: friends, flatmates, former lovers, rivals, and strangers. Each has a different perspective on the couple, revealing how little we can truly know about other people’s relationships. With its inventive narrative structure, this novel explores love, perception, friendship, and the complicated ways our lives intersect.

England, 1987. As a great storm rages outside, Cora sets out to register the birth of her son. Her controlling husband expects her to name the baby after him, continuing a family tradition passed down through generations of domineering men. But Cora hesitates. Should her son inherit a name that represents everything she fears, or should she choose a different future for him? Her decision creates three possible lives for her son: Bear, a name chosen by his older sister in the hope that he will grow up brave and kind; Julian, the name Cora believes will allow him to become his own person; or Gordon, named after his father and raised in his cruel image. Through three interwoven timelines, Florence Knapp explores how a single decision can shape an entire family, revealing the lasting effects of domestic abuse alongside the possibilities of love, resilience, and redemption. The Names is a moving novel about the power of choice, the courage to break generational cycles, and the uncertain relationship between identity and fate.

Rome, 1953. David is a young Catholic priest who has devoted his life to God and sworn himself to celibacy. Margaret, meanwhile, is a fiercely independent woman drawn to theology and the possibility of a more progressive Church. When their lives intersect in 1960s England, an intellectual connection develops into a love that challenges everything they believe about faith, duty, and freedom. Decades later, their grandson Adrian discovers the extraordinary secret behind his family history while caring for his aging grandmother. As the past gradually emerges, the consequences of David and Margaret’s choices reveal themselves across generations. Inspired by the author’s own grandparents, A Private Man is a tender, complex exploration of forbidden love, religious devotion, and the difficult compromises between personal desire and deeply held convictions.

What would the world look like if women made the rules? BBC correspondent Megha Mohan travels across continents to discover communities where women create their own systems of power, belonging, and survival. From South Korea’s controversial feminist online movements to women’s communal living spaces in Europe and the Rain Queens of South Africa, she uncovers stories that challenge conventional ideas about leadership, family, and social order. Inspired by her own great-grandmother’s matrilineal community in South India, Mohan combines historical research with firsthand reporting to explore how women have built alternative ways of living, often outside patriarchal structures. Herlands is an illuminating investigation into women’s solidarity, collective power, and the possibilities of reimagining society.

Motherhood has shaped human history, yet the women who have raised children, challenged injustice, and fought for reproductive freedom have often been written out of it. From ancient childbirth rituals to the struggles of unmarried mothers in seventeenth-century England, Elinor Cleghorn traces the lives of women who resisted society’s attempts to control their bodies and define their roles. Through the stories of midwives, writers, activists, and community leaders, she reveals how mothering has always been an act of labour, resistance, and transformation. Reclaiming motherhood as more than a biological function or private responsibility, this compelling history challenges the patriarchal systems that have devalued women’s work and asks what it would mean to finally recognize and support the people who care for others.

What happens when an unemployed actor agrees to spend his university lectures zipped inside an oversized black leather bag? Hired by Professor Dr. Blend for an unusual psychological experiment, the nameless protagonist soon discovers that his strange new role has consequences far beyond the classroom. As a professor develops an unexpected fascination with the person hidden inside the bag and his childhood friend sees an opportunity to turn the experiment into a business, anonymity becomes both a refuge and a trap. Surreal, absurdly funny, and unexpectedly tender, Black Bag is a satirical campus novel exploring masculinity, identity, loneliness, and the struggle to connect in a world obsessed with visibility and self-promotion.

Nineteen-year-old Gloria sees the world differently from those around her. With a learning disability and limited speech, she spends her days wandering the parks of East London, searching for companionship and small moments of happiness. Then she grows close to Jack, an unpredictable man whose attention makes her feel seen but gradually draws her into danger. Told through Gloria’s distinctive perspective, this tender, unsettling novel explores vulnerability, exploitation, and the universal need for connection.

Nora has spent a decade building a life with her partner, Robin. Their relationship is comfortable and deeply affectionate, shaped by private jokes, quiet mornings, and the small rituals that make a shared life feel like home. When Robin unexpectedly proposes, Nora says yes. They had always agreed that marriage was unnecessary, but perhaps this is simply the next step in a life that already feels settled. Then, on the night of their engagement party, Bren appears at her door. Bren was Nora’s childhood best friend, the person everyone once assumed she would eventually marry. But a painful heartbreak drove them apart: he left, she stayed, and the feelings neither could articulate remained unresolved. Now his return rekindles an attraction Nora thought belonged to the past, forcing her to reconsider the choices that brought her to this moment. Moving between the comfort of a long-term relationship and the intoxicating pull of a love left unfinished, Daverley explores the complicated nature of commitment, longing, and regret. This tender, emotionally perceptive novel asks whether the right life is necessarily the one we have chosen—or whether the people we once loved can reveal possibilities we never fully considered. It is a story about the paths not taken, the misunderstandings that shape our lives, and the difficult work of understanding our own hearts.