A moving and unexpectedly funny exploration of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness, Michael Donkor's debut novel follows three adolescent girls grappling with a shared experience: the joys and sorrows of growing up. Belinda knows how to follow the rules. As a housegirl, she has learned the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she...

A seventeen-year-old boy finds that every time he closes his eyes, he's drawn into the body of a mute servant girl from another world--a world that's growing increasingly more dangerous, and where many things are not as they seem.

Cleaner Janice knows that it is in people's stories that you really get to know them. From recently-widowed Fiona and her son Adam; to opera-singing Geordie; and the awful Mrs 'YeahYeahYeah' and her fox terrier, Decius, Janice has a unique insight into the community around her. When Janice starts cleaning for Mrs B - a shrewd and tricksy woman in her nineties - she finally meets someone who wants to hear her story. But Janice is clear: she is the...

"From the Booker Award winner: a luminous, profoundly moving work of fiction that begins with an afternoon tryst in 1924 between a servant girl and the young man of the neighboring house, but then opens to reveal the whole life of a remarkable woman. Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at one English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years she has been the secret lover to Paul...

"Meet the Bright Young Things, the rabble-rousing hedonists of the 1920s whose treasure hunts were a media obsession. One such game takes place at the 18th birthday party of Pamela Mitford, but ends in tragedy as cruel, charismatic Adrian Curtis is pushed to his death from the church neighbouring the Mitford home. The police quickly identify the killer as a maid, Dulcie. But Louisa Cannon, chaperone to the Mitford girls and a former criminal herself,...

In the aftermath of a war where Automae took over the kingdom of Rabu and bent humanity to their will, Ayla takes a job as a servant in the house of the sovereign for one purpose: to get revenge for her family's death by killing his daughter. Lady Crier, the heiress, was Made to be a perfect ruler of the kingdom, but she no longer knows if that is what she wants once she discovers some of her father's cruel secrets. Between this betrayal, and a betrothed...

An innocent man will hang unless Mrs. Jeffries and her belowstairs cohorts can find the real killer.

"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous...

"Lady Elinor's arranged marriage cured her of all romantic notions. Now a widow, all Elinor wants is to rebuild her life--without a man in it. Stephen Worth is no longer the impoverished footman who lost everything thanks to Elinor's actions. His sole focus now is revenge. And if that means ruining the lovely Elinor in the process? So be it."--Publisher's description.

Orlando Edison is a stockbroker using London's infatuation with foreign mining ventures to make a fortune. He has curried favor with the nation's most respected aristocrats, even inviting three of the most influential investors in England--known as the Merry Gentlemen--to be part of his latest enterprise. Despite his mysterious past, Edison is now welcomed in the highest circles and moves with ease among the rich and powerful. Yet a few days before...