Modern Fiction from Ariadne Books

London: Baskerville, 2023. First edition, signed by the author to the title page. Hardback. 405pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Two years ago, the Monochrome inquiry was set up to investigate the British secret service. Monochrome's mission was to ferret out misconduct, allowing the civil servants seconded to the inquiry, Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, unfettered access to… Read more about this item

London: Baskerville, 2023. First edition, signed by the author to the title page. Hardback. 405pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Two years ago, the Monochrome inquiry was set up to investigate the British secret service. Monochrome's mission was to ferret out misconduct, allowing the civil servants seconded to the inquiry, Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, unfettered access to… Read more about this item

London: Macmillan, 1941. Macmillan & Co, London, 1941. First edition. Hardback. 432pp. Publisher's original green cloth binding with blind-stamped design to upper board and gilt to spine. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Julius Cromwell, blinded in the First World War, brings his young wife Celia to their new home in an ancient house in the Glebeshire village of… Read more about this item

London: Serpent's Tail, 2016. Signed by the author to the title page. Hardback. 418pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Published to wide acclaim following her first novel (After Me Comes The Flood, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize), The Essex Serpent is a story that celebrates love and the many different… Read more about this item

London: Jonathan Cape, 2000. First edition, first impression. Hardback. 250pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. In "Love, etc" Julian Barnes revisits Stuart, Gillian and Oliver from "Talking It Over". He uses the same intimate technique of allowing the characters to speak directly to the reader, to whisper their secrets, to argue for their version of the truth. Darker… Read more about this item

London: Quercus, 2022. First edition, first impression. Signed by the author to the half title page. Hardback. 340pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. A murderer hides in plain sight - in the police force. DS Cassie Fitzherbert has a secret, but it's one she's deleted from her memory. In the 1990s, when she was at school, she and… Read more about this item

London: Picador, 2022. Hardcover boxed set. First edition. New and still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

London: Picador, 2022. Hardcover boxed set. First edition. New and still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

London: Picador, 2022. First edition. This is a Waterstones Exclusive Edition with some additional content at rear. Hardback. 402pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. From Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart comes a powerful second novel, a vivid portrayal of working class life and the deeply moving story of the first love of two young men: Mungo and James.… Read more about this item

London: Doubleday, 2015. First edition. Hardback. 316pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Rachel catches the same train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of those houses. Their life, as she sees… Read more about this item

London: Victor Gollancz, 1995. First edition, 1995. Hardback. 253pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Is it possible to share your life with someone whose record collection is incompatible with your own? Can people have terrible taste and still be worth knowing? Do songs about broken hearts and misery and loneliness mess up your life, if consumed in… Read more about this item

London: The Harvill Press, 2005. New and unread. First edition. Signed on the title page by the author. Hardback. 282pp. Dust jacket. Carl-Johan Vallgren is the author of eight books - this is the first to be translated from his native Swedish into English (by Paul and Veronica Britten-Austin). This novel tells of social oppression, official corruption and religious… Read more about this item

London: Faber & Faber, 2019. First edition, 2019. Hardback. 230pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Captured, abducted and married into Boko Haram, the narrator of this story witnesses and suffers the horrors of a community of men governed by a brutal code of violence. Barely more than a girl herself, she must learn how to survive as a… Read more about this item

London: Canongate, 2017. First edition. Hardback. 299pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Dr James Darke has expelled himself from the world. He writes compulsively in his 'coming of old age' journal; he eats little, drinks and smokes a lot. Meditating on what he has lost - the loves of his life, both dead and alive - he tries… Read more about this item

London: Little, Brown, 2022. First edition, signed by the author. Hardback. 405pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Tom Thorne has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. He has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life...He has everything… Read more about this item

London: Hamish Hamilton, 2022. First edition, signed by the author. Hardback. 229pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. 'A story is never an answer. A story is always a question.' Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us?… Read more about this item

London: Tinder Press, 2022. First edition, numbered limited edition for independent bookshops (589/1500) signed by the author. Hardback. 406pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Laura, a poor Cornish girls, meets her handsome husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura's husband returns home from the trenches a damaged… Read more about this item

London: Simon & Schuster, 2022. First edition. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper in a reversed-out white rectangle. Hardback. 399pp. Fore-edge decoration depicting a floral design with spoons and forks. Blue silk page marker. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. When Eliza Acton is told by her publisher to write a cookery book instead of the… Read more about this item

London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1947. First edition. Hardback. 127pp. Blue cloth boards with gilt to upper board and spine. Lacking dust jacket. "Sealskin Trousers", which gives the title to this collection, is remarkable. From the first sentence to its enchanting and terrifying end it holds the reader in the grip of an experience as vivid as any they will have… Read more about this item

London: Orenda Books, 2021. Signed by the author to the title page. Hardback. 294pp Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the last decimal. Then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an… Read more about this item