Top list: Comics and humor

Cate Madigan, an Irish bartender in Boston, finds herself caught in a pulse-pounding, romance with ex-cop Kellen McBride, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich brimming with the same irresistible charm as the beloved Stephanie Plum series!

Hot Stuff introduces Cate Madigan, a Boston native from a large and crazy Irish family. Cate has far too much going on to get involved in extracurricular activities, like men and marriage. She spends all day in school, earning her teaching degree, and all night working as a bartender in Boston’s South End.

Ex-cop Kellen McBride has decided to make Cate’s bar his nightly haunt. He likes Cate’s sassy Irish spirit and wild red hair. He also has an ulterior motive for getting close to her. Cate has sworn off all things romantic, but when she comes home to a ransacked apartment, a roommate who has flown the coop, and a sleeping bullmastiff named Beast, Cate has no choice but to ask Kellen for help.

Can Kate resist the charming Kellen McBride while keeping herself out of danger? Or will Kellen turn up the heat on Cate and everything in her life?

The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you’ve never seen before. Can you handle the ride?

I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn’t need any more kinks. She likes the one she’s landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.

I want things most people don’t, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.

Josh Hammond has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his eye: Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.

Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he’s willing to go for the woman he’s obsessed with.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally gray male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book.

✨Sounds Like Love, the new magical rom-com from Ashley Poston is available to pre-order now!✨

‘This is a beautiful story 🥰 Such a poignant portrayal of love, loss and finding oneself’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Ashley Poston writes really beautiful love stories with just a sprinkling of magic’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Ashley Poston knows how to write romance … if you’re a true, soulmate-believing, kitchen slow dancing, and lover of romance with a bit of magical a realism, this is the one for you’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

* * *

Six months ago, Clementine West had the worst day of her life. So, she came up with a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, take no risks. And it’s been working.

That is until one day she finds a strange man standing in her kitchen. A man with kind eyes, a crooked smile, and a recipe for the perfect lemon meringue pie. The kind of man that, before everything, she could have fallen for …

He’s perfect but for one thing: he lives in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact.

This should be impossible, but Clementine used to love impossible things. And maybe, just maybe, she will again. After all, love is never a matter of time – but a matter of timing.

* * *

Praise for Ashley Poston:

'I LOVED this book. A beautiful, poignant story … breathtaking, hopeful, and dreamy' ALI HAZELWOOD

'An absolute and unexpected delight' CHRISTINA LAUREN

'A gorgeous love story from one of the finest romance writers out there' CARLEY FORTUNE

Christina Lauren, the instant New York Times bestselling and “reigning romance queens” (PopSugar) of modern classics such as The Unhoneymooners and Love and Other Words, returns with a swoonworthy novel following the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance.

Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads • USA TODAY • Marie Claire • BookPage • Literary Lifestyle • Book Riot • Sunset Magazine • Totally Booked with Zibby Owens

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

The intergalactic adventures of Arthur Dent begin in the first volume of the 'trilogy of five', Douglas Adams' comedy sci-fi classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, read by Stephen Fry.

'One of the greatest achievements in comedy. A work of staggering genius' - David Walliams

'By turns authoritative as the narrator, bemused as Arthur Dent, deadpan as Ford Prefect and manic as Zaphod Beeblebrox, he [Stephen Fry] makes an altogether appropriate reader' - The Times

'Master of comedy Stephen Fry delivers a brilliant audiobook narration' - Editor Review

On 12 October 1979 the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor (and Earth) was made available to humanity – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It's an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and his best friend has just announced that he's an alien. At this moment, they're hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed with the big, friendly words: DON'T PANIC.

The weekend has only just begun . . .

Follow Arthur Dent's galactic (mis)adventures in the rest of the trilogy with five parts: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless.

After five years of anticipation, the second edition of this beloved classic has finally arrived!

Alan has left his job and is ready to embark on a bold new adventure. His idea? A highly-profitable business hiring out invisible people for parties. But not everyone sees the genius in his plan—least of all his friends, family, and, of course, the government—especially when the business unexpectedly takes off, leading to unimaginable success.

How much trouble can an entrepreneur get in?

Packed with humour, heart, and surprising turns, this delightful tale invites readers to join Alan on his unconventional journey into the world of entrepreneurship—and the chaos that follows.

'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' – Roddy Doyle

'His [Dominic Hofman] performance is terrific: variously wry, poignant and thoughtful as he imbues Jim with the humanity and agency denied to him by Twain' – The Guardian, Audiobook of the Week

James is a profound and ferociously funny novel from one of our greatest living writers, Percival Everett.

The Sunday Times Bestseller

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Fiction

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he flees to nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.

So begins a dangerous and transcendent journey along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most life-changing odyssey of them all . . .

A 'Book of the Year' in The Observer, The Times & Sunday Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Spectator, New Statesman, Independent, TLS, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, i newspaper, The Economist, The Irish Times, The New York Times, TIME and The New Yorker

'Who should read this book? Every single person in the country' – Ann Patchett

'Scorchingly funny and action-packed' – The Sunday Times, 'Books of the Year'

'This may be Everett's best book yet' – Bonnie Garmus

'Playful and viciously comic' – The Telegraph, 'Books of the Year'

'My favourite novel this year' – Salman Rushdie

A USA Today bestseller

Road Trip Rules: No bad music. No detours. No falling in love.

Ash Campbell has been in love with Hazel Elliot since high school. Now, at the same college, their interactions are limited to playful feuding over the best chair in their favourite coffee shop.

But Ash’s attraction to the prickly girl from home has only grown stronger.

And when these frenemies are forced to drive back to their hometown of Locket Prairie, Texas, together for Christmas, the pair must endure not only each other but bad music, inclement weather, and B&Bs with only one bed …

'With razor sharp sexual tension and crackling banter, this is the frenemies to lovers book of my dreams' Christina Lauren

Readers are loving TAKE ME HOME

'I am so in love and wrapped up in this story'⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Once I started I couldn't put it down!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'What a debut! The characters felt so real and I loved how the relationship grew throughout the book' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Melanie's writing sucks you in and you are totally there and absolutely care about these characters' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Ash and Hazel are one of my new favourite duos' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'The book is a unique blend of enemies to lovers and small-town romance, which is both heartwarming and hilarious. It's a fresh take on the genre and definitely deserves a full five stars' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association's "Debut Romantic Novel" Award.

Ariana Byrne knows how to survive. After becoming a guardian to her four little sisters after their parents died when she was only eighteen, she had to grow up quickly. Now she’s in her twenties, stuck in a loveless marriage to Greg, trying to make ends meet for her young twins, William and Leo.

So when Ari is told that she’s actually the Right Honourable Lady de Foix, Countess of Hiverton, owner of a sprawling estate in the village of Saxburgh, Norfolk, her first instinct is laughter. Surely the girl who has to choose between food and keeping the lights on isn’t rich beyond her wildest dreams?

She knows how to take care of her sisters and her children, but how on earth can Ari take care of an entire village? How will she fight off the circling land developers from Saxburgh, and stop her in-laws from grabbing all the money for themselves?

And while she’s struggling to settle in and settle down, she’s making new friends and new mistakes. Yet, trusting her gorgeous, new neighbour, Sebastian Flint-Hyssop may be the biggest one of all…

She’s swapped sink estate for country estate… but can a girl from inner-city London learn how to become a Lady?

Fans of Jenny Colgan, Trisha Ashley and Carole Matthews will love this romantic, feel-good read.

Liz Hurley became a professional librarian for the money and the glamour. Not finding quite enough of either, she set up a bookshop with her husband in Cornwall. She didn’t find much there either so she started writing. Now she has loads of money and glamour but only in the pages of her books!

A sharply funny and moving debut in which a young woman accepts a job that takes her though the Italian Dolomites and into an international mystery far greater—and more personal—than she could have ever expected.

For someone who hates secrets, Las Vegas hairdresser Lucy Rey is about to be faced with a whole bunch of them. After discovering that her fiancé has been cheating on her with someone from his improv class, she finds herself short on funds and desperate for a change of scenery. Enter a most unusual job opportunity: a Bearer of Bad News.

Sure, it’s a little weird—the job description has few details, and the bad news is more like a vaguely worded threat—but Lucy can’t say no to the perks: an all-expenses-paid trip to the Italian Dolomites, plus a generous bonus if she proves she’s delivered the message. Then she learns that her task is just the tip of the iceberg.

Launched into a world of betrayal and greed involving eighty-year-old secrets, stolen jewels, and a World War II–era mystery, Lucy is in over her head. And she’s connected to her mission in ways she never saw coming.

For fans of Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Kirstin Chen’s Counterfeit, Bearer of Bad News is an exhilarating romp that deftly explores the weight of secrets, the power of friendship, and how, by healing the wounds of the past, we can build a brighter tomorrow.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum novels.

A woman with a talent for numbers, Alexandra Scott wanted to escape the rat race and go someplace where the men outnumber the women. Trading in her Wall Street job and fancy condo for a rundown cabin in the woods. She’s now Alaskan Wilderness Woman. It isn’t long before she finds exactly what she’s looking for: one sexy pilot named Michael Casey. But this confirmed bachelor has no intentions of getting caught in any woman’s crosshairs—especially a hunter as appealing as Alex. It’ll take skill, determination, and a little romantic persuasion for this big-game hunter to bag her prey.

Disgraced former detective Mike Humber gets off a train in the bleak autumn countryside, his mind haunted by a dark past.

A new job awaits. Huntington House needs a live-in security guard to prevent access during an inheritance dispute.

This is exactly what Mike needs: a new start in a new place and a chance to turn things around.

It all seems perfect, especially when he meets Tessa.

But Huntington House holds dark secrets. Bumps in the night. Flickering lights. Music playing from somewhere.

Mike’s mind starts to unravel as he questions his sanity in the dark, claustrophobic corridors and rooms.

Something isn’t right.

There is someone else in the house.

The pressure grows as the people around Mike get pulled into a web of lies and manipulation, forcing him to take action before it’s too late.

⭐ A heartwarming and hilarious novel about family secrets, perfect for fans of Mhairi McFarlane and Debbie Johnson⭐

Three generations. Three secrets. One chance to bring their family closer than ever.

‘I laughed and shed more than a few tears… One of the best books I’ve read in ages’ FIONA LUCAS

*THE TIMES BOOK OF THE MONTH*

*A TIMES POPULAR FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR*

_________________________

Stella’s life hasn’t quite gone to plan. She imagined that, at forty, she’d be settled with a supportive husband, two kids and a dog. Instead, she’s single and living at home with her mum, Bonnie, and grandmother, Florence. She passes the evenings in her childhood bedroom, obsessively searching for the perfect sperm donor.

Unbeknownst to Stella is that Bonnie and Florence both also had difficult journeys to motherhood. And now that they’re writing down their stories for Stella’s unborn child, the truth about their family is becoming harder to conceal. And while you can’t choose your family, you can choose what you tell them…

_________________________

Previously published as YOU GET THAT FROM ME

‘A delight… Her wry humour can induce proper snort-laughs’

THE TIMES

‘A beautifully crafted novel, spanning three generations of women whose stories and secrets are sure to steal your heart’ HOLLY MILLER

‘An absolute page-turner’ SHEILA McCLURE

‘Heartwarming’

HEAT

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Readers love The Family Fix!

‘You’ll find yourself laughing and smiling, shouting and crying’

‘This is the perfect book!’

‘A page-turning novel…about motherhood, love and all that life throws at us’

‘A fantastic read that I couldn’t put down and have been thinking about since it finished’

‘Entertaining and uplifting’

‘What a beautiful book’

'SPIKY, WITTY' PANDORA SYKES

'FUNNY, PACY’ GUARDIAN

'CHAOTIC, SNARKY, VERY FUNNY' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

'AN ABSOLUTELY WILD RIDE' INDEPENDENT

A 'HOTTEST, MUST-READ NEW BOOK FOR 2025' IN SUNDAY TIMES, STYLIST, INDEPENDENT AND SERVICE95

Maybe having a few enemies on the school run means you're doing something right…

Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan.

But when Alfie Risby, Dylan's bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence has to get her act together, find the missing boy and clear her son’s name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn’t have any detective skills, she’s not exactly popular at the school gates and she’s just found Alfie’s backpack hidden under Dylan’s bed…

All the Other Mothers Hate Me is an irresistibly witty novel about fitting in, starting over and the lengths we’ll go to for the people we love.

What readers are saying…

‘The hype is SO deserved!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Very funny. I didn’t want it to end!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Kept me hooked’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Funny and poignant’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘You can’t predict where this is going!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Serge A. Storms is back on the road in the latest zany Florida caper from the “wickedly funny” (Entertainment Weekly) Tim Dorsey.

After a long and arduous COVID-19 quarantine, Serge A. Storms is fully vaccinated and ready to hit the road. Along with his condo neighbors, he cooks up a wild plan to celebrate in true Serge fashion: each week, they rent a shuttle van and head out for funky Florida road trips and some serious revelry.

Meanwhile, a CIA revenge operation down in Honduras goes very, very wrong. The local liaison hired to help with the mission is the only witness to the disaster, and the CIA quickly sets a black ops contractor on his trail to eliminate him.

Forced to flee his home country, the witness lands in Miami with a new identity and passport. But the CIA is still on his tail, pushing him further and further south to the Florida Keys, where he runs into Serge’s convoy. With Florida’s most lovable serial killer involved, the real party is about to get started…

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 is the seventh book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series.

Monday January 3, 2000

So how do I greet the New Millennium? In despair. I'm a single parent, I live with my mother . . . I have a bald spot the size of a jaffa cake on the back of my head . . . I can't go on like this, drifting into early middle-age. I need a Life Plan . . .

The 'same age as Jesus when he died', Adrian Mole has become a martyr: a single-father bringing up two young boys in an uncaring world. With the ever-unattainable Pandora pursuing her ambition to become Labour's first female PM; his over-achieving half-brother Brett sponging off him; and literary success ever-elusive, Adrian tries to make ends meet and find a purpose.

But little does he realise that his own modest life is about to come to the attention of those charged with policing The War Against Terror . . .

'An achingly funny anti-hero' DAILY MAIL

'One of the great comic creations of our time. Almost every page of his diaries bring a smile to the face' SCOTSMAN

Exalted is a deliciously dark novel that explores desire, the projection of our need for love, and what we're really searching for when we keep scrolling.

Read by the author, Tracy Whitwell.

The Accidental Medium is the first audiobook in a hilarious series from Tracy Whitwell featuring Tanz, the accidental medium who, with the help of the dead, is about to become an unwilling crime-solver.

'Spooky and hilarious and brimming with oddball characters, I love this book!' – Mandasue Heller

Tanz is a wine-loving, straight-talking, once-successful TV actress from Gateshead, whose career has shrivelled like an antique walnut. She is still grieving for her friend Frank, who died in a car crash three years ago, and she has to find a normal job in London to fund her cocktail habit. When she starts work in a ‘new age’ shop, Tanz suddenly discovers that the voices she’s hearing in her head are real, not the first signs of madness, and that she can give people ‘messages’ from beyond the grave. Alarmed, she confronts her little mam and discovers she is from a long line of psychic mediums.

Despite an exciting new avenue of life opening up to Tanz, darkness isn’t far away and all too soon there’s murder in the air . . .

Continue the Adventures of an Accidental Medium series with Gin Palace.

Named a Best Feel-Good Book by The Washington Post

When a home aide arrives to assist a rambunctious family at a crossroads, simmering tensions boil over in this “witty, exuberant debut” (People) that is an “absolute delight from start to finish” (Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author)—perfect for fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Evvie Drake Starts Over.

When Kevin Gogarty’s eighty-three-year-old mother is caught shoplifting yet again, he has no choice but to hire a caretaker to keep an eye on her. Kevin, recently unemployed, is already at his wits’ end tending to a full house while his wife travels to exotic locales for work, leaving him solo with his sulky, misbehaved teenaged daughter. Into the Gogarty fray steps Sylvia, the upbeat home aide, who appears at first to be their saving grace—until she catapults the Gogarty clan into their greatest crisis yet.

“Bracing, hilarious, warm” (Judy Blundell, New York Times bestselling author), Good Eggs is an irresistibly charming study in self-determination; the notion that it’s never too late to start living; and the unique redemption that family, despite its maddening flaws, can offer.