By the age of 32, Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a married man.But when Ronit's father dies she is called back into the very different world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation...

Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book. One of the most talked about fictional debuts ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike.

It is 1914 and World War I looms over Europe. In London Seamus Finnegan a famous polar explorer considers settling down and taking up a prestigious position with the Royal Geographical Society. Unfortunately, despite many eager women around him, no one is able to soothe the pain left in his heart by Willa Alden, a childhood sweetheart and fellow traveller, who after an accident on mount Kilimanjaro, disappeared into the Himalayan...

When India Selwyn Jones graduates from medical school and sets off for her first job in a Whitechapel clinic, she is full of ideas on how to educate London's poorest inhabitants to the dangers of malnutrition and poor hygiene, saving them from their own ignorance. When the rough and dashing Sid Malone head of 'The Firm' and London's biggest criminal becomes one of her patients, he begins to open her eyes to the realities of life...

Before the Butlers, came QUEENIE?Whitechapel in the 1930s was not an easy place to be brought up, and when the war came those with nothing were hit the hardest. Queenie watched her family struggle and learned her lessons the hard way. When she was a little girl there was one thing Queenie knew - she was going to get out of this? And then tall, dark and handsome Alfie Butler walks into her life and gives Queenie her ticket out. One rushed wedding later,...

Lancashire, 1930s. When her mother dies, leaving her an old sewing box and a clue to her father's identity, 22-year-old Maisie Bassett is determined to make a fresh start. Changing her name and moving to the small town of Rivenshaw, she finds a respectable job in a grocery store. But unwanted attentions from a man at her new church make life increasingly difficult - until the shy, handsome Gabriel Harte comes to her rescue. Then she receives an inheritance...

1935. At 36, Bella Porter is dependent on her abusive cousin, acting as his unpaid servant. When a kind relative leaves her a house in the village of Backshaw Moss, Thomas tries to take it from her, but she defies him and grasps this chance of a new start in Lancashire. The house is on the edge of a slum and in a state of disrepair. As kind people help her find her feet, however, her confidence grows and when she meets struggling, widowed father-of-three...

1961: On a summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on, 16-year-old Laurel hides out in her tree house dreaming of a boy called Billy, a move to London, and the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything.