Family is everything, even when it falls apart. Discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author. 'It made me laugh, it made me cry and I couldn’t put it down. If you are a fan of Maggie O’Farrell you must read this.' - Louise Minchin, TV presenter and author of Isolation Island 'Rachel Joyce is a masterful storyteller.' - Sarah Winman, author of Still Life’The renowned artist - the emotionally starved children - what an inspired subject! Joyce writes with her trademark vitality and compassion and there is such colour here. So much at stake. I couldn’t put it down.’ - Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky and Mr Mac and Me'Lyrical, shrewd and, ultimately, as indecently satisfying as a four course Italian lunch. My life is a little emptier now it's over.' - Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter'Sparkling and addictive … Rachel Joyce is so incredibly good and wise on families and siblings. I couldn’t love it more.' - Harriet Evans, author of The Garden of Lost and Found‘A triumph of insight and empathy!’ - Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures'Joyce is a fearless explorer of emotional landscape.' – Sunday Times'If only there were more novelists like Rachel Joyce' – TelegraphThere is a heatwave across Europe. Goose and his three sisters gather at the family's house by Lake Orta in Piedmont, Italy. Their father, a famous artist, has recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his masterpiece. Now he is dead and there is no sign of a painting. Although the siblings have always been close, as they search for answers over that summer, the things they learn - about themselves, their father and their new stepmother - will drive them apart before they can come to any kind of understanding of what their father's legacy truly is. Extraordinarily compelling, at heart this is a novel about sibling relationships and those hairline cracks that can appear within a family: what what happens when they splinter, and what it would take to mend them.

The final novel in the Harold Fry trilogy, this is a heart-stopping story told from the view point of his wife Maureen as she takes her own journey and discovers how to reconnect with the world.Ten years ago, Harold Fry set off on his epic journey on foot to save a friend. But the story doesn't end there.Now his wife, Maureen, has her own pilgrimage to make.Maureen Fry has settled into the quiet life she now shares with her husband Harold after his iconic walk across England. Now, ten years later, an unexpected message from the North disturbs her equilibrium again, and this time it is Maureen's turn to make her own journey.But Maureen is not like Harold. She struggles to bond with strangers, and the landscape she crosses has changed radically. She has little sense of what she'll find at the end of the road. All she knows is that she must get there.Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North is a deeply felt, lyrical novel, full of warmth and kindness. Short, exquisite, powerful- it is about love, loss, and how we come to terms with the past in order to understand ourselves and our lives a little better.

BBC Radio 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME from 17-28 July. From the author of the world-wide bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a new novel about learning how to listen and how to feel; and about second chances and choosing to be brave despite the odds. Because in the end, music can save us all ...1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk - as long as it's vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need.Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann.Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open and a past he will never leave behind ... LISTEN WHILE YOU READ! You can find specially collated The Music Shop playlists for Father Anthony, Kit, Maud and Hector on Spotify. This hardback edition is beautifully produced, with stunning decorated insides.

As read on Radio 4, seven linked stories set in the Christmas holidays - all as funny, joyous, poignant and memorable as Christmas should be: A Faraway Smell of Lemon: The School Term has ended. It is almost Christmas but Binny, out last-minute shopping couldn't feel less like wishing glad tidings to all men. Ducking out of the rain she finds herself in the sort of shop she would never normally visit. The Marriage Manual: Christmas Eve. Two parents endeavour to construct their son's Christmas present from a DIY kit and in the process find themselves deconstructing their marriage. Christmas at the Airport: A glitch in the system, travellers stranded and all sorts of lives colliding in the face of a sudden birth...The Boxing Day Ball: Maureen has never been out with the local girls before. Who knew that a disco in the Village Hall could be life-changing? A Snow Garden: Two little boys, dumped with their divorced father for his share of the Christmas holidays and none of them with a clue how to enjoy it. I'll Be Home for Christmas The most famous boy in the world comes home hoping to escape the madness with a normal family Christmas. Trees: As if Christmas wasn't wearing enough, now his elderly parent is asking for a hole in the ground ...Father and son break old habits and plant a tree to mark the start of the new year.