A powerfully emotional story of four people touched by a teen's death, award-winning author Gurjinder Basran's Help! I'm Alive is a clear-eyed exploration of meaningful connection in the modern era After video footage of Jay's death is shared on social media, a suburban Vancouver community is left to try to make sense of what happened to Jay and whether his death was an accident or a suicide. Help! I'm Alive explores the aftermath through the eyes...

When Katie finds out that her increasingly unresponsive legs and extreme fatigue is due to Multiple Sclerosis, she rides an emotional rollercoaster — anger, denial and fear — when faced with a wheelchair-bound existence. She puts her studies at Oxford on hold, and she splits up from her fiancé, Mark, even though she still loves him. While undergoing treatment, Katie is diagnosed with MS2 — a virus that paralyses the mind. In hospital, Katie...

Walter has had a hard life for a 13-year old. His no good floozy of a mother tends to get together with many equally despicable men. Before going on yet another husband-hunting trip, she drops Walter off at the house of his great-uncles Hub and Garth. In their youth, they would disappear for quite a while. The two are rumored to have acquired a great fortune, which Walter's mother hopes to get her hands on if he can ingratiate himself enough to the...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within as on the state of things without and around us.' Considered one of her less well-known novels, Shirley is Charlotte Brontë's only historical work, set during the Napoleonic Wars. Wealthy and independent, Shirley is very different from her friend Caroline who has few...

Because of his frank and honest portrayal of human sexuality in the controversial works for which he is best known, e.g. "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Women in Love", D. H. Lawrence was not widely respected in his day. In fact at the time of his death, he was considered little more than a pornographer. However E. M. Forester challenged this portrayal calling Lawrence "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation", and with his extended reflection...

Venetian gondola-maker Luca Vianello considers his whole life arranged. His father charted a course for his eldest son from the day he was born, and Luca is positioned to inherit one of the city's most esteemed boatyards. But when Luca experiences an unexpected tragedy in the boatyard, he believes that his destiny lies elsewhere. Soon he finds himself drawn to restore an antique gondola with the dream of taking a girl for a ride. The Gondola Maker...

Throughout "the LoneDogs of Scrabble" a human and dog narrative interweaves seamlessly in two distinct voices where the dogs are sentient beings and protagonists. An excerpt of the dog voice is below: The cement floors of the cage were cold, but he, the young stray pup, was tired of the hunger and continuous fights to protect his territory. He had earned his own name by being the best scavenger of scraps… The fact that he would have...

This coming-of-age novel follows the story of Sonny, and we cheer and suffer with him. In 1975 Sonny is dragged along to the funeral of family friend Freddie Wilson, music mogul and lawyer to the stars. Whilst tinkering on the grand piano in the music room in walks two bona fide legends, Charlie Watts and Syd Lawrence. They have him jamming along in no time. This sliding-doors, bittersweet moment propels him on a journey that he couldn't have imagined,...

People think Annie can handle anything, and she can-but only because the alternative is worse Annie's summer in New York City was every teenager's dream. Being chosen as a summer intern at Image magazine meant the chance to work on real articles during the day and enjoy the independence and excitement of city life outside office hours.   But now, going back to her high school routine feels like punishment-especially when the promised editorial job...

Nea, a Chinese Cambodian teenager, has survived the Khmer Rouge only to land in poverty in Texas. Her small family struggles to get by when a miracle occurs. Wealthy and mysterious, Auntie and Uncle write to say they are alive and well, running a Chinese restaurant in Nebraska. As Nea helps pack Hefty bags with meager belongings for a journey into the American Midwest, little does she know their miracle has a dark side. Soon family secrets, small...