Mae has watched as her three older sisters have gone through the process of finding their place in the world and faced the challenges of parenthood head on. Now ready to spread her wings beyond her close-knit family, Mae is ready to take the world by storm. But a series of events will shake the strong self-belief Mae has always had in herself and will leave her questioning where it is she really fits in. The Amir sisters will need to draw on all the...

Written in the last months of Austen's life, 'Sanditon' features a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and speculators in a newly established seaside resort, and shows the author contemplating a changing society with scepticism and amusement. It tells the story of Charlotte Heywood, who is transported by a chance accident from her rural hometown to Sanditon, where she is exposed to the intrigues and dalliances of a small town determined to reinvent itself...

Fatima, Farah, Bubblee and Mae, the four Amir sisters, are the only young Muslims in the quaint English village of Wyvernage. On the outside, despite not quite fitting in with their neighbours, the Amirs are happy. But on the inside, each sister is secretly struggling. Fatima is trying to find out who she really is - and finally pass her driving test. Farah is happy being a wife but longs to be a mother. Bubblee is determined to be an artist in London,...

One of Dickens's greatest novels, 'Great Expectations' is also one of his most autobiographical stories, as the young protagonist Pip escapes from his troubled childhood experiences to learn for himself the perils of love, the dangers of wealth, and how to sort his friends from his enemies.

Inspired by a grisly discovery in the 19th century, The King's General was the first of du Maurier's novels to be written at Menabilly, the model for Manderley in Rebecca. Set in the 17th century, it tells the story of a country and a family riven by civil war, and features one of fiction's most original heroines. Honor Harris is only 18 when she first meets Richard Grenvile - proud, reckless and utterly captivating. But following a riding accident,...

The Yorkshire Dales, 1938: Maddy Hebditch has been living in poverty with her cantankerous grandmother since she was orphaned when she was just five, and it's a constant struggle to stay out of the workhouse. However, though life is hard, Maddy has her friends Alice, Marigold and Tom to help her. Together, the four spend their summers exploring the Dales and making plans for the future - until war breaks out. As the four go their separate ways, Maddy...

'Penguin Readers' is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online.