From the Sunday Times bestselling the author of Wild and Wicked Things comes a dark gothic fantasy about intoxication, obsession and a desperate hunger for knowledge, whatever the cost.

Thora Grieve finds herself destitute and an outcast after the sudden death of her husband, but a glimmer of hope arrives when a family friend offers her the chance to study botany under a famed professor. Once at the university, Thora becomes entranced by a mysterious young woman, Olea, who emerges each night to tend to the plants in the private garden below her window.

Hungry for connection, Thora befriends Olea through the garden gate and their relationship quickly and intensely blossoms. Intoxicated, Thora throws herself into finding a cure for Olea's ailment and sinks deeper into a world of beauty, poison and obsession. She's finally found the freedom to pursue her darkest desires, but will it be worth the price?

Praise for Francesca May:

'Brimming with romance and gilded with danger, Wild and Wicked Things is a heady, lyrical gem of a book' Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

'Haunting, immersive, and seething with dark magic, Wild and Wicked Things cast its spell on me'Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching

'Wild and Wicked Things ticked all my boxes. May's vivid prose carries us off to a world not quite unlike our own and spins the story of one woman coming into her own, another fighting the darkness inside her, and the two of them drawing together to become something more. I couldn't put it down'Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch's Heart

Ayumi is a young man with special powers to bring back the dead to meet the living.

A gift passed down in his family, he is able to arrange meetings according to strict rules and always under a full moon. After years in this role, he begins to question its meaning, and how his powers affect his own desires in the real world. Meanwhile, he helps out five characters:

-A young film star finds resolution with the father who abandoned him, but not as he expected;
- An amateur historian is obsessed to meet a minor warlord of the sixteenth century;
-Ayumi anxiously juggles two meetings on the same evening, both have lost their daughters;
-A former cook, whose request to visit an upper-class young woman in the afterlife has been repeatedly rejected, is finally granted his wish.

Find out how Ayumi and his clients learn to lose their regrets, open up to the unexpected, and cherish what they already have in this profound and moving novel by Japan's leading storyteller.

In New York City where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures. On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters, each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless, and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan.

After twelve years of tenuous coexistence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out.

If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy them first.

A CURSED EMPEROR

Princess Arabella of Althea is left no choice when Felix Osiris, the fearsome Shadow Emperor known for his deadly powers and his thirst for conquest, threatens to overthrow her home unless she agrees to marry him.

A PRINCESS WITH FORBIDDEN MAGIC

When she learns that he and his empire are plagued by ice and a monstrous darkness and she's been prophesized to set them free, they come to an agreement: help him minimize the curse's effect on his people, and he'll let her go.

A MARRIAGE THAT COULD SAVE THEM ALL...

As Felix teaches Arabella how to control her forbidden and volatile magic, her feelings for him turn from hatred to passion... and she realizes that she must break the curse or she'll forever lose him and everyone they love to the ice and shadows.

READERS LOVE A CURSE OF SHADOWS AND ICE

Ana da Silva always assumed she’d die young, she just never expected it to be at the hands of Famine, the haunting immortal who once spared her life so many years ago. But if the horseman remembers her at all, he must not care, for when she comes face to face with him for the second time in her life, she’s stabbed and left for dead.

Only, she doesn’t quite die.

If there’s one thing Famine is good at, it’s cruelty. And how these blighted bastards deserve it. Try as he might, he can’t forget what they once did to him. But when Ana, a ghost from his past, corners him and promises pain for what he so recently did to her, she and her empty threats captivate him, and he decides to keep her around.

In spite of themselves, Ana and Famine are drawn to each other. But at the end of the day, the two are enemies. Nothing changes that. Not one kind act, not two. And definitely not a few steamy nights. But enemies or reluctant lovers, if they don’t stop themselves soon, heaven will.

FATE IS A CRUEL MISTRESS

The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.

Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid - and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.

Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Bloodworker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.

Fans of From Blood and Ash and Kingdom of the Wicked will devour this decadent, bloodthirsty debut.

Special unjacketed hardback edition of the final part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. This edition features the complete story with a unique cover design embellished with silver foil and the iconic maps appearing in red and black as endpapers. The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by Smeagol - Gollum, still obsessed by his 'preciouss'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive - in the hands of the orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing.

The Number 1 Sunday Times-bestselling novel, from the author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and A Darker Shade of Magic. A darkly magical and thrilling tale of a young woman caught between the world and its shadows, who must embrace her legacy to stop the approaching darkness. The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Holly Black and Susan Cooper. Fourteen-year-old Olivia Prior is missing three things: a mother, a father, and a voice. Her mother vanished all at once, and her father by degrees, and her voice was a thing she never had to start with. She grew up at Merilance School for Girls. Now, nearing the end of her time there, Olivia receives a letter from an uncle she's never met, her father's older brother, summoning her to his estate, a place called Gallant. But when she arrives, she discovers that the letter she received was several years old. Her uncle is dead. The estate is empty, save for the servants. Olivia is permitted to remain, but must follow two rules: don't go out after dusk, and always stay on the right side of a wall that runs along the estate's western edge. Beyond it is another realm, ancient and magical, which calls to Olivia through her blood...

A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril returns to the noble household he once served as page and is named secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it must ultimately lead him to the place he most fears: the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies who once placed him in chains now occupy lofty positions.But it is more than the traitorous intrigues of villains that threaten Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle here, for a sinister curse hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion. And only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge -- an act that will mark him as a tool of the miraculous . . . and trap him in a lethal maze of demonic paradox.