Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? Edgar Allan Poe

At 14, Julia Z became infamous as the "orphan hacker," a teenage prodigy who broke the law and captivated a nation. Now, years later, she's trying to leave that life behind, hiding in the quiet suburbs of Boston. But her fragile anonymity is shattered when a desperate lawyer bursts into her life, begging for her help to find his wife-a celebrated artist who uses AI to craft shared dreams for thousands of followers and who has been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate.

Against her better judgment, Julia embarks on a harrowing journey across the country, drawn ever-deeper into the shadows of the American dream. As she tracks the criminals, she confronts not only their perilous schemes but also the ghosts of her own past. Resourceful, relentless, and deeply contemptuous of authority, Julia must dig deep into her unique skillset and fractured psyche to uncover the truth - and to hold onto hope when everything around her descends into darkness.

This is the first book in an electrifying new series that masterfully intertwines the urgent thriller with thought-provoking speculation on the future of art in an age dominated by artificial intelligence. Julia Z is a bold, unforgettable heroine destined to captivate readers - a literary creation as rich and compelling as the Dandelion Dynasty itself.

The answer is murder. The question is whodunnit?

A quiet country pub stands empty, its windows boarded up. And its kindly landlords, Mal and Sue Eastwood, are missing.

What could have happened? A lot of strange events occurred in the days before the Eastwoods disappeared. A murdered man pulled from the nearby river. An eccentric couple on a houseboat who claimed to be led by a spirit guide. And a mysterious new team who suddenly appeared and began winning every round at the weekly pub quiz - much to the anger of the locals. They must have been cheating, but no one could figure out how...

Can you crack the case of the missing landlords? Someone's not been playing fair, so get the drinks in and see if you can get a perfect score.

Can you find the clues and solve the murder first?

Six people with links to the world of crime writing have been invited to play a game this Christmas by the mysterious Midwinter Trust.

Solve the murder of a fictional crime writer in a remote village in north Yorkshire and win a life-changing prize.

Each guest has been meticulously vetted by the shadowy Trust, which has staff on-hand to make sure everyone plays fair. But with the village about to be cut off by a snow storm, they must be extra vigilant.

The game is set - but playing fair isn't on everyone's Christmas list.

And when the prize is to die for, it's so tempting to inject a little murder into the mystery...

The perfect gift for crime fiction lovers and fans of Janice Hallett, Alexandra Benedict and Alex Pavesi.

Included in the i newspaper's best new crime and thriller books to read in September 2025.

It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend. Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love. Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah. But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness. Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp.

With his marriage on the rocks and his life in shambles, washed up crime writer Lucas Graham is desperate for a comeback. So when he's promised exclusive access to notorious cult leader and death row inmate Jeffrey Halcomb, the opportunity is too good to pass up. Lucas leaves New York for the scene of the crime-a split-level farmhouse on the gray-sanded beach of Washington State-a house whose foundation is steeped in the blood of Halcomb's diviners; runaways who, thirty years prior, were drawn to his message of family, unity, and unconditional love. Lucas wants to tell the real story of Halcomb's faithful departed, but when Halcomb goes back on his promise of granting Lucas exclusive information on the case, he's left to put the story together on his own. Except he is not alone. For Jeffrey Halcomb promised his devout eternal life…and within these walls, they're far from dead.

Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends Ila and Hannah. Since then, things have not been going well. Alice is living a haunted existence, selling videos of herself cleaning for money, drinking herself to sleep. She hasn't spoken to Ila since they went into the House. She hasn't seen Hannah either. Memories of that night torment her mind and her flesh, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, past the KEEP OUT sign, over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, she knows she must go. Together Alice and Ila must face the horrifying occurrences that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, who the House has chosen to make its own.Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I'm Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors as it examines the devastating effects of trauma and the way fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.

WIKIPEDIA says: 'H.P. Lovecraft's reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though often indirect.' H.P. Lovecraft's tales of the tentacled Elder God Cthulhu and his pantheon of alien deities were initially written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s. These astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when they were first published. This handsome leatherbound tome collects together the very best of Lovecraft's tales of terror, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were originally published. It will introduce a whole new generation of readers to Lovecraft's fiction, as well as being a must-buy for those fans who want all his work in a single, definitive, highly attractive volume.

* OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD * * THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * * THE RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK * * THE REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK * _______________________________________ * SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SERIES ON APPLE TV+ STARRING JENNIFER GARNER * 'The ultimate page turner' - REESE WITHERSPOON 'Powerful, intense and beautifully observed' - T.M. LOGAN 'A brilliant thriller' - JANE CASEY IT WAS THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME: PROTECT HER Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her. Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect - his teenage daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As her desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen's true identity, and why he disappeared. Together they set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen's past, they soon realise that their lives will never be the same again... Soon to be a major Apple TV+ series starring Jennifer Garner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, discover the book that everyone is talking about...

To gain the power he needs to save his friend from a cursed spirit, Yuji Itadori swallows a piece of a demon, only to find himself caught in the midst of a horrific war of the supernatural! In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryomen Sukuna have been lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna’s body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of jujutsu sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Fushiguro and Reggie have nearly crushed each other to death. Reggie makes a move to break the stalemate and bring their battle to its climax! Meanwhile, Okkotsu disrupts the four-way standoff between jujutsu fighters in the Sendai colony, leading to a fierce battle involving reincarnated sorcerers and a special grade cursed spirit!

From Alexander C. Irvine, the Locus Award-winning author of A Scattering of Jades, comes a thrilling new robot mystery set in the world of the late SF Grand Master and beloved author, Isaac Asimov. Exiled to the colony Nova Levis, roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess have tried to make their best of their situation, after exposing an anti-robot conspiracy on Earth five years before that cost them their jobs and their freedom. But all that is about to change...A human has been murdered on Kopernik, a space station orbiting the Earth, and all the clues point toward a robot as the killer. But how can that be, when robots are programmed to never bring harm to humans? It's a familiar situation for Derec and Ariel-the sort of mystery that led to their current status as political pariahs. Still, not even an exiled robot expert can turn down an opportunity to add his expertise to the investigation, and before too long, Derec is on his way to Kopernik. Ariel, meanwhile, has a mystery of her own to unravel. With the help of old friends-and potentially new enemies-Derec searches for the identity of a killer, unaware that Ariel is walking directly into the center of the web of intrigue...ALEXANDER C. IRVINE is the critically acclaimed author of A Scattering of Jades, and a native of Ypsilanti, Michigan. His extraordinary stories have appeared in such places as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Starlight 3. He is a descendant of P.T. Barnum, and once worked as a roller-skating waiter. He currently resides in New England with his wife and twins.

"A dark and complex mystery that will consume you, starring a protagonist who is equal parts quirky Milhone and steady Gamache."-Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong. When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he's been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he'll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector. Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff's deputy, Packard is leading the investigation into the missing teens, motivated by a family connection. As clues dry up and time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets and dig deep to uncover the dark past of the place he now calls home. Unrelentingly suspenseful and written with a piercing gaze into the dark depths of the human soul, And There He Kept Her is a thrilling page-turner that introduces readers to a complicated new hero and forces us to consider the true nature of evil.

'The darkness dwells, the desperation grows between the characters and the walls close in until you're caught in the trap.' Lars Kepler A breathless page-turner from an international master of suspense, this is a story about dependency, justice, and the sometimes fine line between right and wrong. Three young people. Bill, a widower and single dad, is in a financial mess with bills to pay when he rents out a room in his apartment to Karla. Karla left home to study law and to earn some money begins working as a cleaner at the palatial home of Steven and Regina Rytter. But inside their house it is clear that something is wrong with the doctor and his wife, who never leaves her bedroom. Jennica is single and careerless when she meets Steven on Tinder. But just as she thinks her luck is changing, it soon becomes clear that Steven is hiding secrets of his own . . . Two murders. By the end of the summer Steven and Regina Rytter will be found dead in their home and the questions will begin . . . One truth. Ordinary people will do things they never thought possible when faced with extraordinary circumstances, and the truth is that the woman inside may hold the key to it all . . . Praise for Nearly a Normal Family: ‘Deceptive and riveting’ Karin Slaughter, bestselling author of Girl, Forgotten ‘Taut page-turner *****’ The Sun ‘A cracking read!’ T. M. Logan, bestselling author of The Vacation ‘A compulsively readable tour de force’ Wall Street Journal ‘A canny, intensely suspenseful legal thriller’ Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent