When a new recruit to MI6 accidentally comes across an old photograph, she has no idea that it is about to change her world. Unknown to her, the photograph is evidence of a connection between a planned uprising in Eastern Europe and the secret society known as the Maddalena. Someone has decided she must be silenced before she can pass on the information she has uncovered and she is forced to run for her life, finding help in the most unexpected of places. Whilst she is pursued by the Mafia, an ambitious KGB Major in Belarus makes an alarming discovery. His subsequent investigation leads to the highest levels of government and the secret service as he begins to realise there is a plot by pro-Russian separatists to start a revolution. This exciting, fast-paced thriller takes the reader on a chase through Italy and Eastern Europe in a race against time. Secrets start to unfold and nobody knows who they can trust. No one is safe as the Maddalena tries to keep its existence and its operations hidden whatever the cost.

A roller coaster of emotions carries this story forward with its many facets of love. Romantic, obsessive and unrequited passions are just a few of the aspects explored through the characters using the park over one day.Can wrongs ever be redeemed? Dave the central character returning from the horrors of Afghanistan desperately believes that they can, otherwise his life means nothing. Can two star-crossed lovers survive today? In the twenty-first century world of bigotry and prejudice Romeo and Juliet's challenge is to prove their love can overcome all obstacles in their way. Can a child's dream become reality? Melanie is certain that despite her unique isolated view of family and people she can still follow her calling. Like the roots of the Sycamore where they separately meet, their lives unfold through connected links and strands. Stories of hope, despair and ambition unfold as the clock moves on relentlessly from sunrise to sunset.

Sofia is thirty-five and her husband has left her. Her father died the year before, and her mother is living in the Canary Islands with a new partner. Sofia flees the city with her young son, seeking refuge in her father's house on the southern coast of Spain, where she spent summers as a girl. Her younger sister, with whom she has a close but uneasy relationship, joins her. Living together again, the sisters face their present as well as their childhood and tangled past. A novel from one of Spain's most remarkable authors, Wolfskin is an intimate meditation on ambivalence and motherhood, eroticism and disappointment, family violence and failure, and ultimately, the possibility-or impossibility-of living with those you love.

After parting from the man who had once meant a great deal to her, Adele Corsairs fully intended to spend some time with her writing, yet the storm of her private life was to be echoed by a ferocious storm of the elements where she suddenly meets the new man in her life. Simon Felton however was soon to prove that he was not all that she had envisaged. A fact that was to prove all the more disturbing when she discovered that he was the son of her new employer, which made her new job working to promote a cruise line all the more difficult. Things seemed to go from bad to worse when Jason Rennet was found murdered and questions were then asked about her own relationship with this individual. Neither did a happy ending seem to be forthcoming when Adele realised that Simon was in fact expected to marry the daughter of one of their competitors. Yet Adele's reaction to this was to perpetuate even more disturbing consequences; leaving one to pose the question as to whether matters would ever end satisfactorily?

Eating the Cheshire Cat lures us into a world of perfectly planned parties and steep social ladders, where traditional rites of passage take unpredictable and horrifying turns as three girls and their overbearing mothers collide. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, beauty is as beauty does, with axes and knives and killer smiles.

Sarina Summers and her mother will stop at nothing to have it all. Nicole Hicks harbors a fierce obsession with Sarina, which repeatedly undermines Mrs. Hicks's ambitious goals. Bitty Jack Carlson, a nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks, is caught in the crossfire but struggles to succeed outside the confines of this outrageous yet eerily familiar Southern community. It's survival of the fittest. Which girl will come out on top?

Covering everything from summer camp to the University of Alabama's Homecoming game, this fast-paced and unforgettable novel will keep readers guessing until the bitter end.

Contribution is the sequel to The Girl from Penthorpe Hill. Poppy Anderson, Jasmine's adopted granddaughter, is a beautiful and compassionate young woman, dedicated to educating the world about our fragile planet. Her energy and passion for living life to the full, protecting the environment, helping others and striving to be the best she can, makes Poppy an international celebrity. Poppy, whose parents are devoted physicians working abroad, was raised by her wise old grandmother, Jasmine, living in the magnificent tropical jungles of Costa Rica before going on to further her education in the United States. After a long life, Jasmine's spiritual legacy lives on in the lives of Poppy and her best friend Sam, who plays a pivotal role in Poppy's journey. Contribution tells of the twists and turns in Poppy's life, learning to grow and confronting heart-breaking challenges. Recovering from a tragedy in India, which changes her world for ever, Poppy discovers there are many kinds of love and joy a person can experience in one lifetime. Poppy ultimately takes a trip back to Penthorpe Hill and begins to understand for herself that true love has no end. As with The Girl from Penthorpe Hill Carol Clayton writes about resilient women with honesty of emotion, be it sorrow or joy, and of meeting life's challenges with the main character emerging the stronger for it. Contribution is an intensely moving story of self-discovery, learning to live with loss and moving forward to experience life in all its fullness! A truly enjoyable read!

"A chilling and hard-hitting first novel" - The Herald. At the age of thirty, Campbell Johnstone is a failure. He's stuck behind the bar of a shabby pub, watching from the sidelines while everyone else makes a success of their lives. The most visible is Eve Sadler, a childhood friend and rising Hollywood star. When Campbell tries to rekindle their relationship, he longs for the glitter of her success to rub off on him - but a single shocking night changes everything, in ways he could never have predicted. When the dust settles, Cam's life is transformed. The recognition he'd given up on is within reach - but at what cost? The Last Treasure Hunt explores our obsession with fame and celebrity with great intelligence and sly wit - it's a modern media morality tale with bite.

A major film starring Brie Larson, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Best Actress BAFTA

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize and a Richard and Judy Book Club selection.

Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don't have the key.

Jack and Ma are prisoners.

Room by Emma Donoghue is an extraordinarily powerful story of a mother and child kept in isolation, and the desire for, and price of, freedom.

When we came to America, we brought anger and socialism and hunger. We also brought our demons. "One of the most powerful voices in speculative fiction."--Catherynne M. Valente In Burning Girls and Other Stories, Veronica Schanoes crosses borders and genres with stories of fierce women at the margins of society burning their way toward the center. This debut collection introduces readers to a fantasist in the vein of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, with a voice all her own. Emma Goldman--yes, that Emma Goldman--takes tea with Baba Yaga and truths unfold inside of exquisitely crafted lies. In Among the Thorns, a young woman in seventeenth century Germany is intent on avenging the brutal murder of her peddler father, but discovers that vengeance may consume all that it touches. In the showstopping, awards-finalist title story, Burning Girls, Schanoes invests the immigrant narrative with a fearsome fairytale quality that tells a story about America that we may not want--but need--to hear. Dreamy, dangerous, and precise, with the weight of the very oldest tales we tell, Burning Girls and Other Stories introduces a writer pushing the boundaries of both fantasy and contemporary fiction. With a foreword by Jane Yolen

In The Years to Remember we follow the fortunes of one British family struggling to survive in the early years of the last war. In spite of the bombing and the threat of invasion Jack and Dolly Foster took great care of their two children throughout these dreadful times. We witness the children's early school days and their formative years until the war ends. The focus then switches mainly to their son Mike as he leaves school and takes up his first employment, he then becomes eligible for National Service and another adventure really begins.

In a thrilling interconnected narrative, You're in the Wrong Place presents characters reaching for transcendence from a place they cannot escape. Charles Baxter stated that "Joseph Harris has a particular feeling for the Detroit suburbs and the slightly stunted lives of the young people there....You're in the Wrong Place isn't uniformly downbeat-there are all sorts of rays of hope that gleam toward the end". The book, composed of twelve stories, begins in the fall of 2008 with the shuttering of Dynamic Fabricating-a fictional industrial shop located in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. Over the next seven years, the shop's former employees - as well as their friends and families-struggle to find money, purpose, and levity in a landscape suddenly devoid of work, faith, and love. In "Would You Rather", a young couple brought together by Dynamic Fabricating shares a blissful weekend in Northern Michigan, unaware of the catastrophe that awaits them upon their return home. In "Acolytes", a devout Catholic clings to her faith as her brothers descend into cultish soccer violence. In "Memorial", an ex-Dynamic worker scrapes money together for a tribute to his best friend, lost to the war in Afghanistan. In "Was It Good for You?" a cam girl deconstructs materialism with her ageng great aunt, a luxury sales associate, and an anxious, faceless client. And in the title story, simmering tensions come to a boil on a hot summer day for a hardscrabble landscaping crew, hired by the local bank to maintain the lawns of foreclosures In turns elegiac and harrowing, You're in the Wrong Place blends lyric intensity with philosophical eroticism to create a singular, powerful vision of contemporary American life. Readers of contemporary fiction grounded in place need to take up this collection.

Mr. Freddie was a middle-aged man trapped in an imperfect world, his only desire to get the most out of life and make money in the city of London. London, being the most enviable capital of the world, was to become Mr. Freddie's home for the greater part of his life. He was a man that had ideas, a cool individual who embarked on ideas with a kind of innovation. He set up the GBP1m-a-year bankers' brothel in the shadow economy and operated it for five years from a beautiful terraced house located in a quiet mews of Holborn in the heart of the city. All the women working at the bankers' brothel worked as prostitutes on a part-time basis. Drivers would drive the city bankers to the brothel from city strip clubs on the promise of sex and drivers would receive commission. Payment via credit card was offered at an increased rate by cardboys. In the United Kingdom, it is very difficult for a person to operate a brothel without breaking the law. Mr. Freddie was arrested and the brothel was closed down. He was found guilty by a jury and sent to prison.

Chris Stewart is haunted by an old secret. Betrayed by her husband and supported by her daughter, Alice, and best friend, Babs, she struggles to keep the past at bay. However, when she discovers that she is pregnant by another man, Chris's life is shattered. In Letter to an Unborn Child, C.A. Pearson follows Chris's descent into despair and attempted suicide. the story is a harrowing account of a journey into that other world which is the human psyche: Pearson's sensitive account helps us to understand that it is love that destroys but that, ultimately, it is only love that can heal.

It is generally accepted that a single act, even a very ordinary event can change an individual's life for ever. Certainly, young Johnny Locksley finds this to be true. For him the catalyst proves to be none other than the Helianthus annus, the golden Sunflower. His search to find advice on how to purchase and cultivate the plant goes awry when he encounters a rival beauty and a temptation that he is powerless to resist. He finds himself led not into a garden but into a web of love, loss and a dangerous adventure played out beneath a Southern sun. .

The year is 1997. Cleo Howard is at a very awkward age, she's sure she's an adult, so why won't everyone realise this? Why won't her chest realise this? Why is maths so hard? When will she stop feeling sad that her dad doesn't live with her and her mum? Music and men are her twin fascinations and she thanks Almighty Lemmy for metal and mates. Her diary, which you now hold in your hands, is home to her deepest thoughts, fondest wishes and often what she had for tea.

The road trip was definitely a bad idea. Having already flambeed her culinary career beyond recognition, Rita Clarkson is now stranded in God-Knows-Where, New Mexico, with a busted car and her three temperamental siblings, who she hasn't seen in years. When rescue shows up-six-feet-plus of charming hotness on a motorcycle-Rita's pretty certain she's gone from the frying pan right into the fire . . . Jasper Ellis has a bad boy reputation in this town, and he loathes it. The moment he sees Rita, though, Jasper knows he's about to be sorely tempted. There's something real between them. Something raw. And Jasper has only a few days to show Rita that he isn't just for tonight-he's forever. "One of my all-time favorite authors!" -Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game

From the author of the beloved debut Boys Don't Cry - an unforgettable story of love, loss, regret and the indelible marks one person can make on your life.

Summer, 1991.

Dean: sun-stung and sticky with cool ice-pop juice, walks to the middle of The Green to get a good gawk at the new salon. And at the owner's kid. Hands deep in his pockets, his jet-black mop of hair hides the tension in his face and shoulders at the thought of going back home.

Shauna: stands well hid behind her ma - her eyes dark and haunted like the rest of her. The salon is theirs, a fresh start. The smell of her Ma's Body Shop perfume clings to her jumper - Shauna can't be anywhere else other than here.

Instantly inseparable, their friendship blooms. But as time passes and tell-tale blushes and school fights develop into something deeper, conflicting responsibilities threaten to pull Shauna and Dean apart.

When all seems lost, will they find each other under the same blue sky?