After a passionate night together, Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye part the next morning as enemies. A new emperor has ascended the throne, and the court is in flux. Power and position are in reach for anyone who dares to grasp them—and Shen Zechuan will stop at nothing to pursue his ambitions. But while Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye counter each other’s moves on the board, grander schemes are afoot in the capital of Qudu.

As court conspiracies swirl around them, Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye find themselves unlikely allies against a mysterious adversary pulling the strings behind a series of calamities targeting the emperor. Yet, in order to work together, there must be trust, and with trust comes risk: in setting their masks aside, they may inadvertently find their whole selves laid bare.

From boyhood to manhood big, gentle Mico had but two passions in life - the sea, and a young girl so terrible lovely-lookin' it raised your heart to heaven just to see her smile. But with a hideous birthmark on his cheek, a Jonah to those he loved, and only the simple life of a fisherman to offer, how could he hope to win Maeve? The white-capped waves and a great old black bitch of a boat brought the answer . . .

In La Pasionaria, a historical novel based on true events, a young unemployed Welsh coal miner embarks on a tortuous walk on the Jarrow Hunger March that takes him from the north of England to London and finally, to a confrontation with the British government.

Dai Powell journeys across the English Channel through France to Spain where the Communists are inspired by La Pasionaria, a crusading woman who passionately believes that Communism will eventually overtake the world. As La Pasionaria becomes the icon of the Republicana and the unemployed workers of Spain, Powell volunteers to fight for the Republican Government against Generalismo Francisco Franco's Nationalist aggressors. Powell falls in love with a Spanish military nurse, but also witnesses the horrific atrocities committed under Franco's order. Powell can only watch as brutal Nationalist soldiers tear babies away from their mothers and, after placing their parents in front of firing squads, send the children to orphanages where they are brainwashed into believing the ruthless politics of fascism.

After Powell is expatriated from Spain with the rest of his comrades, Powell must make a dangerous undercover return in an effort to rescue his lover and their child from the barbarous Nationalists.

First ever publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s final writings on Middle-earth, covering a wide range of subjects and perfect for those who have read and enjoyed The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth, and want to learn more about Tolkien’s magnificent world. It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973. For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation. From sweeping themes as complex and profound as the metaphysics of Elvish immortality and reincarnation, and the Powers of the Valar, to the more earth-bound subjects of the lands and beasts of Númenor, the geography of the Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, and even who had beards! This new collection, which has been edited by Carl F Hostetter, one of the world’s leading Tolkien experts, is a veritable treasure-trove offering readers a chance to peer over Professor Tolkien’s shoulder at the very moment of discovery: and on every page, Middle-earth is once again brought to extraordinary life.

... Since my illness, I have had some real challenges. I perceive the rigorous succession of circumstances. I trespassed across the borders of my former life; I crossed the seas, left cities behind me, followed the course of rivers or plunged into the desert, always making my way toward other cities; I affronted death... I allowed other men to touch my body; I met men and women and listened to their stories; I stirred controversy and passions; and all that led me - where? To understand that to live is to be marked, to see life in the present tense. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story and this is the only celebration, we, mortals really know. The words of a story. Still doubting...""Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." "(Edgar Allan Poe) Ondine's story is dedicated to all those men and women I will never meet in person, and whose lives collapsed on a beautiful day, condemned to an incurable illness. It is my hope that Ondine's story will be like a ray of sunshine, a pleasant interlude, in their daily wrestle. And when they feel depressed, defeated and overwhelmed by their fate, I would like to remind them that, for as little as we know with certitude, for wealthy or poor, for healthy or sick, for old or younger, for all of us, sooner or later, at the end of our journey through the space called Life, there it is, majestic in its implacable serenity, silently awaiting... the EXIT. The Author

The precarious equilibrium among the four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. Kell-once assumed to be the last surviving Antari-begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard, once a commonplace-but never common-thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery and the Night Spire crew are attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible, as an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown and a fallen hero is desperate to save a decaying world...

When Skye Rogers and her twin brother Red move to Manhattan, rumours of a coming global apocalypse are building. But this does not stop the young elite of New York from partying without a care.

And then suddenly Skye is invited to join an exclusive gang known as the Secret Runners of New York. But this is no ordinary clique - they have access to an underground portal that can transport them into the future. And what Skye discovers in the future is horrifying.

As society crumbles, Skye and Red race to figure out how to use their knowledge to survive the impending annihilation, they soon discover that the chaotic end of the world is the perfect time for revenge...

Raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father, a 17-year-old girl has learned above all to avoid mauvais ton (“bad taste� loses something in the translation). One should not ask servants to wait on one during Ramadan: they must have paid leave while one spends the holy month abroad. One must play the piano; if staying at Claridge’s, one must regrettably install a Clavinova in the suite, so that the necessary hours of practice will not be inflicted on fellow guests. One should cultivate weavers of tweed in the Outer Hebrides but have the cloth made up in London; one should buy linen in Ireland but have it made up by a Thai seamstress in Paris (whose genius has been supported by purchase of suitable premises). All this and much more she has learned, governed by a parent of ferociously lofty standards. But at 17, during the annual Ramadan travels, she finds all assumptions overturned. Will she be able to fend for herself? Will the dictates of good taste suffice when she must deal, singlehanded, with the sharks of New York?

A hilarious and sexy romance about a woman who gets dropped on a strange planet only to fall for not one, but two, aliens, from the author of I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

Dorothy Valentine is close to getting her PhD in wildlife biology when she’s attacked by a lion. On the bright side, she’s saved! On the not-so-bright side, it’s because they’re abducted by aliens. In her scramble to escape, Dory and the lion commandeer an escape pod and crash-land on an alien planet that has...dinosaurs?

Dory and her new lion bestie, Toto, are saved in the nick of time by a mysterious and sexy alien, Sol. On their new adventure, they team up with the equally hot, equally dangerous Lok, who may or may not be a war criminal. Whether it be trauma, fate, or intrigue, Dory can’t resist the attraction that’s developing in their trio....

As this ragtag group of misfits explore their new planet, Dory learns more about how and why they’ve all ended up together, battles more prehistoric creatures than she imagined (she imagined...zero), and questions if she even wants to go back home to Earth in this hilarious and steamy alien romance adventure comedy romp.

An action-packed comedy about a fake family that includes a spy, an assassin and a telepath! Master spy Twilight is unparalleled when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions for the betterment of the world. But when he receives the ultimate assignment-to get married and have a kid-he may finally be in over his head! Not one to depend on others, Twilight has his work cut out for him procuring both a wife and a child for his mission to infiltrate an elite private school. What he doesn't know is that the wife he's chosen is an assassin and the child he's adopted is a telepath!