"I'm minded of the way a fire spreads in dry bracken when we burn it off the fellside: tongues of flame this way and that - 'tis human tongues and words that's creeping like flames in brushwood." It all began up at High Gimmerdale with the sheep-stealing, a hateful act in the shepherding lands around the bend in the Lune river - the Crook o' Lune. Then came the fire at Aikengill house and with the leaping of the flames, death, disorder and dangerous gossip came to the quiet moorlands. Visiting his friends, the Hoggetts, while searching for some farmland to buy up ahead of his retirement, Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald's trip becomes a busman's holiday when he is drawn to investigate the deadly blaze and the deep-rooted motives behind the rising spate of crimes. Renowned for its authentic characters and settings based partly on the author's own experiences of life in the Lune valley, E.C.R. Lorac's classic rural mystery returns to print for the first time since 1953.

Also known as MDZS, the comic/manhua version of the New York Times bestselling novels from China that also inspired an animated adaptation and the live-action series The Untamed! Experience this historical fantasy tale of two powerful men who find each other through life and death in this English version of the beautiful, full-color comic! Feared and hated for his sinister abilities, Wei Wuxian–the grandmaster of demonic cultivation–was driven to his death when the most powerful clans united to destroy him. Thirteen years later, Wei Wuxian is reborn. Summoned by a young man who sacrificed his soul in a forbidden ritual, Wei Wuxian is now bound to seek vengeance on the stranger’s behalf or risk the destruction of his own soul. But when an evil entity emerges, a familiar face from Wei Wuxian’s past suddenly appears amidst the chaos–a powerful cultivator who will help shine a light on the dark truths that surround them.  Don’t miss this full-color xianxia fantasy manhua/comic from China about two powerful men who are drawn to each other through war and across lifetimes!

Now in its nineteenth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa's leading literary prize and is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This collection brings together the five 2018 shortlisted stories: American Dream by Nonyelum Ekwempu (Nigeria); The Armed Letter Writers by Olofunke Ogundimu (Nigeria); Fanta Blackcurrant by Makena Onjerika (Kenya); Involution by Stacy Hardy (South Africa); Wednesday's Story by Wole Talabi (Nigeria). It also includes 12 stories written at the Caine Prize Writers' Workshop, which took place in Rwanda in April 2018: No Ordinary Soiree by Paula Akugizibwe; Tie Kidi by Awuor Onyango; Calling the Clouds Home by Heran T. Abate; America by Caroline Numuhire; All Things Bright and Beautiful by Troy Onyango; Departure by Nsah Mala; Where Rivers Go to Die by Dilman Dila; Ngozi by Bongani Sibanda; The Weaving of Death by Lucky Grace Isingizwe; Redemption Song by Arinze Ifeakandu; Spaceman by Bongani Kona; Grief is the Gift that Breaks the Spirit Open by Eloghosa Osunde. The 2018 judging panel comprises: Dinaw Mengestu, journalist, author and graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University's M.F.A. programme in fiction; Alain Mabanckou, prolific Francophone Congolese poet and novelist and Man Booker International Prize finalist (2015); reporter, columnist and poet Ahmed Rajab; Henrietta Rose-Innes, a South African author who won the Caine Prize in 2008; and Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer who has won the Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize.

Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction by A. D. P. Briggs. As Fyodor Karamazov awaits an amorous encounter, he is violently done to death. The three sons of the old debauchee are forced to confront their own guilt or complicity. Who will own to parricide? The reckless and passionate Dmitri? The corrosive intellectual Ivan? Surely not the chaste novice monk Alyosha? The search reveals the divisions which rack the brothers, yet paradoxically unite them. Around the writhings of this one dysfunctional family Dostoevsky weaves a dense network of social, psychological and philosophical relationships. At the same time he shows - from the opening 'scandal' scene in the monastery to a personal appearance by an eccentric Devil - that his dramatic skills have lost nothing of their edge. The Karamazov Brothers, completed a few months before Dostoevsky's death in 1881, remains for many the high point of his genius as novelist and chronicler of the modern malaise. It cast a long shadow over D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and other giants of twentieth-century European literature.

During a trip to a nearby village to visit friends, Sir Ashleigh Carruthers, the adventurous and eligible son of a country squire, attends an evening service in the small local church. There, he finds himself seated next to the alluring and hypnotically beautiful Woman in Black. When the vicar falls ashen and collapses mid-sermon after looking upon her face--and when he, himself, becomes sick--Carruthers is left to wonder and then investigate: Who is this mysterious woman, and why does she cause mad passion, illness, and fear in her wake? Is she afflicted with the curse of the vampire?

Variety is truly the spice of life throughout, thanks to the inspired imagination of the author of this collection. Via his vision you can experience the hardship of poverty-stricken nineteenth-century England in "When God Looked Down to Help a Child", or futuristic space journeys in "Just One Chance", and the thrill of time travel in "Ahead of His Time". The reader should keep one thing in mind: in the great short story tradition of Vonnegut and Carver, the stories may start off as the ordinary run of the mill kind, but expect the unexpected and the far-from-ordinary.

After being reincarnated in another world, Cid is enjoying playing his role as an "eminence in shadow," when the school is occupied by a group claiming to be none other than Shadow Garden! While protecting Rose, the student council president, Cid takes a blow in her place!?

Harry Gilmore has no idea of the terrible danger he faces when he meets a beautiful girl in a local student bar. Drugged and abducted, Harry wakes up in a secure wooden compound deep in the Welsh countryside, where he is groomed by the leaders of a manipulative cult, run by the self-proclaimed new messiah known as The Master. When the true nature of the cult becomes apparent, Harry looks for any opportunity to escape. But as time passes, he questions if The Master's extreme behavior and teachings are the one true religion. With Harry's life hanging by a thread, a team of officers, led by Detective Inspector Laura Kesey, investigate his disappearance. But will they find him before it's too late? *Previously published as The Girl in White*

'You like it darker? Fine, so do I', writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life - both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel 'the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind', and in You Like it Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

'Two Talented Bastids' explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In 'Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream', a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In 'Rattlesnakes', a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance - with major strings attached. In 'The Dreamers', a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. 'The Answer Man' asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King's ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.