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CLIPPER L A R G E
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October – December 2014
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Dear Librarian, Welcome to our autumn collection crammed with chart-toppers, including some of the biggest names in fiction today! Celebrated by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers, Donna Leon brings Venice to life in The Golden Egg, the latest Commissario Brunetti Investigation. Four times CWA International Dagger winner, Fred Vargas, returns with Dog Will Have His Day and we celebrate 10 years of Detective Roy Grace with Want You Dead, the tenth investigation in the multi-million copy selling series. Not to mention Harlan Coben and David Baldacci. David Nicholls brings to bear all the wit and intelligence that graced One Day in Us. This brilliant, bittersweet new book, which will delight his fans and bring him many new readers, has also been nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2014! When it comes to women’s fiction, we’re delighted to welcome bestselling Susan Lewis with Never Let Me Go, a deeply moving tale of friendship, family and the power of love. Plus unforgettable stories from Freya North, Jessie Burton and Valerie Mendes. In our non-fiction titles, London Mayor Boris Johnson brings the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill back to life in The Churchill Factor, published to mark the 50th anniversary of the great leader’s death. And from October, Sir Alex Ferguson’s extraordinary memoir, My Autobiography, the UK’s biggest selling biography, is available. We are proud to present one of our strongest ever large print ranges. Best wishes,
The Editor
INDEX • October 2014 Large Print titles 4-10 • November 2014 Large Print titles 10-20 • December 2014 Large Print titles 20-26 3
The Target David Baldacci
Want You Dead Peter James
Where I Found You – Amanda Brooke
978 147127 153 3 – 560pp
978 1 47127 152 6 – 608pp
978 1 47127 227 1 – 480pp
When revenge gets personal, the stakes get higher…
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overnment operatives Will Robie and Jessica Reel are faced with a lethal mission. An attack from North Korea looks likely as US involvement in an attempted coup is revealed. Chungcha is a young woman who was raised in the infamous Yodok Camp. It’s a place where honour, emotion and compassion don’t exist. Cold, calculating and highly skilled, Chung-cha has been trained to kill. And the task she has been given is to destroy the enemy at all costs. But who will fall prey at the ultimate showdown when the true quarry is finally revealed?
‘Brilliant plotting, heart-grabbing action and characters to die for’ DAILY MAIL ‘Baldacci inhabits the skin of his creations - tripping us up with unexpected empathy and subtle identification’ SUNDAY EXPRESS
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Want You Dead is Peter James’ tenth book in his multimillion-copy selling crime series featuring the definitive detective, Roy Grace
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hen 29 year old Red Westwood meets Bryce Laurent, a rich, handsome man, through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past begins to emerge. Everything he has told Red about himself turns out to be lies, and her infatuation with him gradually turns to terror. Within a year, Red has kicked him out of her flat, and she hopes her life too. But Bryce is obsessed, and he intends to destroy everything and everyone she has ever known - and then her too…
A touching and emotional novel from the author of Richard and Judy Book Club pick Yesterday’s Sun
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aggie Carter is blind; the park is her safe place but newly married and expecting her first baby, she isn’t sure if she will cope. Elsa is also expecting her first child and without anyone to support her, she is terrified that her child will be taken away. But when Maggie meets Elsie, all is not as it seems. Elsa, now known as Elsie, lost her baby sixty years ago, and suffering from Alzheimer’s, she keeps re-living the trauma. Struggling under the expectations and intentions of others, Maggie and Elsa’s chance meeting on the park bench offers them each a lifeline and a friend.
‘Haunting and heart-breaking’ FERN BRITTON Praise for the author: ‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ KARIN SLAUGHTER
‘Magical and unputdownable’ KATIE FFORDE
‘James just gets better and better and deserves the success he has achieved with this first-class series’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 4
October 2014
The Queen’s Man Rory Clements
The Memory Book Rowan Coleman
The Killing Club Paul Finch
978 1 47127 160 1 – 512pp
978 1 47127 226 4 – 400pp
978 1 47127 159 5 – 544pp
1582, and the conflict between Protestant and Catholic threatens to tear the country in two
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From the author of Dearest Rose and Lessons in Laughing Out Loud, The Memory Book is an original, heartwarming and uplifting novel.
hile Queen Elizabeth I holds the reins of power, there are those whose loyalty lies with her imprisoned cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. On his first major mission for Sir Francis Walsingham, the young John Shakespeare is ordered to discover a conspiracy to free the Stuart queen. All too soon, he realises that the uncovering of the plot threaten his own friends and family. His duty lies with Elizabeth - but how far will he go to protect those he loves?
he name of your first-born. The face of your lover. Your age. Your address... What would happen if your memory of these began to fade? Is it possible to rebuild your life? Raise a family? Fall in love again? When Claire starts to write her Memory Book, she already knows that this scrapbook of mementoes will soon be all her daughters and husband have of her. But how can she hold onto the past when her future is slipping through her fingers...?
‘Rory Clements again brings to life the dark side of Elizabethan England’ DAILY MAIL
‘I can’t tell you how much I loved this book. It did make me cry but it also made me laugh… I couldn’t put it down. A tender testament to maternal love.’ KATIE FFORDE
‘Does for Elizabeth’s reign what C. J. Sansom does for Henry VIII’s’ SUNDAY TIMES
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‘Written with great tenderness, The Memory Book manages to be heartbreakingly sad yet uplifting too… I absolutely loved it!’ LUCY DIAMOND, author of Me and Mr Jones
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Get hooked on Heck: the maverick detective who knows no boundaries
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S Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is used to bloodbaths. But nothing can prepare him for this. Two years ago, he put the ringleader of The Nice Guys Club - a vicious rape and murder gang with countless victims- behind bars. But Heck knows that this depraved organisation stretches far beyond UK shores. When brutal murders start happening across the country, it’s clear that the Nice Guys are at work again. In cold blood, broad daylight and by any means necessary, the Nice Guys have no boundaries. And Heck knows it won’t be long before they come for him.
Brace yourself as you turn the pages of a living nightmare. Welcome to The Killing Club. ‘Really terrific, compulsive stuff which was given top marks…definitely a talent to watch.’ THE BOOKSELLER on Stalkers ‘A very dark premise… it’ll have you by the throat until you get to the end.’ BOOKS AND WRITERS on Stalkers
October 2014
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Karen Joy Fowler 978 1 47127 154 0 – 384pp
Return to Fourwinds Elisabeth Gifford
Everland Rebecca Hunt
978 1 47127 158 8 – 432pp
978 1 47127 161 8 – 416pp
Nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2014
One house. Two families. A lifetime of secrets.
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osemary’s just started college, and she’s decided not to tell anyone about her family. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone - vanished from her life. There was something unique about Rosemary’s sister, Fern. This is her story; it begins towards the end, and then loops back to the beginning, twice over. You’ll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. But when you do find out, you’ll find it really hard to keep a secret.
‘A novel so readably juicy and surreptitiously smart, it deserves all the attention it can get.’ BARBARA KINGSOLVER ‘A dark cautionary tale hanging out, incognito-style, in what at first seems a traditional family narrative. It is anything but.’ ALICE SEBOLD
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t Fourwinds they gather: Alice and Ralph, Patricia and Peter, to celebrate the marriage of their children. But the bride, Sarah, is nowhere to be seen. As both families are drawn together, the past floods through the corridors of the old house. What secret has Ralph been keeping from his wife? What is it about Alice’s wartime encounter with Peter that has haunted her ever since? And what caused Sarah to vanish without a word to any of the people she loves?
Praise for the author: ‘Gifford moves nimbly between the centuries and voices of her intriguing tale. She is a singular and poetic writer.’ RHIDIAN BROOK ‘Fans of historical fiction, folklore and Scotland will all enjoy this.’ WE LOVE THIS BOOK
Two groups, almost a hundred years apart, find themselves on the same desolate Antarctic island in this tense and compelling novel by Rebecca Hunt
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913: Dinners, Millet-Bass, and Napps - three men bound by an intense dependence founded on survival - will be immortalised by their decision to volunteer to scout out a series of uncharted and unknown islands in the Antarctic. 013: Brix, Jess, and Decker - three researchers with their own reasons for being far from home - set out on a field trip to the same ancient lumps of rock and snow. Under the harsh ultraviolet light, the world of simple everyday pleasures recedes and they unknowingly begin to mirror the expedition of 100 years ago.
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‘Nothing short of stunning… something very powerful and unusual indeed’ GUARDIAN ‘Part-thriller, part adventure story, part social drama and utterly absorbing’ DAILY MAIL
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October 2014
Fall From Grace Richard North Patterson
An Open Marriage Tess Stimson
Dog Will Have His Day Fred Vargas
978 1 47127 155 7 – 416pp
978 1 47127 156 4 – 320pp
978 1 47127 157 1 – 320pp
‘This is a high-profile death with several possible explanations. Which can be summarised as jumped, fell or pushed.’
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dam Blaine returns to Martha’s Vineyard out of duty rather than grief, after his father - bestselling author and celebrated human rights activist Benjamin Blaine - falls to his death. Having been estranged from his father for ten years, Adam is surprised to discover himself appointed the executor of his estate; especially as the will disinherits Adam’s family, leaving their wealth and home to Ben’s recent lover, young actress Carla Pacelli. Adam’s mission - to undo the will and protect his blood - forces him to confront his own past, and pulls him into a labyrinth of lies, deception and betrayal...
When you abandon the rules, can you ever go back?
How do you solve a murder without a body?
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ia Allen has never quite adjusted to living in England. She misses her friends in the States and feels restrained by smalltown family life. Her husband Kit, on the other hand, loves the sense of community here. Like Mia, Kit’s boss Charlie is also looking for more excitement in her life. So when she and her husband are invited to dinner with Mia and Kit, she jumps at the chance to make new friends. As the increasing attraction between all of them moves up a notch, can any of their relationships survive this unconventional arrangement?
‘A truly compelling story of family ties and secrets’ DAILY EXPRESS on The Lying Game
‘A stunning tale of betrayal and love... secrets and scandals... thrilling suspense’ LINDA FAIRSTEIN
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eeping watch under the windows of the Paris flat belonging to a politician’s nephew, ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler catches sight of something odd on the pavement. A tiny piece of bone. Human bone, in fact. When Kehlweiler takes his find to the nearest police station, he faces ridicule. Obsessed by the fragment, he follows the trail to the tiny Breton fishing village of Port-Nicolas - in search of a dog. But when he recruits ‘evangelists’ Marc and Mathias to help, they find themselves facing even bigger game.
Shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger ‘Move over Scandi crime, the new foreign thriller favourites are the French. And no one is better than Fred Vargas’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Vargas is an addictive writer whose surreal touches create a curiously solid world. Her occasional whimsy somehow turns into comment both trenchant and funny’ INDEPENDENT
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October 2014
What A Girl Wants Lindsey Kelk
After the Wedding Roisin Meaney
My Autobiography Alex Ferguson
978 1 47127 164 9 – 464pp
978 1 47127 165 6 – 432pp
978 1 47126 651 5 – 464pp
A summer bestseller from the immensely popular Lindsey Kelk
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eing arrested in your own bedroom is never a good start to the day. Tess Brookes really needs to sort out her backstabbing flatmate – and her life. Tess Brookes was the girl with a plan. Now she’s the girl with a choice. For the first time, Tess has to choose between the life she always dreamed of and a future she never imagined possible. Should she gamble all on the new photography job she’s landed, or snap up the offer from best friend Charlie to start up on their own?
Praise for the author: ‘Outrageous, witty, exciting and romantic, we simply adored this sparkling read’ CLOSER
Will happiness be restored before autumn comes?
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t’s the beginning of May, and Nell Mulcahy, having called off her wedding to the handsome Tim Baker, has finally admitted her love for his brother James. When James and Nell return from their own wedding, they find the island rocked by the disappearance of a young girl holidaying there. As the summer progresses, and Nell and James navigate life as a married couple, the search for the girl continues. And the island residents discover that everything can change in a single moment.
‘This is supreme chick-lit. Plot-driven, sometimes funny, and crammed with faulty, erring, ornery human beans.’ IRISH INDEPENDENT
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ver the last quarter of a century there have been seismic changes at Manchester United. The only constant elements have been the manager, the quality of his squad and the club’s amazing run of success. It was directly due to Sir Alex’s vision, energy and ability that he was able to build teams both on and off the pitch. Both the psychology of management and the detail of football strategy at the top level can be complex matters, but no one has explained them in a more interesting and accessible way for the general reader than Sir Alex does.
My Autobiography is revealing, endlessly entertaining and above all inspirational.
‘Kelk has a hilarious turn of phrase and a sparkling writing style’ DAILY EXPRESS
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Sir Alex Ferguson’s compelling story reflects on his epic journey, and a managerial career that embraced unprecedented success for Aberdeen and 26 triumphant years with Manchester United.
Alex Ferguson was born in 1941 in Govan, Scotland. Arriving at Manchester United in 1986, his overall haul of 49 trophies made him the most successful British manager of all time. 8
October 2014
A Short History of England Simon Jenkins
Last Days of the Bus Club Chris Stewart
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
978 1 47127 163 2 – 400pp
978 1 47127 162 5 – 320pp
978 1 47127 167 0 – 768pp
The definitive concise account of England’s remarkable past
From the British and Spanish bestselling author, Chris Stewart, comes another hilarious account of life in Andalucía
Stowe’s rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why the whole of America is implicated in and responsible for the sin of slavery.
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t’s two decades since Chris Stewart moved to his farm on the wrong side of a river in southern Spain and his daughter Chlöe is preparing to leave for university. In this latest, typically hilarious dispatch from El Valero we find Chris, now a local literary celebrity, using his fame to help his old sheep-shearing partner find work on a raucous road trip; cooking a TV lunch for visiting British chef, Rick Stein; discovering the pitfalls of Spanish public speaking; and, most movingly, visiting famine-stricken Niger for Oxfam. Yet it’s at El Valero, his beloved sheep farm, that Chris remains in his element.
hich battle was fought ‘For England, Harry and St George’? Who demanded to be painted ‘warts and all’? What - and when - was the Battle of the Bulge? In A Short History of England, bestselling author Simon Jenkins answers all these questions - and many more - as he tells the tumultuous story of a fascinating nation. From the invaders of the dark ages to today’s political parties, via the Tudors, the Stuarts and two world wars, Jenkins weaves together a gripping narrative in his own inimitable style.
‘Full of stand-out facts... Absolutely fascinating... I’ve learnt an awful lot’ RICHARD BACON
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‘When an author is as modest and humorous as this, his story cannot be told too often’ THE TIMES
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n debt, Kentucky farmer Arthur Shelby reluctantly decides to trade two of his slaves. The two, middle-aged Uncle Tom and young Harry, are to be sold to Mr. Haley, a detestable slave trader. Eliza, Harry’s mother, overhears the details of the arrangement, warns Uncle Tom, and flees with Harry to the north. Eliza and Harry barely make it across the Ohio River before slave hunters start to catch up with them. On the run, Eliza and her family seek shelter and safety. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom, who refused to run away, is separated from his family and sold down river.
‘One of the greatest productions of the human mind’ LEO TOLSTOY
October 2014
The Law and the Lady Wilkie Collins
The Golden Egg Donna Leon
Us David Nicholls
978 1 47127 166 3 – 592pp
978 1 47127 491 6 – 416pp
978 1 47127 607 1 – 480pp
A classic from the author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone, one of the first novels with a female detective as its heroine
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espite the grave misgivings of both their families, Valeria Brinton and Eustace Woodville marry. Before long the new bride begins to suspect a dark secret in her husband’s past and when she discovers that he has been living under a false name, she determines to find out why he is concealing his true identity. Soon she must endure an even greater shock: the revelation that her husband has been on trial for poisoning his first wife. Convinced of his innocence, Valeria is prepared to do anything to clear her husband’s name, and in so doing upturns the conventions of polite nineteenth century society.
First published in 1875, The Law and the Lady adds a significant dimension to the history of detective fiction. ‘Probably the very finest detective story ever written’ DOROTHY L. SAYERS on The Moonstone
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Donna Leon brings Venice to life in the twenty-second Brunetti novel of this bestselling series
The much-anticipated and Man Booker longlisted new novel from David Nicholls, author of One Day
hen making enquiries into a possible bribery case, Commissario Brunetti receives a call from his wife. The middle-aged deaf mute with the mental age of a child who helped out at the Brunetti’s dry cleaners has been found dead - an ‘accidental’ overdose of his mother’s sleeping pills - and Paola is distraught. To the neighbourhood he was just the ‘boy’ who helped out, but nobody knew much about him. The man’s mother is angry when questioned, and Brunetti senses that there is much more to the story. With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, perhaps Brunetti can get to the truth.
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‘The familiar characters and Venetian location are described with remarkable freshness and, as always, the edifying result is both amusing and thoughtprovoking’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
‘Wonderful. A novel that manages to be both truly hilarious and deeply affecting. I loved it.’ S J WATSON
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ouglas Petersen’s family is on the brink of dissolution. His marriage of twenty-one years to Connie is almost over. When autumn comes around, their son Albie will leave for college. Connie has decided to leave soon after. But before everything falls apart, there’s still the summer holidays to get through - a Grand Tour of Europe’s major cities - and over the course of the journey, Douglas devises a plan to win back the love of his wife and repair his troubled relationship with his son.
‘I loved this book. Funny, sad, tender: for anyone who wants to know what happens after the Happy Ever After.’ JOJO MOYES
November 2014
Breaking Light Karin Altenberg
Pop Goes the Weasel M. J. Arlidge
The Dead Wife’s Handbook Hannah Beckerman
978 1 47127 497 8 – 432pp
978 1 47127 500 5 – 416pp
978 1 47127 496 1 – 416pp
A mesmerising tale set in a haunted landscape, of the ways in which something once broken in two may, finally, be made whole
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teeped in its bleak and beautiful landscape, Mortford is a place of secrets and memories: of bitter divisions and shattered dreams. Returning to this Dartmoor village where he grew up, Gabriel attempts to come to terms with what he lost as a boy so long ago. Slowly the mysteries hidden in this small community begin to unravel. But one of Gabriel’s memories remains sharper than all the others: that of his boyhood friend Michael, the tenderness of their first summers and the violent betrayal that destroyed it.
Karin Altenberg’s first novel Island of Wings was nominated for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year ‘I was enchanted by the magic of her storytelling. This is a novelist with a future’ MICHAEL HOLROYD
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DI Helen Grace returns in Pop Goes the Weasel, the electrifying new thriller from M. J. Arlidge
‘Today is my death anniversary. A year ago today I was still alive.’
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achel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life - until the night Rachel’s heart stopped beating. Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can’t forget her, Rachel can’t quite let go of them either. Caught in a place between worlds, Rachel watches helplessly as she begins to fade from their lives. And when Max is persuaded by family and friends to start dating again, Rachel starts to understand that dying was just the beginning of her problems.
he body of a middle-aged man is discovered in Southampton’s red light district - horrifically mutilated, with his heart removed. Hours later - and barely cold - the heart arrives with his wife and children by courier. A pattern emerges when another male victim is found dead and eviscerated, his heart delivered soon afterwards. The media call it Jack the Ripper in reverse; revenge against the men who lead sordid double lives visiting prostitutes. For Grace, only one thing is certain: there’s a vicious serial-killer at large who must be halted at all costs…
Praise for the author: ‘M. J. Arlidge has created a genuinely fresh heroine in DI Helen Grace... he spares us none of the dark details, weaving them together into a tapestry that chills to the bone’ DAILY MAIL ‘[G]oing to be as big as Jo Nesbo’ JUDY FINNIGAN
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The Dead Wife’s Handbook is a stunning emotional debut from author Hannah Beckerman. ‘Beautifully written and full of love’ FERN BRITTON ‘A moving and intriguing debut novel’ FABULOUS MAGAZINE
November 2014
The Telling Error Sophie Hannah
Homeland: Carrie’s Run Andrew Kaplan
Prague Fatale Philip Kerr
978 1 47127 495 4 – 496pp
978 1 47127 492 3 – 384pp
978 1 47127 493 0 – 528pp
Think you want to know the secret? Think again…
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tuck in a traffic jam, Nicki Clements sees a face she hoped never to see again. It’s definitely him, the same police officer, stopping each car on Elmhirst Road. Keen to avoid him, Nicki does a U-turn and makes her escape. The next day, Nicki is pulled in for questioning in connection with the murder of Damon Blundy, controversial newspaper columnist and resident of Elmhirst Road. Nicki can’t answer any of their questions. And she can’t explain why she avoided Elmhirst Road. Because although Nicki is not guilty of murder, she is far from innocent…
‘Sophie Hannah keeps coming up with superb new psychological thrillers, and this one has perhaps her best twist and solutions yet.’ HEAT ‘The pitfalls of the internet and social media are never far from the surface of this intricately plotted and complex psychological thriller.’ CHOICE
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An edge-of-your-seat original prequel novel based on Showtime’s hit series, Homeland
‘This is a locked-room murder, worthy of Agatha Christie’ INDEPENDENT
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eirut, 2006. CIA operations officer Carrie Mathison barely escapes an ambush while attempting a meeting with a new contact: code-named Nightingale. Suspicious that security has been compromised, she challenges the station chief in a heated confrontation that gets her booted back to Langley. An expert in recognizing behavioural patterns, Carrie is increasingly certain that a terrorist plot has been set in motion. Carrie risks a shocking act of insubordination that helps her uncover evidence connecting Nightingale with Abu Nazir, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Determined to stop the terrorist mastermind, she embarks on an obsessive quest that will nearly destroy her.
Praise for Homeland Series 1: ‘The big new US TV drama you won’t want to miss’ THE GUARDIAN
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ernie Gunther returns to his desk from the horrors of the Eastern Front to find Berlin changed for the worse. He begins to investigate the death of a railway worker, but is obliged to drop everything when his old boss, Reinhard Heydrich, orders him to Prague to stay at his country house. When a body is found in a room locked from the inside, the spotlight falls on Bernie to solve the mystery. So begins the most diplomatically sensitive case of Bernie Gunther’s police career.
‘Rich, compelling, beautifully written, and with a central character that it’s impossible not to admire’ DAILY MAIL ‘Bernie Gunther is an iconic creation and each new book a treat to look forward to’ THE TIMES
November 2014
Never Say Goodbye Susan Lewis
The Way Back Home Freya North
Another Night, Another Day Sarah Rayner
978 1 47127 498 5 – 592pp
978 1 47127 499 2 – 400pp
978 1 47127 501 2 – 560pp
A compelling and deeply moving novel of friendship, family and the power of love, from the Sunday Times top ten bestseller
The gripping and poignant new bestseller from Freya North.
‘Delicious, big hearted, utterly addictive... irresistible’ MARIE CLAIRE
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osie Clark is a loving wife and mother. She and her husband Jeff don’t have much and it’s often difficult to make ends meet. But Josie will do anything to protect her family and keep them safe. Bel Monkton is a successful property developer, living in a beautiful house by the sea. She seems to have everything going for her, but she’s lonely. Josie’s life couldn’t be more different to Bel’s. But three years ago, tragedy tore Bel’s life in two. Now it’s happening to Josie. And faced with uncertainty and heartbreak, they come to treasure their growing friendship.
‘Never Say Goodbye is a compelling story of friendship, love and heartbreak - but you’ll need your tissues at the ready for this one as Susan Lewis delivers the ultimate tearjerker.’ OK MAGAZINE
ne summer, something happened that changed everything forever. Born and brought up in an artists’ commune in Derbyshire, Oriana Taylor had freedom at her fingertips in a home full of extraordinary people. The Bedwell brothers, Malachy and Jed, shared their childhood and adolescence with Oriana. In the rambling old house and tangled grounds, their dreams and desires could take wing unchecked. But too much freedom comes at a price. Something happened the summer they were fifteen. And now, having been gone eighteen years, Oriana is back. This is their story.
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‘An addictive read that encompasses the stuff life is made of: love, sex, fidelity and, above all, friendship’ GLAMOUR on Rumours ‘The novel is peopled by rich and rare characters… a delicious creation’ DAILY EXPRESS on Rumours
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hree people, each crying out for help. There’s Karen, worried about her dying father; Abby, whose son has autism and needs constant care; and Michael, a family man on the verge of bankruptcy. As each sinks under the strain, they’re brought together at Moreland’s Clinic. Here, behind closed doors, they reveal their deepest secrets, confront and console one another and share plenty of laughs. But how will they cope when a new crisis strikes?
‘A real page-turner… You’ll want to inhale it in one breath’ EASY LIVING ‘Delves deep into the importance of love and friendship’ MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
‘A master storyteller’ DIANA CHAMBERLAIN
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November 2014
Vanished Tim Weaver
The Pink Pepper Tree Muriel Bolger
Here’s Looking at You Mhairi McFarlane
978 1 47127 494 7 – 512pp
978 1 47127 506 7 – 448pp
978 1 47127 505 0 – 416pp
This gripping thriller sees missing persons investigator David Raker pitted against a seemingly unsolvable case
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n hour after leaving home, on a normal December day, Sam Wren gets onto a tube train - and never gets off again. No eyewitnesses. No trace of him on security cameras. Six months later, he’s still missing. Out of options and desperate for answers, Sam’s wife Julia hires David Raker to track him down. But in this case the secrets go deeper than anyone imagined. For, as Raker starts to suspect that the police are lying to him, someone is watching. Someone who knows what happened that day. And he’ll do anything to keep Sam’s secrets to himself.
Is happiness on the menu at this table for two?
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s Peter Braga prepares for the grand re-opening of his restaurant The Pink Pepper Tree, June Cusack finds her boyfriend increasingly distracted. So when Danielle suggests a trip to Monte Carlo, she jumps at the chance. However, on holiday the events of one terrible night change her forever and when June returns home, the life she and Peter had built together slowly starts to disintegrate. Heartbroken, June forges ahead with her professional life. But she is about to discover that happiness and love come when you least expect it, and from the most unlikely places.
‘Tense, complex, sometimes horrific, written with flair as well as care’ GUARDIAN
Praise for the author: ‘Engaging and perceptive… a great read’ PATRICIA SCANLAN
‘Weaver has delivered another cracking crime thriller’ DAILY MAIL
Muriel Bolger is a well-known Irish journalist and award-winning travel writer.
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The new novel from the bestselling author of You Had Me At Hello.
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espite the oddballs that keep turning up on her dates, Anna couldn’t be happier. As a 30-something with a job she loves, life has turned out better than she dared dream. However, things weren’t always this way, and her years spent as the ‘Italian Galleon’ of an East London comprehensive are ones she’d rather forget. So when James Fraser – the architect of Anna’s final humiliation at school – walks back into her life, her world is turned upside down. But James seems a changed man. Polite. Mature. Funny, even. People can change, right? So why does Anna feel like she’s a fool to trust him?
‘A romantic and charming read guaranteed to deliver plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.’ OK! ‘Mhairi McFarlane’s characters shine with wit and insight.’ THE IRISH TIMES
November 2014
Meadowland John Lewis-Stempel
Jail Busters Robert Lyman
Gironimo! Tim Moore
978 1 47127 503 6 – 300pp
978 1 47127 502 9 – 432pp
978 1 47127 504 3 – 400pp
Operation Jericho remains one of the most audacious and innovative missions ever flown
A 3,162km race. A 48-year-old man. A 100-year-old bike. Made mostly of wood. That he built himself.
n February 1944, the French Resistance in the Amiens area was in turmoil. Its strength had been decimated by German aggression. Hundreds of its members languished in the city’s jail, awaiting an almost certain death. When two Allied intelligence officers were incarcerated alongside them it became clear that immediate action was imperative. What followed was a precision air attack on the prison, of hitherto unrivalled daring, carried out by the RAF’s elite 2nd Tactical Air Force. These pilots’ bravery and skill created a breach in the prison’s walls that allowed the Nazi’s captives to break free.
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istory’s most appalling bike race was an ordeal of 400kilometre stages, cataclysmic night storms and relentless sabotage. Of the 81 who rolled out of Milan, only eight made it back. Committed to total authenticity, Tim acquires the ruined husk of a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike, some maps and an alarming period outfit. What unfolds is the tale of a decrepit crock trying to ride another up a thousand lonely hills, then down them with only wine corks for brakes. From the Alps to the Adriatic, the pair steadily fall to bits, on an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful and recklessly incompetent.
Praise for the author: ‘Unbearably tense... will make you feel proud to be British’ DAILY EXPRESS
‘Gironimo! is partly a story of adversity, despair, and tenacity - and partly a funny, and often sweary, travelogue. I was hooked from the start’ CYCLE
What really goes on in the long grass? eadowland gives a unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren, the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.
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‘Engaging, closely-observed and beautiful ... this author’s deep love of the world around him is as inspiring as it is entertaining.’ DAILY MAIL ‘This is a rich, interesting book, generously studded with raisins of curious information.’ THE TIMES
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‘This comprehensive retelling of the story has not lost any of its firepower’ DAILY MAIL
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November 2014
The Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad
Missing You Harlan Coben
978 1 47127 507 4 – 432pp
978 1 47127 508 1 – 368pp
978 1 47127 632 3 – 544pp
One of the best-loved and most widely read books in English literature
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n this classic story, devout everyman Christian abandons his family and the City of Destruction as he attempts to navigate the trials and tribulations on the path towards paradise, the Celestial City. Though weighed down by the burden of original sin and beset by trials, Christian overcomes the distractions of the world, while simultaneously resisting the temptations of the Worldy Wise, the Vain and the Ignorant.
The product of a lifetime of religious work and thought, Bunyan’s narrative remains one of the most important and influential works in the English language.
‘We can never cease to be ourselves.’
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savagely witty picture of human absurdity, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The novel follows Mr. Adolf Verloc, husband, anarchist and spy, through his life of espionage and counter-espionage, anarchists and embassies. When his masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verloc must deal with the repercussions of his actions. The Secret Agent provides one of the most disturbing visions of aspiration and futility in twentieth century literature.
‘A brilliant book, one of the greatest works of modern irony’ MALCOLM BRADBURY ‘Elevated the spy story into literature in a way that would inspire Greene and le Carré’ OBSERVER
From the Sunday Times bestselling author, a heartpounding new thriller about the ties we have to our past... and the lies that bind us together
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t’s a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart eighteen years ago. As Kat’s hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that brings back memories of her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained. With lives on the line, including her own, Kat must venture deeper into the darkness than she ever has before.
‘The absolute master of tense and punchy has pulled off another tightly-plotted treat for crime fans... Superb stuff.’ SUNDAY MIRROR ‘Coben’s accomplished plotting shows why he tops the bestseller lists, and his supporting characters are as memorable as ever.’ SUNDAY TIMES
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December 2014
Wars Of The Roses: Trinity Conn Iggulden
The Miniaturist Jessie Burton
The Sea of Innocence Kishwar Desai
978 1 47127 631 6 – 576pp
978 1 47127 633 0 – 448pp
978 1 47127 637 8 – 368pp
Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses continues with Trinity, the second gripping novel, following Stormbird
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454: King Henry VI has remained struck down by his illness for over a year, his eyes vacant, his mind a blank. His fiercely loyal wife and Queen, Margaret of Anjou, safeguards her husband’s interests whilst he slumbers. Richard, Duke of York, and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick make up a formidable trinity; together they seek to break support for the King. But when Henry unexpectedly recovers, the balance of power is once again thrown into turmoil. The clash of the Houses of Lancaster and York will surely mean a war to tear England apart.
‘Pacey and juicy, and packed with action’ SUNDAY TIMES on Stormbird ‘A novel that seamlessly combines narrative, historical credence and great knowledge of the period’ DAILY EXPRESS
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‘The next big thing... Incredibly well-written, beautifully plotted’ EVENING STANDARD
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686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later does Johannes appear and present her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist. As Nella uncovers the closed world of the Brandt household, she realises the escalating dangers that await them all. Does the miniaturist hold their fate in her hands?
‘The Miniaturist is that rarest of things - beautifully written, yet also a compelling page-turner… the kind of book that reminds you why you fell in love with reading’ S. J. WATSON, author of Before I Go To Sleep ‘A fabulously gripping read that will appeal to fans of Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Goldfinch, but Burton is a genuinely new voice… great complex female characters’ OBSERVER 17
The thrilling new adventure starring Kishwar Desai’s enthralling heroine, Simran Singh
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imran Singh is desperate for a break and some time away from her busy job as a social worker-come-crime investigator. The unspoilt idyll of Goa seems just the place - white beaches, blue seas and no crime. But when a video appears on her phone, featuring a girl being attacked by a group of men, she realises that darkness festers in this supposed paradise. And when she discovers that the girl is Liza Kay, a British teenager who has gone missing, she knows she must act in order to save her.
‘Desai’s Simran Singh novels are endowed with something else: the sense that she is delving not just into mysteries but into subjects that matter deeply. I cannot wait for her next adventure’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY on Origins of Love
December 2014
Apple Tree Yard Louise Doughty
The Dead Beat Doug Johnstone
Dregs Jørn Lier Horst
978 1 47127 638 5 – 480pp
978 1 47127 641 5 – 336pp
978 1 47127 640 8 – 368pp
Part psychological thriller and part courtroom drama, Apple Tree Yard is a dark, smart page-turner
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vonne Carmichael has worked hard to achieve the life she always wanted: a high-flying career in genetics, a beautiful home, a good relationship with her husband and their two grown-up children. Then one day she meets a stranger at the Houses of Parliament and, in the dark, secret corners of London, begins an impulsive and passionate affair with him - a decision that will put everything she values at risk. At first she believes she can keep the relationship separate from the rest of her life, but a life-changing act of violence sends Yvonne’s carefully crafted plans into a downward spiral of deceit, betrayal, and murder.
‘Brilliant and bruising. Obsession, betrayal and bloodletting’ IAN RANKIN
If you’re so special, why aren’t you dead?
Four feet… from four different victims?
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eet Martha. It’s the first day of her new job as intern at Edinburgh’s The Standard. But all’s not well at the ailing newspaper, and Martha is carrying some serious baggage of her own. Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on the phone, something which echoes with her own troubled past. Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh, The Dead Beat traces Martha’s desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents’ past.
eet Chief Inspector William Wisting, Head of CID in Larvik, Norway. An experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature, he lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force. In Stavern around midsummer a severed left foot in a training shoe is washed up on the shore. Soon a second is washed up, but it is another left. Then another, and yet another. Altogether four left feet in the course of one week. Police Inspector William Wisting has many years of murder experience behind him, but he has never examined evidence like this. Four feet… from four different victims?
‘Riveting. Fearless. Twisted.’ DAILY RECORD ‘Just when you think an author can’t possibly get any better - he does.’ EUROCRIME
‘Jørn Lier Horst has once more written a well-founded and tense crime novel, with space for both the expected and the downright surprising.’ AFTENPOSTEN
‘Doughty is a brilliant storyteller who knows how to build the suspense to breaking point’ THE TIMES
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December 2014
All That is Solid Melts into Air Darragh McKeon
Larkswood Valerie Mendes
Orfeo Richard Powers
978 1 47127 635 4 – 448pp
978 1 47127 639 2 – 416pp
978 1 47127 643 9 – 464pp
An exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory
A sweeping historical novel that spans three generations, telling the dark secrets of a family torn apart
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‘Daring, ambitious, epic, moving’ COLM TÓIBÍN
More than forty years later, on the eve of the Second World War, Louisa Hamilton, struck down with glandular fever, is sent to Larkswood to recuperate. As Louisa begins to fall under the spell of Larkswood, she realises it holds the key to the mystery that shattered her family two generations before. Will she find the courage to unravel the dark secrets of the past? Can Larkswood become home to happiness again?
ussia, 1986. In a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old piano prodigy practices silently for fear of disturbing the neighbours. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, trying to hide her dissident past. In the hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work to avoid facing his failed marriage. And in a rural village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes up to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbour’s cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened. Now their lives will change forever.
‘Exhilarating, thrilling, brilliantly imagined, beautifully written’ COLUM MCCANN
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arkswood House is home to the Hamilton children, Edward, Cynthia and Harriet. But in the glorious summer of 1896, with absent parents and a departed governess, disaster strikes the family, leaving it cruelly divided.
‘This impressive debut captures the period beautifully, but also delivers a gripping mystery that’ll keep you hooked to the end.’ CANDIS MAGAZINE
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Nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2014
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eventy-year old avant-garde composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police outside. His DIY microbiology lab has come to the attention of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid on his house, Els flees and turns fugitive, waiting for the evidence to clear him and for the alarm surrounding his activities to blow over. But alarm turns to national hysteria. As Els feels the noose around him tighten, he embarks on a cross-country trip to visit, one last time, the people in his past who have most shaped his failed musical journey.
‘A magnificent and moving novel.’ LOS ANGELES TIMES ‘Once again, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our finest novelists.’ NEWSDAY
December 2014
Children of War Martin Walker
Cold as Ice Lee Weeks
The Captain’s Table Muriel Bolger
978 1 47127 636 1 – 400pp
978 1 47127 634 7 – 560pp
978 1 47127 647 7 – 480pp
Bruno, chief of police, serves up another nail-biting thriller…
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runo, chef de police in the French town of St Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who called Bruno for help only hours before. Meanwhile, a Muslim youth named Sami turns up at a French army base in Afghanistan hoping to get home to St Denis. One of Bruno’s old army comrades helps to smuggle Sami back to France, but the FBI aren’t far behind. Bruno must unravel these multiple mysteries, amidst pressure from his bosses, and find his own way to protect his town and its people.
‘A satisfyingly intriguing, wish-you-were-there read’ GUARDIAN on The Resistance Man
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One by one they’ll pay the price…
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n a freezing cold winter’s day, the body of a young woman is pulled from an icy canal in London. D.I. Dan Carter think it is a tragic accident, but D.C. Ebony Willis is not so sure. Why has the woman’s face been painted with garish make-up and wrapped in a plastic bag? It’s been twenty years since Tracy Collins gave up her daughter for adoption, so when Danielle gets in touch, she hesitantly begins to kindle a relationship with her. But when Danielle suddenly disappears, Tracy is plunged into the middle of a living nightmare.
Two weeks on a luxury Mediterranean cruise. What could go wrong?
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hen a group of solo travellers meet for dinner on the first night of a luxury cruise, alliances are quickly formed. There’s the glamorous London heiress looking for love; the wealthy businessman trying to decide between the life he has, and the life he really wants; the shrewd Scotsman looking for his next opportunity – in business and romance; and the newly separated Dubliner on the run from the media glare - and her controlling ex. Will they find what they’re looking for on the open sea? One thing’s for sure, it’s a holiday they’ll never forget.
Ebony Willis must take on the most challenging assignment of her career - to play the role of the killer’s next victim.
‘This first-class read cruises along at a rate of knots’ IRISH INDEPENDENT
Cold as Ice is a page-turning new thriller that will have you hooked from start to finish.
‘A perfect, escapist beach read with a serious edge’ IRISH EXAMINER
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December 2014
Three Little Words Jessica Thompson
A Man Most Driven Peter Firstbrook
The Churchill Factor Boris Johnson
978 1 47127 646 0 – 464pp
978 1 47127 642 2 – 480pp
978 1 47127 644 6 – 560pp
Romantic, quirky and moving, Three Little Words will break your heart and make you laugh
The true story of Captain John Smith, Pocahontas and the founding of America
‘The point of the Churchill Factor is that one man can make all the difference.’
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n the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death, Boris Johnson explores what makes up the ‘Churchill Factor’ - the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays - with characteristic wit and passion - a man of multiple contradictions, contagious bravery, breath-taking eloquence, matchless strategising, and deep humanity.
hey are just words but they mean so much. As a dark evening draws in, the lives of three women are changed forever. The worlds they have been living in, the people they thought they knew - in an instant it all changes. But when everything seems to shatter around them, could three little words be enough to help put the pieces back together again?
‘I promise you’ll giggle, you may well cry and you’ll definitely be surprised. Then you’ll want to tell all your friends about it.’ FABULOUS ‘Reminiscent of One Day, this moving, quirky love story is sob-inducingly romantic.’ CLOSER on This is a Love Story
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e fought and beheaded three Turkish adversaries in duels. He was sold into slavery, then murdered his master to escape. He was captured by pirates – twice – and marched to the gallows to be hanged, only to be reprieved seconds before the noose dropped over his head. And all this happened before he was thirty years old. This is Captain John Smith’s life. Everyone knows the story of Pocahontas, and how she saved John Smith. Now, in this major new biography of Smith, Peter Firstbrook traces the adventurer’s own astonishing exploits across three continents.
A riveting, enlightening dissection of this mythologymaking man, England’s arrival on the world stage and the invention of America.
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The Churchill Factor is a book to be enjoyed not only by anyone interested in history: it is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what makes a great leader.
December 2014
Last Man Off Matt Lewis
Tender is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf
978 1 47127 645 3 – 368pp
978 1 47127 649 1 – 432pp
978 1 47127 648 4 – 544pp
A first-hand account of an unbelievable ocean tragedy
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he waters of Antarctica, June 6th 1998. 23-year-old Matt Lewis has just started his dream job. An observer aboard a deep sea fishing boat, he is mesmerised by his new surroundings: glistening icebergs, killer whales and majestic albatross. As the crew haul in their lines for the day, the waves seem bigger than usual - they are casting shadows on the deck. A storm is brewing. What follows is an astonishing story of human courage, folly and tragedy. With the captain missing, and the crew forced to abandon ship, Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins.
‘A story that reminds us of the unforgiving nature of the sea and the courage that lies within the everyday heroes that have found themselves in hell.’ BEAR GRYLLS
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From the author of The Great Gatsby comes a fascinating semi-autobiographical novel in which a marriage unravels
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et on the French Riviera in the 1920s, American Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are the epitome of chic, living a glamorous lifestyle and entertaining friends at their villa. Young film star Rosemary Hoyt arrives in France and becomes entranced by the couple. It is not long before she is attracted to the enigmatic Dick, but he and his wife hold dark secrets and as their marriage becomes more fractured, Fitzgerald laments the failure of idealism and the carefully constructed trappings of high society in the Roaring Twenties.
‘A tragedy backlit by beauty’ DAILY EXPRESS
The story of a rite of passage, The Voyage Out is a modern version of the mythic heroic voyage
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he young Rachel Vinrance leaves England on her father’s ship, on a voyage to South America. Despite being accompanied by her father and her aunt and uncle, the passage leads to Rachel’s awakening, both as a woman and as an individual when she finds herself romantically entangled with Richard Dalloway, an encounter that leaves her troubled and confused. Upon arrival, Rachel strikes off alone to contemplate her identity, and finds herself with the aspiring novelist Terence Hewet. As the emerging romance between the two is complicated by their disagreements about gender and art, a storm, and a tragedy, appear on the horizon.
The Voyage Out was Virginia Woolf’s first novel, but contains many of her writing’s distinctive qualities: innovative narrative style and a focus on female consciousness.
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December 2014
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A black and brilliant satire of modern media-bloated society, seen through the eyes of the Führer himself.
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