Search results for ""quercus publishing""

England, 1899. A new century is dawning, and two young friends are about to enter into a world of money, privilege and family secrets...

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'WILL MAKE READERS LONG FOR LAZY DAYS IN RURAL FRANCE' Irish IndependentA missing art student. An international investigation. A secret that will shatter Bruno's charming village of St Denis.A rich American art student is found dead at the bottom of a well in an ancient hilltop castle. The young woman, Claudia, had been working in the archives of an eminent French art historian, a crippled Resistance war hero, at his art-filled chateau. As Claudia's White House connections get the US Embassy and the FBI involved, Bruno traces the people and events that led to her fatal accident - or was it murder?Bruno learns that Claudia had been trying to buy the chateau and art collection of her tutor, even while her researches led her to suspect that some of his attributions may have been forged. This takes Bruno down a trail that leads him from the ruins of Berlin in 1945, to France's colonial war in Algeria.The long arm of French history has reached out to find a new victim, but can Bruno identify the killer - and prove his case?**************************************What readers are saying about The Body in the Castle Well'I loved the book and strongly recommend it' 5* Reader Review'Interesting plot, satisfying mystery to solve, accompanied by lovely descriptions of the beautiful Périgord region of France' 5* Reader Review'My favourite author' 5* Reader Review'As always, a book about Bruno is a delight' 5* Reader Review'Another gem . . . One of his very best, not just a good and clever story, but particularly rich in French history' 5* Reader Review

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A heartwarming tale of love, family and acceptance, Darling Blue is a simply gorgeous read...

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Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction'Eloquent, impressive . . . while her touch is witty, her manner almost buoyant, her themes are sinister beyond belief. She touches the frontiers of the human' Hilary Mantel Boston, 1833Aboard the USS Orbis as it embarks from Boston and surges south to round Cape Horn, Hiram Carver takes up his first position as ship's doctor. Callow and anxious among the seasoned sailors, he struggles in this brutal floating world until he meets William Borden.Borden. The Hero of the Providence. A legend among sailors, his presence hypnotizes Carver, even before he hears the man's story. Years before, Borden saved several men from mutiny and led them in a dinghy across the Pacific to safety.Every ship faces terror from the deep. What happens on the Orbis binds Carver and Borden together forever. When Carver recovers, and takes up a role at Boston's Asylum for the Insane, he will meet Borden again - broken, starving, overwhelmed by the madness that has shadowed him ever since he sailed on the Providence.Carver devotes himself to Borden's cure, sure it depends on drawing out the truth about that terrible voyage. But though he raises up monsters, they will not rest. So Carver must return once more to the edge of the sea and confront the man - and the myth - that lie in dark water.Elizabeth Lowry's gothic masterpiece, like Golden Hill and The Essex Serpent, gives the historical novel a new, beating heart. In Carver and Borden, she realizes the dichotomy of savagery and reason, of man and monster, of life and sacrifice, in a tale rich with adventure and glorious imagination.

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A fantastic writer - compassionate, funny and fearless' George Saunders'One of the US's finest writers' according to Joshua Ferris, Jim Shepard now delivers a new collection that spans borders and centuries with unrivalled mastery. These ten stories ring with voices as diverse as those belonging to Arctic explorers in history's most nightmarish expedition, the Montgolfier brothers competing to be the first man to fly, and two American frontierswomen whose passionate connection is severed by jealous husbands and a deadly snowstorm.In each case the personal is the political as these humans, while falling in love or negotiating marital pitfalls or simply coming to terms with their own failings, face the tidal wave of nature's indifference and cruelty. History has swept them from our sympathy; Jim Shepard has reached into the past and sought them out.In his first collection to be published in the UK, this celebrated master of the short story displays his formidable acuity in imagining these wildly different worlds, and what our various lives feel like in the grip of catastrophe.

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The inside story of the life and death of Britain's criminal kingpin and the empire he builtKILLING GOLDFINGER charts the extraordinary rise and spectacular bullet-riddled fall of John Palmer, the richest, most powerful criminal ever to have emerged from the modern British underworld. During the late 1990s, Palmer was rated as rich as The Queen by the Sunday Times Rich List.Palmer earned his nickname Goldfinger after smelting (in his back garden) tens of millions of pounds worth of stolen gold bullion from the 20th century's most lucrative heist; the Brink's-Mat robbery. Palmer then used his share of the millions to become the vicious overlord of a vast illegal timeshare property empire in Tenerife. At the same time,Goldfinger financed huge international drugs shipments as well as some of the most notorious UK robberies of the past 30 years, including the £50m Securitas heist in Kent in 2006 and, many believe, the Hatton Garden heist in 2015.Palmer vowed to hunt down all his underworld enemies. But in the end it was those same criminals who decided to bring his life to an end. Murdered in June 2015, with charges of fraud, money laundering and worse pending, this book tells his murky story for the first time.As outrageous and bullet-riddled as the hit Netflix series Narcos, Killing Goldfinger tells the true story of Britain's underworld kingpin, who turned the sunshine holiday island of Tenerife into his very own Crime Incorporated and then paid the ultimate price.

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***SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD***'Wickedly funny, deeply touching . . . I confess this was the first of Rachman's novels I'd read but I was so swept away by it that I raced out to buy the other three' PATRICK GALE'Relentlessly entertaining' Daily MailRome, 1955The artists are gathering together for a photograph. In one of Rome's historic villas, a party glitters with socialites and patrons. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast, masculine, meaty canvases, is their god. He is at the centre of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot.From the side of the room watches little Pinch - their son. At five years old he loves Bear almost as much as he fears him. After Bear abandons their family, Pinch will still worship him, while Natalie faces her own wars with the art world. Trying to live up to his father's name - one of the twentieth century's fiercest and most controversial painters - Pinch never quite succeeds. Yet by the end of a career of twists and compromises, he enacts an unexpected rebellion that will leave forever his mark upon the Bear Bavinsky legacy.What makes an artist? In The Italian Teacher, Tom Rachman displays a nuanced understanding of art and its demons. Moreover, in Pinch he achieves a portrait of vulnerability and frustrated talent that - with his signature humour and humanity ­- challenges the very idea of greatness.

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For many of us who suffer from depression or anxiety, the simple act of endurance, of having to appear 'normal', is a daunting, painful and heroic task. Getting out of bed, packing the kids off to school, showing up for work, preparing dinner... These can be astonishing achievements when it sometimes takes a superhuman effort simply to stand upright. How do you keep going? How do you do what you do, day in, day out, conforming to people's idea of you and functioning in the way society expects you to, when all you want to do is disappear and hide?In Fire On All Sides, Rhodes attempts to find how to make the unbearable bearable in the most exposing circumstances imaginable. As he embarks on a gruelling five-month concert tour, performing in front of thousands of people, the tortuous voices in his mind his constant companions, he has no choice but to face these wild, mad ramblings head on. Luckily, there is the music. There is always the music. Bach, Chopin, Beethoven - they are his holy grail, his mechanism for survival. Just.This is an important, urgent book. It's about going through your day feeling like you can't find a way out of the crazy, it's about not setting the happiness bar too high, it's about accepting the messy imperfection that is life.Rhodes explodes the myths surrounding depression, anxiety and stress - the plagues of our society - into a million pieces, then sticks them back together again with his characteristic thought-provoking, laser sharp and humorous style. The really good news? It's going to be OK. Just.

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RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB 2017. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 COSTA NOVEL AWARD.'A dazzling tale of romance and survival' (Guardian)Follow the path to the freezing north. Follow your ambition. Follow your heartFlora Mackie first crossed the Arctic Circle at the age of twelve. Years later, in 1892, determination and chance lead her back to northern Greenland as a scientist at the head of a British expedition, defying the expectations of those who believe a woman has no place in that harsh world.Geologist Jakob de Beyn was raised in Manhattan. Yearning for wider horizons, he joins a rival expedition. Jakob and Flora's paths cross. It is a fateful meeting, where passion and ambition collide and an irresistible attraction is born.The violent extremes of the north obsess them both: perpetual night and endless day; frozen seas and coastal meadows, and the strange, maddening pull it exerts on the people trying to make their mark on its vast expanses - a pursuit of glory whose outcome will reverberate for years to come.

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This is a memoir by French bestselling and award-winning author and musician Mathias Malzieu. It focuses on a single year in which he explores his close encounter with death. Insightful, tragic and even often very funny, it is a hugely inspirational read.In November 2013 Malzieu is diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening blood disease: his bone marrow does not produce enough blood cells, and those that survive are being attacked by the body's natural antibodies as if they were viruses. Highly anaemic and at risk of a cardiac attack or fatal haemorrhaging, Malzieu is whisked into hospital, and spends months in a sterile isolation room. He is kept alive by blood transfusions, while waiting for a bone marrow transplant. When he has the energy for it, he writes in his diary and strums his ukelele.To read this book is to be in awe of the triumph of the human spirit. As a reader you find yourself marvelling at how we find the mechanisms to cope with tragedy and uncertainty when faced with the reality that we may die. Malzieu's highly active imagination allows him to transcend the limits of his body and its increasing failures through fantasy and escapism. His wonderfully addictive childish wonder with a punk Gothic twist lifts the narrative from being a depressing account to a reading experience that is evocative, poetic and intensely moving. Malzieu survived thanks to a revolutionary operation involving stem-cell treatment with the blood from an umbilical cord. As he leaves the hospital with not only a different blood group but also a different DNA, he describes himself as the oldest newborn in the world. As Malzieu says himself, 'To have had my life saved has been the most extraordinary adventure I have ever had.'

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Their revolution would ignite a continent...An epic novel set during one of the most savage and dramatic moments in European history.Greece, 1824In the wild south, the people of the Mani have risen up against four hundred years of Ottoman rule. But initial triumph leads to bitter feuding among the Greek victors and the Sultan sends his vassal, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, to invade. Burning everything in his path, he is on the point of victory. Only the intervention of the Great Powers of France, Russia and Britain can save Greece.Hara, young daughter of a Maniot chief, is the fearless symbol of her people's spirit. When she rescues Greek Prince Tzanis from a shipwreck, on his way to deliver secret gold for the revolution, they fall in love but are forced apart by events.Yet a shared resolve to wreak vengeance on Turkish rule unites them again, and their heroism and sacrifice will ultimately inspire an unlikely band of men and women to join them in rescuing Greece. Will their plan to involve the Great Powers succeed before Greece is destroyed by fire?'Wonderful history, adventure and a heart-breaking love story are brought thrillingly to life' - Kate Mosse

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The first part in an epic historical trilogy - The Estonian answer to Wolf Hall - by the nation's greatest modern writer Jaan Kross's trilogy dramatises the life of the renowned Livonian Chronicler Balthasar Russow, whose greatest work described the effects of the Livonian War on the peasantry of what is now Estonia. Like Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, Russow is a diamond in the rough, a thoroughly modern man in an Early Modern world, rising from humble origins to greatness through wit and learning alone. As Livonia is used as a political football by the warring powers of Russia, Sweden, Poland and Lithuania, he continues to climb the greasy pole of power and influence. Even as a boy, Russow has the happy knack of being in the right place and saying the right thing at the right time. He is equally at home acting as friend and confidante to his ambitious patron and as champion for his humble rural relatives. Can anything halt his vertiginous rise? Like most young men he is prey to temptations of the flesh . . .

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'For Vikings done right, come to Snorri Kristjansson' - Mark Lawrence'Truly entertaining' - Yrsa Sigurðardóttir'A dark mystery in a dark age brought vividly to life' - Robert FabbriEveryone loves a family reunion. 970: For the first time since Helga was adopted, her family will be gathered in one place. But her siblings are coming with darkness in their hearts. Everyone knows their father, the Viking warlord Unnthor Reginsson, has a great chest of gold hidden somewhere on his land - and each of his heirs is determined to find it. Then one morning Helga is awakened by screams. Blood has been shed. Kin has been slain. All the clues point to one person - who cannot possibly be the murderer, at least in Helga's eyes. But if she's going to save an innocent from the axe, she's got to solve the mystery - fast . . . Lies. Manipulation. Murder. There's nothing quite like family . . .

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'A funny, smart read with a kick-ass heroine' Sun on Sunday. A witty, light-hearted comedy about love and fiction, and the all-important difference between the two. Think you know Charlotte, Emily & Anne? Think again. Samantha Whipple is the last remaining descendent of the illustrious Brontë family, of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre fame. After losing her father, a brilliant author in his own right, it is up to Samantha to piece together the mysterious family inheritance lurking somewhere in her past - yet the only clues she has at her disposal are the Brontë's own novels. With the aid of her handsome but inscrutable Oxford tutor, Samantha must repurpose the tools of literature to unearth an untold family legacy, and in the process, finds herself face to face with what may be literature's greatest secret.

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'Big treat in store for fans. And if you're not a fan yet, why not?' Val McDermid'William Shaw is one of the great rising talents of UK crime fiction' Peter JamesLondon 1969: A detective in love. A crime of passionThe devil: She made a profit from rich men. They paid for her youth. She paid with her life. The angel: To investigate the prostitute's murder, DS Cathal Breen isn't scared to question powerful suspects. The fall: But when a mysterious man from MI6 calls, Breen begins to fear he's uncovered a spy scandal.And then Breen's girlfriend Helen Tozer, with her ex-copper instincts, gets dangerously involved. Right or wrong, Breen knows he has too much to lose. He can have no sympathy for the devil.

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'A book with special and dangerous properties' Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf Hall'Enthralling' M.R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl With All the Gifts 'An imaginative tour de force' The Times1558: Twelve children, gifted far beyond their years, are banished by their Tudor queen to the town of Rotherweird. Some say they are the golden generation; some say the devil's spawn. But everyone knows they are something to be revered - and feared. Four and a half centuries on, cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I and still bound by its ancient laws, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: nobody, but nobody, studies the town or its history. Then an Outsider arrives, a man of unparallelled wealth and power, enough to buy the whole of Rotherweird - deeply buried secrets and all . . . Welcome to Rotherweird. 'A remarkable achievement' Sunday Independent 'Compelling' Guardian

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This book is a window into the world of Danny Dyer - and he's seen more of the world than most so he's got one or two things to say about it.Tackling such vital questions as 'Where have all the old school boozers gone?' 'Are there such things as ghosts?' and 'Am I middle class?' Danny shares his unique take on life with characteristic honesty and humour and reveals why it is that:· What goes around comes around - he learnt the hard way· You can take the boy out of the East End but you can't take the East End out of the boy· Harold Pinter is a diamond geezer · He told the media training expert to do one· Science can prove that West Ham are the best football club in the world· Him and Joanne are like a team - he's Paul Gascoigne, she's David Batty· The human race isn't evolved enough for TwitterSo, hold on to your titfer, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

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WHAT DRIVES GOOD MEN TO MURDER?'If you're not a fan yet, why not?' Val McDermid'William Shaw is an outstanding storyteller' Peter May'Grips the reader by the throat and never lets go' Independent Sergeant William South has always avoided investigating murder. A passionate birdwatcher and quiet man, he has few relationships and prefers it that way.But when his only friend is found brutally beaten, South's detachment is tested. Not only is he bereft - it seems that there's a connection between the suspect and himself.For South has a secret. He knows the kind of rage that killed his friend. He knows the kind of man who could do it. He knows, because Sergeant William South himself is a murderer. Moving from the storm-lashed, bird-wheeling skies of the Kent Coast to the wordless war of the Troubles, The Birdwatcher is a crime novel of suspense, intelligence and powerful humanity about fathers and sons, grief and guilt and facing the darkness within.

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Geraint Thomas is treasured for treating his sport just as the rest of us see it: not a job, or a pharmaceutical contest, but an escape and an adventure. He's been with Team Sky since its inception, and is one of our most successful and gifted track and road riders, but Geraint reminds us that getting on the bike still puts a smile on your face and fire in the legs like nothing else.

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From our own solar system to the edges of the universe, 50 Astronomy Ideas You Really Need to Know is your introduction to the most important concepts, discoveries and mysteries in astronomy. How did the universe begin? Where did the Moon come from? What happens in the heart of a black hole? Why are gravitational waves so significant? And is there life elsewhere in the cosmos?In fifty fascinating essays covering the central ideas of astronomy and cosmology, accompanied by diagrams, definitions of essential terms and timelines of key discoveries, this book examines the nature and variety of our universe - the life cycle of stars, the formation of planets, the structure of galaxies and the puzzles of dark matter and the multiverse. Expansive and illuminating, 50 Astronomy Ideas You Really Need to Know is the complete guide to the birth, life and possible death of the cosmos.

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A gripping new thriller that unpacks the horrors of exploitation in the garment industry, blending the nailbiting courtroom drama of John Grisham with the emotional heart of Khaled Hosseini.'Poignant and engrossing ... Corban Addison will hold you spellbound with his elegant prose from his first word to his last' Wilbur SmithIn Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers, mostly young women. Amid the rubble, a bystander captures a heart-stopping image-a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-storey fall, and over her mouth a mask of fabric bearing the label of one of America's largest retailers, Presto Omnishops Corporation. When the photo goes viral, it fans the flames of a decades old controversy about sweatshops, labour rights, and the ethics of globalization.A year later, in Washington, D.C., Joshua Griswold, a disgraced former journalist for the Washington Post, receives an anonymous summons from a corporate whistleblower promising information about Presto. He offers Griswold confidential information about Presto's apparel supply chain.For Griswold, the challenge of exposing Presto's wilful negligence is irresistible, as is the chance, however slight, at redemption. Deploying his old journalistic skills, he builds a historic case against Presto, setting the stage for a war in the courtroom and in the media that Griswold is determined to win - both to salvage his reputation and to provoke a revolution of conscience in Presto's boardroom that could change the course of the fashion industry across the globe.

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INFILTRATOROne-time Swedish government agent Piet Hoffmann is on the run from the life prison sentence he escaped: living under a false identity with his family in Calí, Colombia.INFORMANTWhen Hoffmann is offered employment by a Colombian drug mafia, and is simultaneously approached by the US DEA to infiltrate the same cartel, he says yes to both.IN TOO DEEPHowever, when America settles on an enemy for their next War on Terror, Colombia, the US government and the cartel are faced with the same problem. Piet Hoffmann.Hoffmann is marked. Yet help will come from unlikely quarters: DCI Ewert Grens - the enemy who Hoffmann once tricked - will now become the only ally he can trust.

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THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY, THE ENZO FILES AND THE CHINA THRILLERSAWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY 2021'Peter May is one of the most accomplished novelists writing today.' Undiscovered Scotland'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.' New York Journal of BooksA SILENT VOWSpain, 2020. When expat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge by destroying the policewoman.A SILENT LIFECristina's aunt Ana has been deaf-blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the centre of Cristina's world - and of Cleland's cruel plan.A SILENT DEATHJohn Mackenzie - an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator - is seconded to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word.Peter May's latest bestseller unites a strong, independent Spaniard with a socially inept Scotsman; a senseless vendetta with a sense-deprived victim, and a red-hot Costa Del Sol with an ice-cold killer.LOVED A SILENT DEATH? Read the first book in the acclaimed China Thriller series, THE FIREMAKERLOVE PETER MAY? Buy his new thriller, THE NIGHT GATE

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THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY, THE ENZO FILES AND THE CHINA THRILLERSAWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY 2021'Peter May is one of the most accomplished novelists writing today.' Undiscovered Scotland'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.' New York Journal of BooksA SILENT VOWSpain, 2020. When expat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge by destroying the policewoman.A SILENT LIFECristina's aunt Ana has been deaf-blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the centre of Cristina's world - and of Cleland's cruel plan.A SILENT DEATHJohn Mackenzie - an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator - is seconded to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word.Peter May's latest bestseller unites a strong, independent Spaniard with a socially inept Scotsman; a senseless vendetta with a sense-deprived victim, and a red-hot Costa Del Sol with an ice-cold killer.LOVED A SILENT DEATH? Read the first book in the acclaimed China Thriller series, THE FIREMAKERLOVE PETER MAY? Buy his new thriller, THE NIGHT GATE

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THE THRILLING SEQUEL TO THE TRIUMPH OF THE DWARVESThe Hidden Land lies broken. In the terrible battle to save the home of the dwarves, elves and humans, many sacrifices were made by great heroes, and at the last the älfar were defeated. Aiphatòn, the son of the indelible and erstwhile Emperor of the Älfar, has sworn that his race will never again pose such a dire threat to the world; he is determined to seek out and destroy the last of his own people.But there may be a greater enemy to face: an enigmatic mage with powerful magic at her fingertips is threatening the entire country.Suddenly the Hidden Land's greatest enemy has become its only hope . . .The action never lets up in this next exciting story in the saga of the dwarves and the älfar! 'Tolkien with a dash of Gemmell and a sprinkling of George R.R. Martin' Malazan Empire

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'Witty, engaging and original . . . I did not see that twist coming!' Paige Toon. Perfect for fans of The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart and The List.Percy James has everything a girl could want: a comfy flat, a steady relationship and a truly lovely group of friends. Then she is approached by Eros Tech. Eros is 'the future of love' - an agency that brings together soulmates using phone data. Percy has been identified as a match for one of Eros's super wealthy clients. The only problem is she already has a boyfriend . . . but what if this is *destiny*? Would you - could you - pass up a chance to meet your one true love?

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THE SECOND TOM REYNOLDS MYSTERY FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE PERFECT LIE'Fiendishly clever' Irish Sunday IndependentDid I know it would come to this? There is no shot at redemption. I am going to die. The gun is in my eye-line as the second bullet is fired. That's the one that kills me.Late at night, two powerful men meet in a secret location to discuss a long nurtured plan about to come to fruition. One is desperate to know there is nothing standing in their way - the other assures him everything is taken care of. Hours later, a high-ranking government official called Ryan Finnegan is brutally slain in the most secure building in Ireland - Leinster House, the seat of parliament. Inspector Tom Reynolds and his team are called in to uncover the truth behind the murder.At first, all the evidence hints at a politically motivated crime, until a surprise discovery takes the investigation in a dramatically different direction. Suddenly the motive for murder has got a lot more personal. . . but who benefits the most from Ryan's death?'Engrossing' Sunday TimesNobody was supposed to get out alive.On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks.Tom Reynolds, now Chief Superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister.The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing. Tom is faced with a ticking clock as he tries to locate the others and as he does, a terrifying spider's web of domestic and international crime unfolds.And not everybody will survive the fallout.PRAISE FOR JO SPAIN'S TOM REYNOLDS SERIES'A stunning read' Woman's Way'Refreshing and full of twists' Express'Clever, pacey, compulsive' Sunday Mirror'Expertly crafted, deeply immersive and timely' Irish Independent

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From the internationally bestselling author of Nefertiti comes a captivating novel about the infamous Mata Hari, exotic dancer, adored courtesan, and, possibly, infamous spy.Paris, 1917. The notorious dancer Mata Hari sits in a cold cell awaiting freedom . . . or death. Alone and despondent, Mata Hari is as confused as the rest of the world about the charges she's been arrested on: treason leading to the deaths of thousands of French soldiers.As Mata Hari waits for her fate to be decided, she relays the story of her life to a reporter who is allowed to visit her in prison. Beginning with her carefree childhood, Mata Hari recounts her father's cruel abandonment of her family as well her calamitous marriage to a military officer. Taken to the island of Java, Mata Hari refuses to be ruled by her abusive husband and instead learns to dance, paving the way to her stardom as Europe's most infamous exotic dancer.From lush Indian temples and glamorous Parisian theatres to stark German barracks in war-torn Europe, Moran brings to vibrant life the famed world of Mata Hari: dancer, courtesan, and possibly, spy.

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A razor-sharp analysis of how record-breaking exploits in extreme sport are redefining the limits of being human.Right now, more people are risking their lives for their sports then ever before in history. As Thomas Pynchon once put it in Gravity's Rainbow, 'it is not often that Death is told so clearly to f@%* off'. Over the past three decades, the bounds of the possible in action and adventure sports - from sky-diving to motocross to surfing and beyond - have been pushed farther and faster. A generation's worth of iconoclastic misfits have rewritten the rules of the feasible; not just raising the bar, but obliterating it altogether. Along the way, they have become a force pushing evolution relentlessly onward. In a thrilling narrative that draws on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Steven Kotler asks why, at the tail end of the 20th century and the early portion of the 21st, are we seeing such a multi-sport assault on reality? Did we somehow slip through a wormhole to another universe where gravity is optional and common sense obsolete? And where - if anywhere - do our actual limits lie?

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In the new year of 1944 the French Resistance in northern France was on its knees. Relentless attacks on its diverse and disorganised networks by the Gestapo and the Abwehr had put many of its best operatives in prison, or worse. But in the lead up to Operation Overlord, 'D Day', the Resistance had never been more important to the Allied war effort, and many groups were in the pay of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. One such was organised by a patriot called Dominic Ponchardier. For months he had watched helplessly as his friends and colleagues had been swept up by the Nazi drag net, and cast into the old prison on the eastern outskirts of Amiens. In desperation he asked his MI6 handlers for help, and once London agreed it led to one of the most daring missions of the war. On the morning of 18 February 1944, nineteen Mosquito bombers flew at low level across the channel, skimming just above the ground to drop their bombs on sections of the walls of Amiens Prison. Hundreds escaped, scores of whom evaded recapture to continue the fight against Nazi repression. It was an epic of precision bombing, in which one of the most notable RAF heroes of the war, Group Captain Charles Pickard, lost his life. Robert Lyman's book reveals, from previously unseen sources, the full truth of MI6's involvement in the French Resistance, and narrates in vivid detail a stirring tale of courage and skill.

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'Taut, tense, and beautifully written' Clare Mackintosh'Addictive' Sunday TimesSometimes a lie feels kinder than the truth . . . but what happens when that lie becomes an avalanche of deceit?When Tess is sent to photograph Greg, a high-profile paediatric surgeon, she sees something complex in him that she instantly connects with. Their relationship quickly deepens, but then Tess - already a single mother to nine-year-old Joe - finds out she's pregnant.Greg, who never wanted to be a father, is then offered the job of a lifetime back in his hometown of Boston, USA. Within just a few months, they have married and moved to the States. But life in an affluent Boston suburb is not as straightforward as Tess had hoped. Strange things keep happening in their rented home - Joe is unsettled, the next-door neighbours are clearly troubled, and Greg's work is all-consuming. As a fierce Boston winter closes in, and her baby's birth looms, Tess remains determined to make this new life work. Then she makes a jaw-dropping discovery . . .PRAISE FOR LUCY ATKINS'Wonderfully skilled' Sarah Perry'Sly, witty and gripping' Naomi Alderman'Wholly beguiling' Mick Herron'Highly intelligent' Sarah Vaughan'Beguiling, brilliantly creepy' Claire Fuller

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A beautiful historical mystery for fans of Sarah Waters, Amitav Ghosh's The Sea of Poppies, and Jamaica Inn.London in the 1770s is bursting with opportunity. It's a city fuelled by new ideas and new money, where everything is for sale - including entrée into the ruling class. Making their way in this buccaneering society are Carey Ravine, a spirited young woman of enigmatic background, and her husband, the charming, endlessly enterprising Oliver Nash. Carey and Nash share a historic connection to India and a desperate ambition to better themselves. But as Nash's plans draw them into a restless association of gamblers and secret societies, Carey begins to question what's really hidden behind the seedy glamour of their lives. Her unease grows with the appearance of a mysterious man whose appearance unearths a troubling secret from the past. Carey finds herself forced to investigate the truth behind the stranger's claims­­ - and to confront her own illusions about herself.

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London, the 1880s, and Jack the Ripper is at large. Two childhood friends meet again having found very different fortunes in the fog-bound, Ripper-stalked streets of Victorian London. Plain but witty Dot is a music hall star; pretty Kate (Eddowes, a true-life Ripper victim) has fallen on hard times.'Poignant and unsentimental, Dot's whipllash humour had me cheering' DAILY MAILWhen star of London's Victorian music hall, Dot Allbones, bumps into her childhood friend Kate Eddowes outside the Griffin theatre in Shoreditch, it's a blast from the past. The two grew up together in the Midlands, but life has treated them very differently since then.Told through the eyes of the irreverent Dot, this is the story of a London populated by chancers, some rich, some destitute. During one hot summer in the 1880s Whitechapel famously became the scene of unspeakable horror, and Kate Eddowes found a grisly fame that would far outshine Dot's.Because out there, in the stews of East London, Saucy Jack is sharpening his knife . . .

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Where do you run when your heart's breaking all the rules?When pillar-of-the-community Harry Stewart dies of a sudden heart attack, the whole village is devastated - except for his wife Karen, the only one who really knew the abusive alcoholic Harry had become. Suddenly freed from this oppressive marriage, Karen is nonetheless wracked with guilt about the circumstances of her husband's death, and sees the presence of her spoiled step-daughter, Sophie, as a suitable purgatory. Her only comfort in her grief and isolation is William, the sympathetic local vicar. As Karen shares her secret, William's listening ear soon becomes a shoulder to cry on, and before long Karen realises she is falling in love. But William has a wife and teenaged daughter, not to mention a parish to watch over - and be watched by. As the pressure becomes too much to bear, Karen flees to the seaside and to Mike Best's beach café. But when William suddenly turns up again in her life, can they persuade each other to take one final leap of faith together?

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'Grace Fisher ... is beautifully authentic and reliably flawed' Liz Loves Books'Fisher is a great heroine - resourceful and resilient' CrimeThrillerFellaSometimes the danger is too close to see. A dark and gripping crime thriller introducing DI Grace Fisher.Press intrusion and a bullying and misogynistic police culture complicate the hunt for a serial killer in the first of a new crime series from #1 Kindle bestselling author Isabelle Grey.Labelled a trouble maker for grassing up a fellow officer and driven brutally out of home and job, DI Grace Fisher is thankful to survive some dark times and find haven with the Major Investigation Team in Essex. Any hopes of a quiet start to her new life are shattered by the discovery of the body of a female university student, last seen at a popular bar in Colchester. Grace has her first case.When a second student, also out drinking, is murdered and left grotesquely posed, the case becomes headline news.Someone is leaking disturbing details to a tabloid crime reporter. threatening Grace's investigation and even her job. Is it the killer? Or a detective close to the case?With another victim dead, and under siege by the media, the murder inquiry hits a dead end. The review team brought in to shake things up is headed by Grace's old DCI. Will tribal loyalties stop her getting to the truth?

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Claire's husband is a philandering 'sexologist' who believes love and sex can't co-exist. But it breaks her heart when he dies and leaves her a young widow. As she braces herself for her new life alone, Claire can't help but wonder if her late-lamented was right all along. After getting through the pain of his passing, she's returning to the battlefield of bad dates. So when she's asked to write the biography of lothario movie star Jack Huxley, she's surprised when he doesn't live up to his sleazy reputation. Not only is he more than meets the eye, but he's got his eye on her. Claire's determined to banish her husband's ghosts and prove him wrong. But having found her first Mr Right, does she deserve a second? A unique, extraordinarily perceptive and darkly comic novel about widows, sex and love - in that order.

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A major source for the BBC drama The ReckoningWinner of the 2015 Gordon Burn Prize and the 2015 CWA Non-Fiction DaggerShortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the James Tait Black Prize'An astonishing account' Observer'A compulsive, colourful and chilling read' Sunday Times'An extraordinary book' Mail on SundayDan Davies spent more than a decade on a quest to find the real Jimmy Savile, and interviewed him extensively over a period of six years before his death. Dan also interviewed scores of people, many of them unobtainable while Savile was alive.Jimmy Savile was cynical, calculating and predatory. He revelled in his status as a Pied Piper of youth and used his power to abuse the vulnerable and underage, all the while covering his tracks by moving into the innermost circles of the establishment.IN PLAIN SIGHT is a devastating and definitive account of a national figure turned national disgrace.

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THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE JACK IRISH SERIES, NOW A TV SERIES STARRING GUY PEARCE - FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BROKEN SHORE.'One of the best thriller writers in the world' Sunday ExpressI went to George Armit's funeral. It was a small affair. Almost everyone George had known was dead. Many of them were dead because George had had them killed . . .Jack Irish however, has no shortage of friends. Jockeys and journos, lawyers and standover men, people in nameless occupations who aren't in the phone book. These days, though, the only family he sees are Irish men in faded football team photographs on the pub wall. So when Des Connors, the last link to his father, calls to ask for help in the matter of his missing son, Gary, Jack is happy to lend a hand. But sometimes prodigal sons go missing for a reason. And Jack soon discovers Gary Connors was a man with something to hide.Can't get enough of the Jack Irish novels? Then read the third instalment in the series, Dead Point . . .

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A Hollywood movie is shooting in Paradise, Massachusetts. But for its leading starlet, Marisol Hinton, Paradise feels more like perdition. Terrorized by her meth-addicted ex, and increasingly frightened for her life, she has approached Police Chief Jesse Stone for help. Jesse already has his hands full - waging a war against a teenager whose reckless behaviour is endangering the local community, and juggling a series of complaints from Paradise citizens, aggrieved at being charged exorbitantly high fees by the town's water company. Never one to back down from a fight, Jesse throws himself into all three cases with his characteristic vigour. But what he doesn't realize is that those appearing the least dangerous will prove to be the most deadly.

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'One hell of a fine book' Conn IgguldenROME NEVER FELL. IT BECAME BYZANTIUM.AS OTTOMAN FORCES INVADE, ONE MAN MUST DEFEND HIS COUNTRY AND FACE HIS OWN PERSONAL DESTINY...A rich tale of clashing empires and trade wars, lost treasure and tempestuous love in an age when the fate of the world hung on the survival of Byzantium, the hinge between east and west. Luke Magoris, a descendant of the princes of England, is a man with a rare talent for war and trade. To him falls the overwhelming task of defending his beloved Mistra against the rampant Ottoman forces.

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Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880 in Bournemouth in a house inappropriately named 'Sunny Lawn'. Her mother drank gin in an attempt to terminate the pregnancy, and her father fled the family home. At the mercy of a violent mother and sexually abusive stepfather, her life changed when at the age of eighteen she inherited her father's estate of GBP100,000. She was free to travel, pursue women and write - most notably The Well of Loneliness, her famous novel about 'congenital inverts', which was declared 'inherently obscene' by the Home Secretary and banned. In this brilliantly written, witty and satirical biography Diana Souhami brings a fresh and irreverent eye to the life of this intriguing and troubled woman.

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"Trieste is a monumental feat of the imagination. Impassioned and lucid, it is impossible to read it and not come away with a new understanding of the world. Daša Drndic has given us a masterpiece that is not only brilliant, but uncompromisingly humane. How lucky we are" MAAZA MENGISTE, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker Prize"Although this is fiction, it is also a deeply researched historical documentary . . . It is a masterpiece" A.N. Wilson, Financial Times"Trieste is a work of European high culture. Drndic is writing neither to entertain (her novel is splendid and absorbing nevertheless) nor to instruct (its subject, the Holocaust, is too intractable to yield lessons). She is writing to witness, and to make the pain stick" Craig Seligman, New York TimesAn old woman sits alone in Gorizia, north-eastern Italy. She is waiting to be reunited with her son. He was fathered by an S.S. officer and stolen from her sixty-two years before by the Nazi authorities during the German occupation. By focusing on the experiences of one individual, Drndic engages head-on with the traumatic history of WWII and the Holocaust and deals unsparingly with the massacre of Jews in Trieste's concentration camp. A literary collage comprising photographs, scraps of poetry, interviews and testimonies from the Nuremberg Trials, it is a formally daring work of immense power and scope.Translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac

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Marie may be 'getting on a bit' but it's certainly not getting her down. Her family around her and a man who loves her means that life is good - but nothing stays the same for long. Marie's golden years are filled with as much drama - love, laughter and tears - as ever. Which just goes to show that getting on a bit does not mean giving up - or even growing up.

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*The Missing File has now been adapted for television in a new series called The Calling out in November 2022*A sixteen-year-old boy is missing in a Tel Aviv suburb. His mother is worried. Inspector Avraham Avraham is not. It is unheard of for children to vanish in this city. But the boy has disappeared without trace. The parents are wretched, the neighbourhood suspicious; the boy's tutor harbours a secret. Avraham's only answer is so unthinkable, it will take all his courage to face.

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A pioneering collection describing and dramatizing the Nepalese diaspora - the displacement and exile of the Nepali-speaking world*SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE*A disfigured servant girl plans to flee Nepal; a Kalimpong shopkeeper faces an impossible dilemma; a Hindu religious festival in Darjeeling brings with it a sacrifice; a Nepali-Bhutanese refugee pins her hopes on the West; a Gurkha's daughter tries to comprehend her father's complaints; two young Nepali-speaking immigrants meet in Manhattan. These are just some of the stories of the people whose culture and language is Nepalese but who are dispersed to India, Bhutan and beyond. From every perspective and on every page, Prajwal Parajuly blends rich colour and vernacular to paint an eye-opening picture of a unique world and its people.

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The second in David Hair's epic Moontide Quartet, perfect for fans of Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan.Return to Urte, a land in chaos, where the smallest choice may save or damn the world.The Moontide has come, and a scarlet tide of Rondian legions is flooding into the East, slaughtering and pillaging in the name of Emperor Constant. But the Scytale of Corineus, the source of ultimate magical power, has slipped through the emperor's fingers. His ruthless inquisitors are desperately seeking the artefact, before it falls into the hands of those who would bring him down. But there are some who have pledged to end the cycle of war and restore peace to Urte. They are the unlikeliest of heroes: a failed mage, a gypsy and a lowly market-girl. As East and West clash more violently than ever before, the people of Urte will discover that love, loyalty and truth can be forged into weapons as deadly as swords and magic.'Promises to recall epic fantasy's finest' - Tor.com

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This is the incredible true story of the unbreakable bond forged between Treo, the world's most highly decorated dog, and his handler Sgt. Dave HeyhoeWhen Dave Heyhoe was sent to Afghanistan to help detect the Taliban's murderous roadside bombs, he knew he'd need a special dog by his side. Luckily for him, his closest pal Treo, a staggeringly brave ball of energy and mischief was with him every step of the way. The two friends had a miraculous understanding that helped them save countless lives but, as they embarked on a roller-coaster emotional ride, Dave realized he needed Treo more than he could ever have imagined. Tear-jerkingly sad one moment, laugh-out-loud hilarious the next, It's All About Treo is a moving and uplifting story that will melt the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.

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In a series of 50 accessible essays, Adam Fleming introduces and explains the history, key ideas and tools of democracy developed by some of the world's greatest thinkers - spanning from the ancient Greeks to the present day.From the right to vote to the monarchy, viral politics to Brexit, 50 Democracy Ideas You Really Need to Know is a complete introduction to the most important democracy ideas throughout history.

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