HarperCollins Publishers

A newly reissued edition of Agatha Christie's 'Mary Westmacott' novel, a Crime of the Heart novel about the destructive bond between two jealous sisters. 'Sometimes you haven't the right currency. And then someone else has to pay...' Agatha Christie Laura Franklin bitterly resented the arrival of her younger sister Shirley, an enchanting baby loved by all the family. But Laura's emotions towards her sister changed dramatically one night, when she vowed to protect her with all her strength and love. While Shirley longs for freedom and romance, Laura has to learn that loving can never be a one-sided affair, and the burden of her love for her sister has a dramatic effect on both their lives. A story of consequences when love turns to obsession!

A final collection of original short fantasy stories assembles previously uncollected tales, stories about the two-centimeter demon Azael, several fairy tales, and a humorous adventure about Batman's old age from the grandmaster of science fiction. Isaac Asimov and science fiction are one and the same to millions of readers. He was the field's transcendent genius, its reigning prophet, its genial patriarch, and its most prolific author. But Asimov also wrote fantasy, and invariably of an enduring quality. Magic is his final original collection, containing all of his uncollected fantasy stories that have never before appeared in book form. Wry and witty, they carry his unique, personal stamp of rationalism and logic. These stories are fascinating musings of a wide-ranging intelligence, discussing everything from Tolkien to Spielberg, from unicorns to King Arthur. Magic is the last word on fantasy by the renowned science fiction author. Though Isaac Asimov had fun writing all his works, these are the stories he wrote for fun. They are an essential part of his irreplaceable legacy.

Sumptuous, oversized hardback edition of the beloved children's classic, fully illustrated with over 60 watercolour and pencil illustrations by award-winning artist, Alan Lee. J.R.R. Tolkien's great classic work, The Hobbit, celebrated its 60th year of publication (1937) with a gorgeous illustrated edition by artist Alan Lee, winner of the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration, and creator of the fabulously successful Centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings. Containing 22 full colour illustrations depicting key scenes from this all-time classic (scenes such as Gollum and Bilbo, The Wargs, Smaug the Dragon and The Battle of the Five Armies), this beautifully designed volume also includes a wealth of integrated pencil drawings which demonstrate perfectly Alan's genius at work. Alan Lee's work on this book, as well as the illustrated Lord of the Rings, led to him being approached by Peter Jackson to join the film trilogy as Conceptual Artist. The same artistic vision, present in his beautiful paintings and drawings, played a major role in the look of the films, and his work received the ultimate accolade with an Academy Award for Best Art Direction on The Return of the King.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the tenth book in the series. It is still the War of 1812. Patrick O'Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey and his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has ever written. They set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. It is a commission after Jack's own heart. Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Aubrey has to cope with a succession of disasters — men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, storms, typhoons, groundings, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and criminal insanity. That the enemy is in fact faithfully dealt with, no one who has the honour of Captain Aubrey's acquaintance can take leave to doubt.

Woof Woof It's time for bed, but Biscuit wants to have a snack, and play, and hear stories. Will he ever go to sleep?

The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville — the outrageous, curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Celebow, a sexist jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. Celebow is everything Phoebe abhors. And the sexy new boss is everything Dan despises — a meddling bimbo who doesn't know a pigskin from a pitcher's mound. So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot like a heat-seeking missile? And why does the coach's good boy charm leave cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied... and ready to fight? The sexy, heartwarming, and hilarious prequel to Susan Elizabeth Phillip's This Heart of Mine — her sensational bestsellng blockbuster — It Had To Be You is an enchanting story of two stubborn people who believe in playing for keeps.

Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart — and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed — a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city — a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known...

»The Peoples of Middle-earth» traces the evolution of the Appendices to «The Lord of The Rings», which provide a comprehensive historical structure of the Second and Third Ages, including Calendars, Hobbit genealogies and the Westron language. The book concludes with two unique abandoned stories: The New Shadow, set in Gondor during the Fourth Age, and the tale of Tal-elmar, in which the coming of the dreaded Numenorean ships is seen through the eyes of men of Middle-earth in the Dark Years. With the publication of this book, the long history of J.R.R. Tolkiens creation is completed and the enigmatic state of his work can be understood.

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the eighth book in the series. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior Captain commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days. A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling an action as any in this magnificent series of novels.

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the thirteenth book in the series. For all Jack Aubrey’s life he has triumphed, often sensationally, over the dangers of the sea and the violence of the enemy. But his rashness, his guilelessness, his indiscretion have time and time again enabled his rivals to prevent him reaping his just rewards. The nadir was reached in The Reverse of the Medal when, the victim of a skilful frame-up, he was convicted of fraud and struck off the Navy list just as he was coming within sight of flag rank. The subsequent exposure of the conspiracy, coupled with his brilliant success in command of a privateer, had brought him to a position where Their Lordships were more or less bound to reinstate him. This, as the present book opens, they have done, and he and his old friend Dr Maturin are sailing on a secret mission with a hand-picked crew, most of them shipmates from the adventures and lucrative voyages of earlier years.

Although born to rule, Aidan lives as a scribe in a remote Irish monastery on the far, wild edge of Christendom. Secure in work, contemplation, and dreams of the wider world, a miracle bursts into Aidan's quiet life. He is chosen to accompany a small band of monks on a quest to the farthest eastern reaches of the known world, to the fabled city of Byzantium, where they are to present a beautiful and costly hand-illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, to the Emperor of all Christendom. Thus begins an expedition by sea and over land, as Aidan becomes, by turns, a warrior and a sailor, a slave and a spy, a Viking and a Saracen, and finally, a man. He sees more of the world than most men of his time, becoming an ambassador to kings and an intimate of Byzantium's fabled Golden Court. And finally this valiant Irish monk faces the greatest trial that can confront any man in any age: commanding his own Destiny.

It was a time of legend, when the last shadows of the mighty Roman conqueror faded from the captured Isle of Britain. While across a vast sea, bloody war shattered a peace that had flourished for two thousand years in the doomed kingdom of Atlantis. «Taliesin» is the remarkable adventure of Charis, the Atlantean princess who escaped the terrible devastation of her homeland, and of the fabled seer and druid prince Taliesin, singer at the dawn of the age. It is the story of an incomparable love that joined two worlds amid the fires of chaos, and spawned the miracles of Merlin...and Arthur the king.

He was born to greatness, the son of a druid bard and a princess of lost Atlantis. A trained warrior, blessed with the gifts of prophecy and song, he grew to manhood in a land ravaged by the brutal greed of petty chieftains and barbarian invaders. «Merlin»: Respected, feared and hated by many, he was to have a higher destiny. for It was he who prepared the way for the momentous event that would unite the Island of the Mighty—the coming of Arthur Pendragon, Lord of the Kingdom of Summer.

They called him unfit to rule—a lowborn, callow boy, Uther's bastard. But his coming had been foretold in the songs of the bard Taliesin. He had learned the uses of power from his guide and protector, Merlin. He was Arthur, Pendragon of the Island of the Mighty—who would rise to legendary greatness in a Britain torn by violence, greed and war; the Lord of Summer who would usher in a glorious reign of peace and prosperity... and whose noble, trusting heart would be broken by treachery.

The Plan Genius physics professor Dr, Jane Darlington desperately wants a baby. But finding a father won't be easy. Jane's super-intelligence made her feel like a freak when she was growing up, and she's determined to spare her own child that suffering. Which means she must find someone very special to father her child. Someone...well... stupid. The Target Cal Bonner, the Chicago Stars' legendary quarterback, seems like the perfect choice. But his champion good looks and down-home ways are deceiving. Dr. Jane learns too late that this good ol'boy is a lot smarter than he lets on — and he's not about to be used and abandoned by a brainy baby-mad schemer. The Explosion A brillant, lonely woman who dreams only of motherhood... A take no-prisoners tough guy who'll settle for nothing less than surrender... Can passion and physical attraction propel two strong-willed yet vulnerable people to a totally unexpected love?

A fierce, compelling account of the nature and origins of love from Doris Lessing, one of the most acclaimed authors of the twentieth-century and Winner of the Nobel Pize for Literature 2007. Sarah Durham, sixty-year-old producer and founder of a leading fringe theatre company, commissions a play based on the journals of Julie Vairon, a beautiful, wayward nineteenth-century mulatto woman. It captivates all who come into contact with it, and dramatically changes the lives of all those who take part in it. For Sarah the changes are profound — she falls in love with two younger men causing her to relive her own stages of growing up, from immature, infantile with the beautifual and androgynous Bill, to the mature love, Henry.

The literary phenomenon of the year. More magical than Mistry, more of a rollicking good read than Rushdie, more nerve-tinglingly imagined than Naipaul, here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy has written an astonishingly rich, fertile novel, teeming with life, colour, heart-stopping language, wry comedy and a hint of magical realism. Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family — their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist and bottom-pincher) and their avowed enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).

Twelve humorous, easy-to-read poems that celebrate the spirit of Christmas. The poems cover subjects of interest to children — making a Christmas list, performing in the school assembly, cutting a Christmas tree. Children enjoy Prelutsky's poetry, and this book should prove no exception.

Thirteen poems to spice up the holiday that ghouls and ghosts love most. Prelutsky's Nightmares tamed for beginning readers. They're catchy at the most rudimentary level.

Rebecca has been dead for several months, but her sinister influence is still very much alive at Manderley, as Maxim de Winter's second wife soon comes to realize.

In grand Dickensian fashion, the acclaimed best-selling author of The Riftwar Saga brings to vivid life the myriad colors, realities, dangers, and details of an exotic, richly imagined world and the remarkable folk who populate it. A fast-moving and dramatic adventure, «Rise of a Merchant Prince» is Raymond E. Feist in top form.

There'd been a terrible mistake. Wayside School was supposed to be built with thirty classrooms one on top of the other...thirty stories tall! (The builder said he was very sorry.) That may be why all kinds of funny things happen at Wayside SChool...especially on the thirteenth floor. You'll meet Mrs. Gorf, the meanest teacher of all, terrible Todd, who always gets sent home early, and John who can read only upside down--along with all the other kids in the crazy mix-up school that came out sideways. But you'll never guess the truth about Sammy, the new kid...or what's in store for Wayside School on Halloween! There was a terrible mistake-Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high! (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that's why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor.

Hooray Wayside School is Open Again All the kids from Wayside School had to spend 243 days in horrible schools while Wayside closed to get rid of the cows (Don't ask). Now the kids are back and the fun begins again on every floor. Miss Much has prepared a Day on the 30th floor — with dogs and cats and frogs and skunks and pigs, and an orange named Fido causing a terrible commotion. In Mrs. Drazil's class, they're throwing a coffeepot, a sack of potatoes, a pencil sharpener, and a light bulb out the window to see which hits the ground first. But the big surprise is that Mrs. Jewls is expecting a baby — but one named Cootie Face or Bucket Head — and a substitute teacher is coming — and everyone knows what that means... Something strange is going on at the already peculiar Way side School, when Mrs. Jewls leaves her students with a succession of substitute teachers. Wayside School devotes will] turn pages eagerly... these additional anecdote about wayside school will surely tickle the funny bones of fans.

The second in the Valis trilogy of books, this story tells of the Second Coming: a story of total confusion.