Little, Brown and Company

Louise and Rebecca, good friends since their BBC days in Belfast, work for a film company and are scouring the south of England for a suitable location to shoot a movie about Elizabeth I. As they stumble across Wooldene House, they meet Diana and Henry, who own the property. Diana, widowed, feels her life is slowly crumbling along with the house, and yearns for new romance. Diana spends her time looking after their aunt Lucy who, as she senses time is running out, begins the share the startling secrets in her past. And Henry, retired from the Army after a stint in Northern Ireland, is increasingly drawn to Louise — but their shared history, which places them on opposite sides of the troubles — threatens them both...

'Justinian took a wife: and the manner she was born and bred, and wedded to this man, tore up the Roman Empire by the very roots' Procopius Charming, charismatic, heroic? Theodora of Constantinople rose from nothing to become the most powerful woman in the history of Byzantine Rome. In Stella Duffy's breathtaking new novel, she comes to life again? a fascinating, controversial and seductive woman. Some called her a saint. Others were not so kind... When her father is killed, the young Theodora is forced into near slavery to survive. But just as she learns to control her body as a dancer, and for the men who can afford her, so she is determined to shape a very different fate for herself. From the vibrant streets and erotic stage shows of sixth century Constantinople to the holy desert retreats of Alexandria, Theodora is an extraordinary imaginative achievement from one of our finest writers.

There are all kinds of products. The good ones. The bad ones. The ones that stay in the gararge mouldering for years until your garden gnome makes a home out of it. Most are harmless if handled properly, even if they do contain traces of peanuts. But some are not. Not the ones that contain traces of magic. Chris Popham wasn't paying enough attention when he talked to his SatNav. Sure, she gave him directions, never backtalked him, and always led him to his next spot on the map with perfect accuracy. She was the best thing in his life. So was it really his fault that he didn't start paying attention when she talked to him? In his defence, that was her job. But when 'Take the next right' turned into 'Excuse me,' that was when the real trouble started. Because sometimes a SatNav isn't a SatNav. Sometimes it's an imprisoned soul trapped inside a metal box that will do anything it can to get free. And some products you just can't return.

Ex-cop Luther Malone — member of a very secret paranormal society — and Grace Renquist, quirky librarian, are a strange partnership. Grace has been hired as an aura-reading consultant in the quest for a murder suspect, but has zero field experience. Her bodyguard, Luther, walks with a cane and isn't good with a gun! So the last thing they expect is for romantic sparks to fly between them at their hotel in Maui, where they're posing as honeymooners. However, their attraction must be suppressed quickly when rogue operatives for an underground group pour into the luxury resort. Grace recognises the dark spikes in their auras — she saw the same pattern in someone else in another life — and she understands how dangerous these people can be. While the pair's employers scramble to get them backup, Luther and Grace have to think on their feet. The criminals in their midst aren't just high-level sensitives — they've enhanced their talent with a potent and unpredictable drug. And as Grace knows all too well, if you don't control your powers, your powers will control you...

'Dear Mr Cornford, It is with regret that I begin the task of to writing to you about your niece, Emily. Her recent behaviour, which I have outlined to you in previous letters, compels me to request that she be formally removed from the school and returned to your care with immediate effect'. And so Emily Hudson, niece and ward, is dispatched into the care of her distant and cold uncle, to take residence at the family's Newport beach house at the outbreak of the Civil War. She is an orphan, the sole member of her family not claimed by consumption. In that first lonely summer, it is Emily's cousin William — himself an outsider — who is her saviour. Her spirit and vibrancy are at odds with the stilted climate of American society: a woman should be a paragon of virtue, definitely not an aspiring painter with no fortune to speak of. William's friendship offers Emily the chance to escape to London to pursue her dreams, but his patronage soon turns darker and more controlling. And as Emily's health falters, she turns to some rather unsuitable means to find the release she craves...

In a night of drunken revelry, Jasper Finley, Baron Montford, gambles his reputation as London's most notorious lover on one woman. His challenge? To seduce the exquisite, virtuous Katherine Huxtable within a fortnight. But when his best-laid plans go awry, Jasper devises a wager of his own. For Katherine, already wildly attracted to him, Jasper's offer is irresistible: to make London's most dangerous rake fall in love with her. Then Jasper suddenly ups the ante. Katherine knows she should refuse. But with scandal brewing and her reputation in jeopardy, she reluctantly agrees to become his wife. Now, as passion ignites, the seduction really begins. And this time the prize is nothing less than both their hearts...

Two best friends and their brother husbands. Blissfully happy and living life to the full. But when a honeytrap is set to catch one brother cheating, their lives come crumbling down around them.

'THIS IS AN ASSASSINATION. NOT YOURS. BUT AN ASSASSINATION NONE THE LESS'. Avery Cates, criminal 'king' of New York, has climbed his way to the top of a heap of trouble. On his knees in the snow, with a gun to his head, Avery thinks this must finally be it. Instead, he is injected with nanotech and left confused but alive. Then everyone around him starts dying. With every moment bringing humanity closer to extinction, Cates finds he will be either executioner or saviour of an entire world.

It has been said that the natural state of science fiction is the short story. If that is so, you won't find a better exporation of that state than Charles Stross's new collection. Centred around an original and previously-unpublished novella (TBD), UNPLUGGED is a showcase of some of the best short SF of the 21st century. With a introduction from the author and containing hitherto uncollected works such as, Missile Gap, Trunk and Disorderly and Rogue Farm, and some gems previously available only in small press publications, such as A Colder War and Antibodies, UNPLUGGED will illustrate perfectly why award-winning editor and anthologist, Gardner Dozois, once declared 'Where Charles Stross goes today, the rest of science fiction will follow tomorrow'.

Bob has been behind a desk for too long, busy indexing and archiving the Laundry's secret files, and he's longing for a break when his wife, Mo, announces that she's landed a teaching assignment at a staff college in Cambridge. And he's worrying at the problem of a missing manuscript — an unfinished policy document found in the personal effects of Major-General J. F. C. Fuller (rtd) after his death — which is absent from the Laundry archives. (Fuller was not only the tactician who first invented Blitzkrieg warfare in 1917-18; he was also #2 to Aleister Crowley in the OTO, and a heavyweight Cabalist). So Bob follows Mo to Cambridge, and is startled to find a Russian spy sneaking around after him. The Fuller Memorandum is missing, and the FSB want it badly. It's got something to do with Fuller's occult obsessions, and something to do with the Laundry's creation in 1941. But Bob doesn't realize just how much is at stake until someone tries to kill Mo, and his boss Angleton starts behaving oddly before lapsing into a coma. The theft of Fuller's document is at the heart of a murderous conspiracy rooted in the GULAGs, and Bob is dumped into a deadly race against time — because if he can't work out where it's been hidden, and how it's connected to Angleton's mysterious illness, it's going to be curtains for the Laundry (and possibly the world) as the cultists of Chernobog try to raise darkness at noon.

On the eve of her wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband to come home, listening for his car along the dark, icy roads. As the night draws on, and he fails to appear, Mary reflects on the true nature of their marriage: the secrets, the silences, and the unmentionable yet inescapable fact that for each loss and disappointment, there has been a corresponding physical gain: the woman she once was is now imprisoned in mountainous flesh. The Wife's Tale is the inspirational story of the journey Mary is finally forced to make across a continent, ostensibly in search of her husband, but eventually towards the self she has buried for too long.

Sophie and Jess Raven grow up knowing that a few little lies are necessary. You look great. It was only a joke. He's just stressed. It doesn't matter. Everything's fine. Everybody does it, don't they? But what about the big lies love, power and money? Are they ever justified? When Sophie discovers what her father, Bill, is doing with his accountant, Anthea, and Jess falls in love with the perfect man, should Sophie keep quiet or tear her family apart with the truth? And if she tells, who will pay the ultimate price?

With her caramel coloring and green eyes, American Jade del Cameron is nothing short of exotic. But don't mistake her for a hothouse flower; she's tough, brave, smart, and stubborn, as she proved during her service in France during the Great War. What's more, she's a crackerjack shot. Her temperament and talents get a workout when she agrees to investigate the death of the father of a young fighter pilot who died in the war, and to track down the young man's illegitimate half brother. It's a task that takes her to colonial East Africa, where she encounters racial and gender prejudice as well as kindness, courage, and greed. She also comes face-to-face with superstitions that blend seamlessly into reality. Arruda manufactures an intriguing backdrop for the debut of her new series, delivering both a heady sense of East Africa's cultural and geographical landscape during the early 1900s and an outspoken heroine, who proves herself gratifyingly ahead of her times in numerous ways.

From Rich Hall, the grouchy, deadpan, comic genius and brilliantly witty author of THINGS SNOWBALL and OTIS LEE CRENSHAW: I BLAME SOCIETY comes this wonderful new collection of stories. With his trademark humour, this is guaranteed to delight his loyal fanbase as well as drawing new readers. Rich Hall quit his job as a hurricane namer for the United States Meteorological Service eighteen years ago and hasn't looked back. Looking like a Pearl Jam roadie, Rich is a master of absurdist irony — he particularly likes to lay into Americans and life across the Pond at every opportunity.

Suzanne Perry is having a vivid nightmare. Someone is in her bedroom, touching her, and she can't move a muscle. She wakes, relieved to put the nightmare behind her, but when she opens the curtains, she sees a polaroid stuck to the window. A photo of her sleeping self, taken during the night. And underneath the words: 'I'm watching over you'. Her nightmare isn't over. In fact, it's just beginning. Detective Inspector Phil Brennan of the Major Incident Squad has a killer to hunt. A killer who stalks young women, insinuates himself into their lives, and ultimately tortures and murders them in the most shocking way possible. But the more Phil investigates, the more he delves into the twisted psychology of his quarry, Phil realises that it isn't just a serial killer he's hunting but something or someone infinitely more calculating and horrific. And much closer to home than he realised...

After more than 30 years Anne Greves feels compelled to break her silence about her first lover, and a treacherous pursuit across Cambodia's killing fields. Once she was a motherless girl from taciturn immigrant stock. Defying fierce opposition, she falls in love with Serey, a gentle rebel and exiled musician. She's still only 16 when he leaves her in their Montreal flat to return to Cambodia And, after a decade without word, she abandons everything to search for him in the bars of Phnom Penh, a city traumatized by the Khmer Rouge slaughter. Against all odds the lovers are reunited, and in a political country where tranquil rice paddies harbour the bones of the massacred, Anne pieces together a new life with Serey. But there are wounds that love cannot heal, and some mysteries too dangerous to know. And when Serey disappears again, Anne discovers a story she cannot bear. Haunting, vivid, elegiac, The Disappeared is a tour de force; at once a battle cry and a piercing lamentation, for truth, for love.

When Michiel Steyn returns to the family farmstead in South Africa for his mother's funeral, he has spent close to half his lifetime abroad. But even after fifteen years' absence, neither Michiel nor those he left behind have truly come to terms with his terrible flight from the farm they called Paradise. As Michiel submits himself to the rituals of mourning and remembrance in the small town and on the land where he became a man, all that has lain undisturbed for years is brought to light. A father's implacable fury and a brother's violent death, the loss of a child, the betrayal of love and the ugly memory of the dying days of apartheid all come between the prodigal and forgiveness. Michiel finds that he must confront not only his grief for his mother's passing but the painful truth of his own transgressions. Elegiac and chilling, poignant and profoundly thoughtful, Kings of the Water is at once a lament both personal and political, and a meditation on the potency of reconciliation.

Battle and burial are built into the history of Lansdown Hill, so it is no great shock when part of a skeleton is unearthed there. But Peter Diamond, Bath's Head of CID, can't ignore the fresh corpse found close to the folly known as Beckford's Tower. The hill becomes the setting for one of the most puzzling cases he has investigated, involving golf, horseracing, Civil War re-enactment and the Cyrillic alphabet. Inevitably, Diamond butts heads with the group of vigilantes who call themselves the Lansdown Society, discovering in the process that his boss Georgina is a member. She resolves to sideline Diamond by sending him to Bristol and handing the skeleton investigation to his deputy, Keith Halliwell. Fortunately matters don't pan out as Georgina plans...

HONOR BRADY falls in love with wine merchant Hugo Lambert and moves to Astignac, a village in the French wine region Entre Deux Mers. Hugo sells rare wines to connossieurs; wines with a story; wines hidden during the war; wines rescued from the Winter Palace in St Petersburg... MELANIE MILLER, an American student, discovers that the grandfather who raised her, fathered a child in Astignac during the war. She sets out to find the relatives she never knew she had. IVOR KITCHOFF, an American of Russian descent, wants to own one of the precious Romanoff bottles. But other, less salubrious Russians, are equally interested... All of these characters have their own reasons for coming to Astignac. But they share one thing in common: the need to know what is real and what is false. In love as well as wine.

An intriguing new mystery for Edinburgh-based philosopher Isabel Dalhousie Isabel Dalhousie is a new mother and a connoisseur of philosophy; she'd rather not be a sleuth. But when a chance conversation at a dinner party draws Isabel into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. Because for Isabel ethics are not theoretical at all, but an everyday matter of life and death.

From the bestselling true crime author comes the mesmerising true story of Debora Green, a beautiful, wealthy, successful doctor and mother of three whose murderous rage and jealousy brings death and destruction to her family. With direct access to all the principles including Green, the prosecutor, detectives and arson investigators Ann Rule gives us a horrifying portrait of a woman who had it all and lost it. BITTER HARVEST is the chronicle of a tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. As in her earlier books, Ann Rule takes the reader deep into the psyche of a killer whose behaviour, so twisted and so evil, defies belief. Her book is also the story of the tireless and skilful investigators, forensic scientists and prosecutors who finally brought that killer to justice. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, BITTER HARVEST is a vivid re-creation of an unthinkable crime — and a depiction of the unimaginable depths of darkness within the human spirit.

Zoey needs a break after some serious excitement. Sadly, the House of Night school for vampyres doesn't feature breaks on its curriculum — even for a High Priestess in training and her gang. Plus juggling three guys is no stress reliever, especially when one is a sexy Warrior so into protecting Zoey that he's sensing her emotions. Wider stresses lurk too, and the dark force in Tulsa's tunnels is spreading. Could Stevie Rae be responsible for more than a group of misfit fledglings? And Aphrodite's visions warn Zoey to stay away from the immortal Kalona and his dark allure — but they also show that only Zoey can stop him. She's not exactly keen to meet up, but if Zoey don't go to Kalona he'll exact a fiery vengeance on those closest to her. She just has to find the courage to do what's necessary, or everything that's important to her will be destroyed. — Not suitable for younger readers Note: The pages of this

Hard work had made Jeremiah rich: at the age of forty-four he was one of the wealthiest mining barons in the land. When he married the captivating Camille — less than half his age — he was looking for more than love. He was looking for a woman to found a great family. And for that family, he built a mansion: Thurston House. The vast mansion was the finest in the city — a palace for a prince, a princess and their children. In bricks and mortar, turrets and columns, it symbolized the greatness and power of the new dynasty it was to house. Many generations would live and love and die in Thurston House. Each generation would ask itself whether money alone can buy happiness, a family and love.

A brand new novel — and a stunning new heroine — from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Daughter of a controlling mother, Elizabeth finally let loose one night, drinking at a nightclub and letting a strange man's seductive Russian accent lure her to a house far away. The events that followed changed her life for ever. Twelve years later, the woman known as Abigail Lowery lives on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks. A freelance programmer, she designs sophisticated security systems — and supplements her own security with a fierce dog and an assortment of firearms. She keeps to herself, saying little, revealing nothing. But Abigail's reserve only intrigues police chief Brooks Gleason. Her logical mind, her secretive nature, her unromantic viewpoints leave him fascinated but frustrated. He suspects that Abigail needs protection from something — and that her elaborate defenses hide a story that needs to be revealed.