Orion Books

It is June 1778, and the world seems to be turning upside-down. The British Army is withdrawing from Philadelphia, with George Washington in pursuit, and for the first time, it looks as if the rebels might actually win. But for Claire Fraser and her family, there are even more tumultuous revolutions that have to be accommodated. Her former husband, Jamie, has returned from the dead, demanding to know why in his absence she married his best friend, Lord John Grey. Lord John's son, the ninth Earl of Ellesmere, is no less shocked to discover that his real father is actually the newly resurrected Jamie Fraser, and Jamie's nephew Ian Murray discovers that his new-found cousin has an eye for the woman who has just agreed to marry him. And while Claire is terrified that one of her husbands may be about to murder the other, in the 20th century her descendants face even more desperate turns of events. Her daughter Brianna is trying to protect her son from a vicious criminal with murder on his mind, while her husband Roger has disappeared into the past...

Maggie is married with two grown children. Her twenty-five year-old marriage to Phil has lost its sparkle. Carol is widowed. She understands life is short so she lives it to the full. But is her new romance all that it seems? The two women meet in the beauty salon having their nails painted. Choosing the same colour to please their men leads them to discover the truth! When Maggie and Carol realise they are sharing the same man, they decide to teach Phil a lesson or two he won't easily forget...

In the fifth of his bestselling series Ben Aaronovitch takes Peter Grant out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and takes him out of London — to a small village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local children. But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take the London out of the copper. Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and local gods. And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm... Sales for BROKEN HOMES in trade leapt by 50% over WHISPERS UNDER GROUND, confirming that Ben Aaronovitch is an author with an unrivalled eye for a bestselling story.

THE STRANGER'S SHADOW continues the adventures of Sir Max — the one-time loser who now heads the Minor Secret Investigative Force — as he hunts down trespassing monsters and investigates the use of illegal magic in the supernatural world of Echo. Joining Max on his adventures are Sir Melifaro, Sir Juffin Hully, Sir Kofa Yox, and a bizarre cast of otherworldly characters. When people begin to die in Echo, Max must travel to the Dark Side of Echo to destroy the Lonely Shadow — the shadows of the dead. But defeating the Lonely Shadow isn't the end of this battle. Someone has been using the shadows to attack Echo, which will lead the redoubtable Max into a realm of unparalleled danger. Will he be able to defend his adopted home, or will he be forced to return to our mundane world?

It is 1920, central Russia. The Red Terror tightens its hold. Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest. The women and children have disappeared. In this remote, rural Russian community the folk tales mothers tell their children by candlelight take on powerful significance and the terrifying legend of Koschei, The Deathless One, begins to feel very real. Kolya sets out on a journey through dense, haunting forests and across vast plains as bitter winter sets in, in the desperate hope he will find his wife and two boys, and find them alive. But there are very dark things in Kolya's past. And, as he strives to find his family, there's someone or something on his trail...

Hollywood gets more than it bargained for when television's hottest star arrives at the Miami Police Department and develops an intense, professional interest in a camera-shy blood spatter analyst named Dexter Morgan. Mega-star Robert Chase is famous for losing himself in his characters. When he and a group of actors descend on the Miami Police Department for 'research', Chase becomes fixated on Dexter Morgan, the blood spatter analyst with a sweet tooth for doughnuts and a seemingly average life. To perfect his role, Chase is obsessed with shadowing Dexter's every move and learning what really makes him tick. There is just one tiny problem... Dexter's favorite hobby involves hunting down the worst killers to escape legal justice, and introducing them to his special brand of playtime. It's a secret best kept out of the spotlight and away from the prying eyes of bloated Hollywood egos if Dexter wants to stay out of the electric chair. The last thing he needs is bright lights and the paparazzi... but even Dexter isn't immune to the call of fame. Jeff Lindsay's razor sharp, devilish wit, and immaculate pacing prove that he is in a class of his own, and this new novel is his most masterful creation yet.

On a cold, bleak day in 1916, a mining pit in Siberia turns into a bloodbath when its miners attack each other, savagely and ferociously. Minutes later, two men — a horrified scientist and Grigory Rasputin, trusted confidant of the tsar — hit a detonator, blowing up the mine to conceal all evidence of the carnage. In the present day, FBI agent Sean Reilly is tasked with a new, disturbing case. A Russian embassy attache seems to have committed suicide by jumping out of a fourth-floor window in Queens. The apartment's owners, a retired high school teacher and his wife, have gone missing, while a faceless killer is roaming New York City, leaving a trail of death in his wake. Joined by Russian FSB agent Larisa Tchoumitcheva, Reilly's investigation into the old man's identity will uncover a deadly search for a mysterious device whose origins reach back in time to the darkest days of the Cold War and to Imperial Russia and which, in the wrong hands, could have a devastating impact on the modern world. Packed with intrigue and excitement, Rasputin's Shadow will keep readers turning pages long into the night.

Ben Aaronovitch has stormed the bestseller list with his superb London crime series. A unique blend of police procedural, loving detail about the greatest character of all, London, and a dash of the supernatural. A mutilated body in Crawley. Another killer on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil; an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man? Or just a common or garden serial killer? Before PC Peter Grant can get his head round the case a town planner going under a tube train and a stolen grimoire are adding to his case-load. So far so London. But then Peter gets word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on an housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans and inhabited by the truly desperate. Is there a connection? And if there is, why oh why did it have to be South of the River? Full of warmth, sly humour and a rich cornucopia of things you never knew about London, Aaronovitch's series has swiftly added Grant's magical London to Rebus' Edinburgh and Morse's Oxford as a destination of choice for those who love their crime with something a little extra.

A thousand miles east of Mirgorod, the great capital city of the Vlast, deep in the ancient forest, lies the most recent fallen angel, its vast stone form half-buried and fused into the rock by the violence of impact. As its dark energy leeches into the crash site, so a circle of death expands around it, slowly — inexorably — killing everything it touches. Alone in the wilderness, it reaches out with its mind. The endless forest and its antique folk lore are no concern to Inspector Vissarion Lom, summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist — and ordered to report directly to the head of the secret police. A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown terrorism with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists. Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head at the children's home. Lom's investigation reveals a conspiracy that extends to the top echelons of the party. When he exposes who — or rather what — is the controlling intelligence behind this, it is time for the detective to change sides. Pursued by rogue police agents and their man-crushing mudjhik, Lom must protect Kantor's step-daughter Maroussia, who has discovered what is hidden beneath police headquarters: a secret so ancient that only the forest remembers. As they try to escape the capital and flee down river, elemental forces are gathering. The earth itself is on the move.

Eric is the Discworld's only demonology hacker. The trouble is, he's not very good at it. All he wants is the usual three wishes: to be immortal, rule the world and have the most beautiful woman fall madly in love with him. The usual stuff. But what he gets is Rincewind, the Disc's most incompetent wizard, and Rincewind's Luggage (the world's most dangerous travel accessory) into the bargain. Terry Pratchett's hilarious take on the Faust legend stars many of the Discworld's most popular characters in an outrageous adventure that will leave Eric wishing once more — this time, quite fervently, that he'd never been born.

When a US military satellite crashes into the remote wilds of Mongolia, a desperate search begins. The satellite contains a code-black physics project — research linked to the birth of our universe. And the last blurry image from the satellite offered a terrifying glimpse of the future. Meanwhile, a mysterious parcel arrives at the Vatican, containing a skull scrawled with ancient Aramaic and a tome bound with human skin. DNA testing reveals that both are from Genghis Khan — the Mongol King whose undiscovered tomb is rumoured to hold the vast treasures and knowledge of a lost empire. Commander Gray Pierce and SIGMA race to uncover a truth tied to the fall of the Roman Empire, a mystery bound in the roots of Christianity, and a weapon that holds the fate of humanity.

The motivations behind today's most successful leaders and entrepreneurs come to a simple yet decisive explanation: there are people who give, people who take, people who match, and people who fake. Our world is filled with these givers, takers, matchers and fakers. Amazingly, those who succeed (not only personally but for their clients and companies) don't take or match. They give. (Although they're not necessarily philanthropic.) GIVE AND TAKE presents the fascinating secrets to givers' success. The results are unequivocal: givers gain big. Jack Welch, Richard Branson, Jon Huntsman Sr. — all of them are givers. In a world in which so many takers such as Bernard Madoff and Raj Rajaratnam have ruined lives and reputations, this book will reassure readers that the real power lies in becoming a giver. Since the vast majority of people aren't born givers, Grant not only presents the case for why givers win, he also offers their hidden strategies for winning.

How far away can you hear a lion roar? How do dolphins breathe underwater? Is it really true that elephants never forget? Bursting with weird facts and freaky trivia, this is the perfect guide to everything a Horrid Henry fan has ever wanted to know about animals. Gross out your parents, scare your little brother and amaze your friends with your new knowledge.

When Lisa and her boyfriend George take on the run-down Rocks Hotel, they are determined to throw everything they have into making it THE chic maritime retreat. But renovating a hotel is about a lot more than stripping the wooden floors and supplying Indian cotton sheets. And the locals aren't exactly welcoming to the newcomers, either... especially Bruno, the tall, dark and decidedly surly owner of a rival hotel. Amid the sandcastles and surf, passions run high as ghosts from the past come out of the freshly-painted woodwork and a summer season looks like it is heading dangerously close to the rocks.

'Look after the dead', said the priests, 'and the dead will look after you'. Wise words in all probability, but a tall order when you have just become the pharaoh of a small and penniless country whose largesse — and indeed treasury — is unlikely to stretch to the building of a monumental pyramid to honour your dead father. And particularly when your only visible means of support is a recently acquired qualification from the Guild of Assassins where running a kingdom and basic financial acumen were not prerequisites for course entry...

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was: Hey, you! For Brutha the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love. He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please...

There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son... a wizard squared... a source of magic... a Sourcerer. Sourcery sees the return of Rincewind and the Luggage as the Discworld faces its greatest — and funniest — challenge yet.

Haviland Tuf is an honest space-trader (one of the few), and he likes cats. So how is it that, despite being up against the worst villains in the universe, he has become the proud owner of the last working seedship, pride of Earth's Ecological Engineering Corps? We'll leave that aside for now — just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in space is in good hands, hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment and powerful spacecraft, Tuf is set to tackle the myriad problems that human settlers have created during their colonisation of far flung worlds. Hosts of hostile monsters, a population addicted to procreation, a dictator who is willing to unleash plagues to get his own way — and all that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf's ingenuity, and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues...

A wonderfully atmospheric collection of short stories, rooted deep in the landscape and inspired by traditional folk tales and country legends from England and France. These tales are richly populated by ghosts and spirits seeking revenge; by grief-struck women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny — all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc. The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...

King Canute, Lady Godiva, Guy Fawkes, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Grace Darling and other famous names live again in these 101 tragic, comic, stirring tales of adventure, folly and wickedness. Spanning nearly three thousand years, and including stories as up-to-date as Live Aid, the Braer Oil Tanker disaster and the Hadron Collider, each story includes a note on what really happened.

In May 1980, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drei suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts. It all began the previous autumn when, while exploring the dilapidated grounds of what seemed to be an abandoned house filled with portraits, he inadvertently stole a gold pocket watch. Thus begins Oscar's friendship with Marina and her father Herman Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Oscar to the gardens of the nearby cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m., a coach drives up to the cemetery and a woman with her face shrouded, wearing gloves, and holding a single rose is helped down from the coach and walks over to a nameless gravestone, where she sets down the flower, pauses for a moment, and then returns to the coach. The gravestone bears no marking but the outline of a strange-looking butterfly with open wings. On one of their subsequent walks Oscar and Marina spot the same woman and determine to follow her. Thereupon begins their journey into the woman's past, and that of the object of her devotion. It is a journey that takes them to the heights of a forgotten, postwar-Barcelona society, of now aged or departed aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and into the depths of the city's mysterious underground of labyrinthine sewers, corrupt policemen, beggars' hovels, and criminal depravity.

Internationally bestselling historian Antonia Fraser's new book brilliantly evokes one year of pre-Victorian political and social history — the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832. For our inconclusive times, there is an attractive resonance with 1832, with its 'rotten boroughs' of Old Sarum and the disappearing village of Dunwich, and its lines of most resistance to reform. This book is character-driven — on the one hand, the reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats Lord Grey, Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell, and the Irish orator Daniel O'Connell. They included members of the richest and most landed Cabinet in history, yet they were determined to bring liberty, which whittled away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition comprised Lord Londonderry, the Duke of Wellington, the intransigent Duchess of Kent and the consort of the Tory King William IV, Queen Adelaide. Finally, there were 'revolutionaries' and reformers, like William Cobbett, the author of RURAL RIDES. This is a book that features one eventful year, much of it violent. There were riots in Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham, and wider themes of Irish and 'negro emancipation' underscore the narrative. The time-span of the book is from Wellington's intractable declaration in November 1830 that 'The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution', to 7th June 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill, under the double threat of the creation of 60 new peers in the House of Lords and the threat of revolution throughout the country. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life.

When Cal Weaver stops at a red light on a rainy night while driving home, he ignores the bedraggled-looking teenage girl trying to hitch a ride — even when she starts tapping on his window. But when he realises she's one of his son's classmates, he knows he can't really leave her, alone, on the street. But nothing prepares him for the consequences of trying to help her out. The next morning he's gone from Good Samaritan to murder suspect, and with one girl dead and another missing, he's suddenly at the centre of a deadly puzzle that reaches right to the heart of the town — from its bullying police force to its strangely furtive mayor — and finally to one family's shocking secret.

DISCWORLD GOES TO WAR, WITH ARMIES OF SARDINES, WARRIORS, FISHERMEN, SQUID AND AT LEAST ONE VERY CAMP FOLLOWER. As two armies march, Commander Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch faces unpleasant foes who are out to get him... and that's just the people on his side. The enemy might be even worse. JINGO, the 21st in Terry Pratchett's phenomenally successful Discworld series, makes the World Cup look like a friendly five-a-side.