Quercus/MacLehose Press

Tabitha Tumbly, Charlie Vapour, Rusty Chains and friends can't understand why the still-alives in their house are so mean. When Pamela Fraidy gets locked in the attic by a still-alive, the ghosties are determined to make the still-alives like them. But the more friendly they are — hiding under beds and rushing out to read them a bed-time story, rushing down the chimney to say hello, the meaner the still-alives become; they even go so far as to run out of rooms shrieking! When the family start putting nasty garlic around the house and then call in a priest, the ghostie gloves are off: Tabitha and Charlie decide to call in The Ghoul to sort out the still-alives once and for all: But could the terrifying ghoul prove much more than even the ghosties bargained for? The cast of classic characters, brilliant one-liners and a clever plot will delight children and their parents.

It's winter and what better than a ghostly holler-day by the sea? But how are Tabitha Tumbly, Charlie Vapour, Humphrey Bump and the other ghosties to decide between Frighten-on-Sea and Scare-borough? A postcard from their friend Headless Leslie decides for them: Headless is in Frighten and cannot remember how to get home. He wrote the address on the postcard, then he forgot what the address was. 'I'd lose my head if it wasn't screwed on — which it isn't.' So the friends descend on Frighten and set off on an exciting ghostie caper, involving a haunted Frighten pier, a mysterious phantom magician, a fun fair and an extremely infuriating Headless Leslie.

Pittsburgh was too small for Beryl Wexler. Barely out of high school, she changed her name to Buzz and set off for the bright lights of London. She never looked back. Now she's at the top of her game in the music PR business, looking after the coolest groups on the planet. And for a woman who was forty-two last birthday she certainly keeps up the pace. But her life is about to change. Some twenty-year-old has been given the new Japanese girl band predicted to go stellar, and Buzz is being sidelined. Instead, Buzz gets to tour with the Gorni Grannies, Bulgarian singers of a certain age. These ladies may not be the tantrum-throwing celebs Buzz is used to, but they present other challenges. How to stop Lubka straining yogurt through her knee highs? How to dissuade Kichka from stealing everything not nailed to the floor? Fuelled by copious shots of home-brewed plum rakia, Buzz and Lubka address life's ups and down, until the world tilts and a different future beckons.

Kate McKinnon is thirty-six and mother to five-year-old Toby. She has a small but thriving business catering for private clients. Her life is on an even keel. That is, until she gets a job cooking lunch at the Foreign Office and has her first fateful meeting with Oliver Stapler, Secretary of State. He's powerful and charismatic, but also married and a father and totally out of bounds, yet she falls for him. When a journalist spots them together, he alerts the gutter press. Who cares whether Kate's affair with Oliver is true or not? It's a great story and will shift a ton of newspapers — and destroy several lives in the process.

Glasgow, 1953: the war may be over but the battle for the streets is just beginning. Three crime bosses control the murky streets, but a small-scale con is trying to invade their territory. The balance is shifting. Lennox, a hard man in a hard city at a hard time, finds himself caught in the middle — a dangerous place to be. One night, a body is discovered on the road, his head mashed to pulp, and Lennox is in the frame for murder. The only way of proving his innocence is to solve the crime — but he'll have to dodge men more deadly than Glasgow's crime bosses before he gets any answers. The first in a unique and memorable crime series, Lennox is gritty, fast-paced, mordantly funny and totally compelling.

Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200 year old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion of social novel and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable about rejection, friendship and loyalty.

Dr Ruth Galloway is in her late 30s. When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, she lectures at a university in Norfolk. She lives, alone but happily so, in a bleak, marshy area called Saltmarsh overlooking the sea and Norfolk's vast skies with her cats and Radio 4 for company. She's a salty character — quirky. When a child's bones are found in the marshes, near a dig that Ruth and her former boyfriend Peter worked on ten years before, Ruth is called upon to date them. They turn out to be bronze-age bones and DCI Harry Nelson, who called on Ruth for help, is disappointed. He had hoped they would be the bones of a child called Lucy who's been missing, presumed dead, for ten years. He has been getting letters about her ever since — odd letters with references to ritual and sacrifice, and including quotes from the Bible and Shakespeare. Then a second girl goes missing and Nelson gets another letter — like the ones about Lucy. Is it the same killer? Is it a ritual murder, linked in some way to the site near Ruth's remote home? Then one of Ruth's cats is killed and clearly she's in danger from a killer who knows that her expert knowledge is being used to help the police with their enquiries.

How different are men and women's brains? Does altruism really exist? Are our minds blank slates at birth? And do dreams reveal our unconscious desires? If you have you ever grappled with these concepts, or tried your hand as an amateur psychologist, 50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need to Know could be just the book for you. Not only providing the answers to these questions and many more, this series of engaging and accessible essays explores each of the central concepts, as well as the arguments of key thinkers. Author Adrian Furnham offers expert and concise introductions to emotional behaviour, cognition, mental conditions — from stress to schizophrenia — rationality and personality development, amongst many others. This is a fascinating introduction to psychology for anyone interested in understanding the human mind.

Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the most successful American artists of the twentieth century, and her dramatic and iconic paintings are recognised throughout the world today. In this spectacular giant format book, over 100 reproductions of O'Keeffe's most important work are accompanied by Lauris Morgan-Griffiths' expert and insightful commentary on all aspects of the artist's life, influences and paintings. The book begins with O'Keeffe's early life and studies, focusing on her early inspirations, and continues chronologically exploring the influences and the stories behind some of her most important works — including her famous flower paintings. Featuring some of the most iconic and significant artworks of the 20th century, including Evening Star series Purple Petunias and Pelvis Series, Red and Yellow and Above the Clouds, this is a book that will appeal to Georgia O'Keeffe enthusiasts and art lovers alike.

Embark on an incredible journey through the dizzying diversity, complexity and majesty of the Animal Kingdom. Discover how primitive slime fungi cells coalesce and function for a time as a single animal, or witness the millions of Monarch butterflies that aggregate on trees in Mexico. Meet the Coelacanth fish thought to be extinct for millions of years, or Microcebus — the newly discovered mouse lemur and the world's smallest primate. From sponges to spiny ant eaters, brine shrimps to bonobos, Animalia allows you to witness some of the most astonishing wonders of the natural world in spectacular detail. Organised according to the scientific classification of animals (orders, families, genus, species), each chapter focuses on a different family of animals, starting with an introductory essay on the evolution, diversity, behaviour, habitats, conservation, etc. Subsequent pages showcase a broad selection of the most interesting, exotic, unusual, endangered, beautiful, specific animals within that group. Animalia combines over 350 amazing giant-sized images taken by the world's best wildlife photographers with the latest scientific and zoological research on the natural history and conservation status of hundreds of animals. From nature lovers to conservationists, wildlife watchers to budding zoologists, Animalia is the ideal reference that will entertain, inform and enthrall readers of all ages.

The second novel in the Strange Angels series picks up with Dru neatly tucked away in a Schola that's more like a prison than a secret training facility. Except for one tiny detail... she's the only girl in the place and is totally surrounded by tons of cute boys. But a traitor in the Order wants Dru dead and she can't trust anyone except for Graves. Too bad he's being kept busy with a new crew of wulfen teens and doesn't have time for her. As she learns the truth about who she can and can't trust, Dru's only hope may be to save herself — although the one gift that makes her special is draining away, and she doesn't know how to get it back. Will Dru survive long enough to find out who is really after her? Or is she destined for the same fate as her murdered parents? Lili's characters come alive on the page in a way that's visually stunning and she creates the same terrific pace, danger and teen romance as in Strange Angels.

Three single women in their fifties meet when they join a choir. Lucy, recently widowed, is a cook and food journalist; Joanna, a successful business woman, never married; Rebecca is a divorced interior decorator. Each of the women is at a crossroads and they quickly form a bond.

Sealed for one hundred and twenty-five years, Wilkie Collins's scribbled words launch a feverish descent into the underbelly of Victorian London as he is dragged into Charles Dickens's pursuit of a spectral figure known only as Drood.

A richly entertaining, compellingly readable survey of 21st-century England from a sharp-eyed American with a winningly humorous way with words.

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder — and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

Something very peculiar is happening in Stockholm. There's a heatwave on and people cannot turn their lights out or switch their appliances off. Then the terrible news breaks. In the city morgue, the dead are waking up... What do they want? What everybody wants: to come home.

When thirteen-year-old Johnny's talking computer Kovac detects an extraterrestrial signal, his life is set to change for ever. Until then, stuck in his children's home in Castle Dudbury New Town, with the nasty cook Mr Wilkins watching his every move, football had been his only escape. But soon things start happening around him that Johnny doesn't understand: why is his mother, who is on life support in a hospital for the criminally insane, being guarded by sinister looking men? And why was a journalist murdered shortly after Johnny talked to him? When Johnny finds out he has a sister, he decides to run away to find her. His search for answers takes him farther from home than he could ever have imagined, on a spectacular journey through time and space. Along the way he visits new worlds, prehistoric Earth and the lost city of Atlantis before finally discovering the truth about his parents and who he really is.

Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200 year old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion of social novel and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable about rejection, friendship and loyalty.

Conn should have dropped dead the day he stole a wizard's locus stone, but miraculously he survives. Becoming the wizard's apprentice, Conn becomes embroiled in his master's plan to save the city, whose magic is slowly dying. Meanwhile, the Wizard, Nevery, is secretly beginning to question Conn's past: why did the thief survive in the Twilight and why is he immune to injury? But Conn is hiding a much darker secret. Sarah Prineas has imagined a richly detailed magical world like no other. Enter the world of The Magic Thief. It provides beautiful illustrations, maps and extra material. Use the runic code at the back of the book to discover hidden messages. It features an interactive website that ties in with maps and games.

Sherlock Holmes' nemesis lives again. It's the turn of the century and Moriarty has been away from London for several years, setting up crime syndicates in the US. But he's suddenly called back to London to deal with the European upstart criminals who have attempted to oust him.

The trouble with being a vampire is... You can't get a decent haircut. You live on guinea-pig blood. And even worse, most of the world's population wants to kill you. For no good reason. Nina Harrison became a vampire in 1973, when she was fifteen. Since then, life's been one big drag — mostly because she spends all her time with a bunch of vampires, in a vampire therapy group. Then one of them gets staked by an anonymous vampire slayer, and things become even worse: while tracking down the culprit, Nina and her fellow vampires end up in the middle of an illegal werewolf-fighting racket, and find themselves the target of some genuine villains who'll stop at nothing to get their werewolf back.

In the final days of the Second World War, Michael Rogan, an American intelligence officer, is tortured by a group of seven senior Gestapo officers who need to discover the secrets he alone can give them. Ten years later, when he has recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered, and determined to revenge the death of his wife at the hands of the same men, he begins a quest to track down and kill his tormentors. Dark, violent, and graphic, this is an addictive thriller about how far one man will go to exact his own justice. Written a year before Puzo completed The Godfather.

Dru Anderson: Night Hunter. Knife Wielder. Heart Breaker. Dru can sense evil, which helps when she and her Dad are tracking down ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional reanimated corpse. It's a dangerous life, but it's the only one she knows. Then Dru's dad turns up dead and she suddenly finds herself in the middle of a deadly game where every move she makes could be her last. Dru is more special than she realizes — and whatever killed her dad could be coming for her next. Can Dru stay alive long enough to fall for one — or both — of the guys hungry for her affections? Find out in the heart-stopping first book in a thrilling series.

December, and the river is rising. The village of Ledwardine has never been flooded in living memory. Within days it will be an island. There's no electricity. The church is serving as a temporary mortuary for two people who drowned. Only one man feels safer. An aggressively-atheist author has been moved, for his own safety, Rushdie-style, into a secluded house just outside the village. Fundamentalist Christians have hated him for years. Now he's offended the Muslims. Bad move.Meanwhile, archaeologists, assisted by Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane, are at work in Coleman's Meadow, unearthing an ancient row of standing stones which some people would rather stay buried. The atheist's temporary home is close to the site. And his young wife is becoming conspicuously agitated. Is it the fear of discovery — or the kind of fear that she, of all people, could never disclose? One thing is clear: the last person who's going to be welcome in that house is an exorcist. With the flood water washing up Church Lane towards the vicarage and the shop running out of cigarettes it looks like a cold and complex Christmas for Merrily Watkins in an ancient community forced to untangle its own history against the swirling uncertainty of the future.