Transworld Publishers

Georgian England, 1789. Under a cloud of scandal, Henrietta Lightfoot flees her home at Melmouth Park. She has little money and no worthwhile talents, for what use is a neat stitch and a pretty voice outside the drawing room? Without family support, her only hope of survival lies with the dashing but elusive Lord Allenham... In a desperate quest to find him, Henrietta embarks on a journey through London's debauched and glittering underworld, where she discovers more about her own mysterious past than she could have imagined. With the aid of new-found skills at the card table and on the stage, will Henrietta be able to turn her life around to become mistress of her fate?

At ninety years old, the author is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. This title follows her early life from an idyllic childhood in her own 'Garden of Eden' at Chartwell to her ATS service in mixed anti-aircraft batteries during the war. It offers a glimpse into her personal diary.

When Vavara, a young orphaned Polish girl, is brought to serve at Empress Elizabeth's glittering, dangerous court in St Petersburg, she is schooled by the Chancellor himself in skills from lock-picking to love-making, learning above all else to stay silent — and listen. Soon, she is Elizabeth's 'tongue' — her secret eyes and ears. Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for Elizabeth's heir. Set to spy on her by the Empress, Vavara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit seductions and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court. But Sophie's destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?

A poignant new novel from this West Country bestselling author. Out of heartbreak comes a new life... Gussie, Ned and Jannie are not quite siblings, but they share a fiercely close and affectionate family bond. In their bohemian Cornish home, with a famous and distinguished artist as their father figure, they glory in their unusual upbringing and their unconventional, loving family life. Until one day a terrible tragedy destroys the foundations of that family, and they have to learn to cope on their own. Moving from Cornwall to New York and back again to the West Country, Susan Sallis's warm and powerful novel shows us love and sorrow, and family life in all its guises.

2010 is the year that the relationship between politics and television will come of age. In the last election politicians clashed live on TV in the first ever televised Prime Ministerial debate — an unprecedented event in the history of political broadcasting. It follows a year in which media coverage of politics has become more immediate, more intense, and far more personal. The 2010 election marked the culmination of the shift in politics from the street corner, to the box in the corner. In Live From Downing Street, the BBC's Political Editor, Nick Robinson, tells the inside story of the 'troubled marriage' which has forced politicians and broadcasters to live together, rarely in harmony, for over 70 years. With unprecedented access and insight he reveals how the key players, past and present, handle the portrayal of their role in the public eye with varying degrees of success. Coupled with an analysis of how the relationship between politics and instant broadcasting will develop further in the digital world, Live From Downing Street presents a fascinating and important story of politics and the media in our time.

Easter, as the last snows melt on the Swedish island of Oland, Per Morner is preparing for his children's visit. But his plans are soon disrupted when he receives a phone call from his estranged father, Jerry, begging him for help. In his blazing woodland studio, Per finds Jerry close to death. He's been stabbed and two dead bodies have been discovered alongside him in the burnt-out building. The only suspect, Jerry's work partner, is confirmed dead in the fire. But why does Jerry insist his colleague is still alive? And why does he think he's still a threat to his life? When Jerry dies in hospital a few days later Per becomes determined to find out what really happened. But the closer he gets to the truth the more danger he finds himself in. And nowhere is more dangerous than the nearby quarry...

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant idiot Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. It plays by different rules. Certainly it refuses to succumb to the quaint notion that universes are ruled by pure logic and the harmony of numbers But just because the Disc is different doesn't mean that some things don't stay the same. Its very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the arrival of the first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. But if the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death is a spectacularly inept wizard, a little logic might turn out to be a very good idea.

What happens after death is now less of a philosophical question than a question of actual reality. On the disc, as here, they need Death. If Death doesn't come for you, then what are you supposed to do in the meantime? You can't have the undead wandering about like lost souls. There's no telling what might happen.

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.

The alchemists of the Discworld have discovered the magic of the silver screen. But what is the dark secret of Holy Wood hill? It's up to Victor Tugelbend (Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little.) and Theda Withel (I come from a little town you've probably never heard of) to find out. Moving Pictures, the ninth Discworld novel is a gloriously funny saga set against the background of a world gone mad!

It seemed an easy job. After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn't marry a prince? But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, travelling to the distant city of Genua, things are never that simple. Servant girls have to marry the prince. That's what life is all about. You can't fight a Happy Ending At least — up until now.

When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher — and you have a badly set, freshly busted nose — it isn't easy to hitch a ride. At last, he's picked up by three strangers — two men and a woman. Within minutes it becomes clear they're all lying about everything — and there's a police roadblock ahead.

1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? 2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive (some said mad, others dangerous) scientist when she finds a curious gadget — a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a... potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever. And that is an understatement if ever there was one...

Some people help the less fortunate. Others kill them. Evil has many guises. Jack Taylor has encountered most of them but nothing before has ever truly terrified him until a group called Headstone rears its ugly head. An elderly priest is viciously beaten until nearly dead. A special needs boy is brutally attacked. A series of seemingly random, insane, violent events even has the Guards shaken. Most would see a headstone as a marker of the dead, but this coterie of evil intends to act as a death knell to every aspect of Jack's life as an act of appalling violence alerts him to the horror enveloping Galway. Accepting the power of Headstone, Jack realizes that in order to fight back he must relinquish the remaining shreds of what has made him human — knowledge that may have come too late to prevent an act of such ferocious evil that the whole country would be changed forever — and in the worst way. With awful clarity, Jack knows that not only might he be powerless to stop it but that he may not have the grit needed to even face it.

It began with Eragon... It ends with Inheritance. Not so very long ago, Eragon — Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider — was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now, the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders. The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to imagine. But can they topple the evil king, Galbatorix, and restore justice to Alagaesia? And if so, at what cost?

Mighty battles! Revolution! Death! War! (and his sons Terror and Panic, and daughter Clancy). The oldest and most inscrutable empire on the Discworld is in turmoil, brought about by the revolutionary treatise. What I did on My Holidays. Workers are uniting, with nothing to lose but their water buffaloes. Warlords are struggling for power. War (and Clancy) are spreading throughout the ancient cities. And all that stands in the way of terrible doom for everyone is: Rincewind the Wizard, who can't even spell the word 'wizard'... Cohen the barbarian hero, five foot tall in his surgical sandals, who has had a lifetime's experience of not dying... and a very special butterfly.

It's September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian's brother Will during the Great War, but in 1917 Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family. But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul: one that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage. As he recalls his friendship with Will, from the training ground at Aldershot to the trenches of Northern France, he speaks of how the intensity of their friendship brought him both happiness and self-discovery as well as despair and pain. The Absolutist is a novel that examines the events of the Great War from the perspective of two young soldiers, both struggling with the complexity of their emotions and the confusion of their friendship.

Born in a surreal Moscow communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, Anya von Bremzen grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at school, and longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy and, finally, intolerable. In 1974, when Anya was ten, she and her mother fled to the USA, with no winter coats and no right of return. These days, Anya is the doyenne of high-end food writing. And yet, the flavour of Soviet kolbasa, like Proust's madeleine, transports her back to that vanished Atlantis known as the USSR. In this sweeping, tragicomic memoir, Anya recreates seven decades of the Soviet experience through cooking and food, and reconstructs a moving family history spanning three generations. Her narrative is embedded in a larger historical epic: Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning, World War II starvation, Stalin's table manners, Khrushchev's kitchen debates, Gorbachev's disastrous anti-alcohol policies and the ultimate collapse of the USSR. And all of this is bound together by Anya's sardonic wit, passionate nostalgia and piercing observations. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is a book that stirs the soul as well as the senses.

In this funny, moving memoir, Danielle Steel tells the story of how she met a dog the size of a mouse, with a personality that could light up an entire room. From Minnie's arrival at home in San Francisco to clothes shopping jaunts in Paris, her adventures provide the perfect backdrop for a heartfelt look at the magic that dogs bring to our lives, and how they become part of the family. We meet Steel's childhood pug, James, and Elmer, the basset hound who was steadfast at her side in her struggling days as a young writer, Sweet Pea-unveiled in a Tiffany box for a dog-loving husband-and all those lucky dogs who shared a household of nine children, other canines, and one pot-bellied pig. As she reflects on the beloved pets who have brought joy, and sometimes chaos, to her home through the years, Steel also shares her thoughts on the trials and tribulations of bringing a new dog into a household, the challenges of housebreaking and compatibility, the losses we feel forever. Filled with colorful characters (human and otherwise), delightful photographs, practical wisdom drawn from long experience, and brimming with warmth and insight on every page, Pure Joy is a love letter to this special relationship — and one of the most charming books yet from the incomparable Danielle Steel.

From Randi Zuckerberg, social media and technology expert and former marketing executive at Facebook, comes a welcome, essential guide to understanding social media and technology, and how they influence and inform our lives online and off. Technology and social media have changed, enhanced, and complicated every facet of our lives — from how we interact with our friends to how we elect presidents, from how we manage our careers to how we support important causes, from how we find love to how we raise our children. The technology revolution is not going away. We can't hide from it or pretend that it's not changing our lives in a thousand different ways. So how do we deal with it? In Dot Complicated, Randi Zuckerberg shows us how. Through first hand accounts of her time at Facebook and beyond, where Zuckerberg witnessed this remarkable shift, she details the opportunities and obstacles, problems and solutions, presented by this new online reality. In the process, she establishes rules to bring some much-needed order and clarity to our connected, complicated, and constantly changing lives online. Invaluable, timely, and engaging, Dot Complicated reveals how to make it through your life online in one piece — from the etiquette of unfriending and the power of crowdsourcing to the perils of photo tags and the importance of teaching your kids how to be tech-savvy.

Jess Penhaligon is on her way to Devon to receive an award for her botanical painting. Hosting her will be Kate, who gladly welcomes her into her home. Jess' own family fell apart several years ago, so she is grateful for Kate's friendliness — and her close unit of extended family and friends, who embrace Jess just as warmly. As this group begins reminiscing on their pasts and sharing their stories with Jess, it becomes apparent that her family history may be linked with theirs. Long-buried secrets from past generations begin to be uncovered — but at what cost have they been kept hidden?

The Kill List: a top secret catalogue of names held at the highest level of the US government. On it, those men and women who would threaten the world's security. And at the top of it, The Preacher, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers to kill high profile Western targets in the name of God. As the bodies begin to pile up in America, Great Britain and across Europe, the message goes out: discover this man's identity, locate him and take him out. Tasked with what seems like an impossible job is an ex-US marine who has risen through the ranks to become one of America's most effective intelligence chiefs. Now known only as The Tracker, he must gather what scant evidence there is, collate it and unmask The Preacher if he is to prevent the next spate of violent deaths. Aided only by a brilliant teenaged hacker, he must throw out the bait and see whether his deadly target can be drawn from his lair.

Imagine being happily married for 28 years. You have three children, a lovely house and a husband who travels a lot — but even after all this time, you still love each other. Or: imagine being happily married for 17 years. You have one daughter, a lovely home and though your husband travels a lot, you still love each other passionately. Then one day you get a call that turns your world upside down: your husband is dead. You are devastated. You go to the funeral... And come face to face with his other widow. Another wife, another family. It can't be true. It must be a mistake. It has to be her fault — all of it. Or: is it? With the sharp and witty scalpel she used in The Mistress' Revenge, Tamar Cohen lays bare the raw emotions that underpin so-called normal family life and explores the hearts of two women forced to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew.

After building an empire that has made her a legend in business, Olivia spends months each year planning a lavish holiday for everyone in her family to enjoy. This summer she has arranged a dream trip on a luxurious yacht in the Mediterranean, which she hopes will be the most memorable of all. More than anything, she hopes to express her love and her regret at all the important times she missed during her children's early years. But her younger daughter, Cassie, a hip London music producer, refuses the invitation altogether as she does every year. Liz, her older daughter, is preoccupied with a chance to recapture her dream of being a writer and is terrified of failure, again. And her sons John and Phillip work for her, for better or worse, with wives who wish they didn't. Immersed in the splendour of the Riviera, this should be a summer to remember, but old resentments die hard, and Olivia is still running the business full-time. As each of these individuals confront the past and the challenges of the present and future, they also learn to accept the enduring, unconditional love of their family — and a mother who is strong enough to take more than her fair share of the blame, and loving enough to accept them as they really are. The question is: can they do the same for her?