Alan Paton

Alan Pattullo

Alan Pauls

Alan Pollock is a playwright, translator and screenwriter. His numerous plays include One Night in November, Pigs and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Alan Pollock

Alan Root was born in London in 1937 but moved to Kenya as a young boy. He dropped out of school at sixteen but soon found himself behind the camera. He married Joan Thorpe in 1961 and together they produced an array of award-winning wildlife films including Baobab: Portrait of a Tree, commissioned by David Attenborough, Safari by Balloon, The Year of the Wildebeest and Castles of Clay, which was nominated for an Oscar. Alan won over sixty awards during his career, including an Emmy, three Lifetime Achievement Awards an OBE. Alan Root died in August 2017.

Alan Root

Alan Rosenthal

Alan Ruddock

Alan Rugman

Alan Rusbridger

Alan Ryan

Alan S. Blinder

Alan Shearer CBE  grew up in Newcastle, leaving home as a  teenager to pursue a career in professional football with his first  team, Southampton. He went on to  reach football stardom, winning the Premier League with Blackburn in  1995, breaking the world transfer record by signing to Newcastle United  in 1996 and achieving international success as the Captain of England.  Alan also holds the record for most goals scored in Premier League history.

Alan Shearer

Alan Siegel

Alan Simpson

Alan Spence

Alan Stewart

Alan Taylor

Alan Tennant

Alan Thompson

Alan Titchmarsh MBE is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Love Your Weekend, Love Your Garden, Ground Force, Gardeners' World, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Spring Into Summer. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as twelve novels and three volumes of memoirs. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award.

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Unterman

Alan Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known for his expertise in Eastern philosophies including Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness.

Alan W Watts

Alan Warner is the author of eight novels: Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, The Sopranos, The Man Who Walks, The Worms Can Carry Me to Heaven, The Stars in the Bright Sky, which was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, The Deadman's Pedal and Their Lips Talk of Mischief. He is Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University.

Alan Warner

Alan Watts

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including the global bestseller The World Without Us, which has been translated into 34 international languages and was nominated for numerous awards. His writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and many other places. Alan has worked on all seven continent and reported from 58 countries, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Alan Weisman

Alanna Mitchell

Alasdair Fotheringham is a freelance journalist and writer based in Spain. He writes regularly on cycling for the ‘I’, The Independent.co.uk, The Express, ProCycling and Cyclingnews. He has been reporting on the Tour de France and other top road cycling events since 1992. His first book was The Eagle of Toledo, a biography of cycling’s greatest ever climber, Federico Martín Bahamontes. He has also written Reckless, a biography of the ill-fated Luis Ocaña, the 1973 Tour winner and considered Eddy Merck’s top Grand Tour rival, and The End of the Road, an account of the 1998 Tour de France.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Wickham

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Mr Blair and the Labour Party, including during subsequent election campaigns. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics in Britain and overseas, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign Time to Change. 
 
He lives in North London with his partner of thirty-five years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published six volumes of diaries, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller, The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, and three novels.

Alastair Campbell

Alastair Nathan Cook was born in Gloucester, December 1984. He is an English cricketer. He plays for Essex County Cricket Club and previously for England. Cook is the fifth highest Test scorer of all time. 
 
He is regarded as England's most successful batsman ever and now he is an icon and role model in sport. 
 
Outside of cricket, Alastair has written columns in the Telegraph and Metro, he is a talented saxophone player and donates his time to raising money for cancer charities and the David Randall Foundation. He is now married with three children.

Alastair Cook

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Sophie Kinsella

The perfect summer read from the international bestselling author of the Shopaholic novels. 
 
On a shimmeringly hot Sunday in May, Louise is at a neighbour's pool with her daughters - and glaring at her resentfully is her estranged husband Barnaby. While the children splash and shriek in the cool blue waters, she lies blissfully back in the sun and dreams of Cassian, the charismatic new lawyer in her life. The day seems perfect. 
 
But suddenly the bliss is shattered. The consequences of a terrible accident develop into a drama of recriminations, jealousy and legal power-play. Friendships crumble, the village is split, and the needs of a child become secondary to the dangerous contest in which the grown-ups are engaged.

Swimming Pool Sunday

Elle Newmark

It is 1947, and Evie and Martin Mitchell have just arrived in the Indian village of Masoorla with their five-year-old son. But cracks soon appear in their marriage as Evie struggles to adapt to her new life, and Martin fails to bury unbearable wartime memories. 
 
When Evie finds a collection of letters, concealed deep in the brickwork of their rented bungalow, so begins an investigation that consumes her, allowing her to escape to another world, a hundred years earlier, and to the extraordinary friendship of two very different young women. 
 
And as Evie's fascination with her Victorian discoveries deepens, she unearths powerful secrets. But at what cost to her present, already fragile existence?

The Sandalwood Tree

A collection of powerful, entertaining and thought-provoking short stories by some of our finest contemporary writers: Kate Atkinson, Eleanor Bailey, Claire Calman, Mavis Cheek, Candida Clark, Rachel Cusk, Stella Duffy, Helen Dunmore, Esther Freud, Joanne Harris, Maggie O'Farrell, Sarah Parkinson, Justine Picardie, Polly Samson, Rachel Seiffert, Joanna Trollope, Salley Vickers and Jane Yardley. 
 
Each of these acclaimed writers has donated an original short story to this exciting anthology. As Cherie Booth says in the foreword to this collection, it is wonderful that so many female authors have united to support the valuable work of Breast Cancer Care. 
 
At least £1 will be paid to Breast Cancer Care for every book sold.

A Day In The Life

Mogue Doyle

In Springmount, County Wexford, Will hides away to watch Kate Kelly through her cottage window - a moth at the glass. As the strains of the St Anne's Reel fill the air, Kate and her brother Philly begin to dance on the newly laid floor of their living room, while old Mrs Kelly looks on from beside the fire. Desperate to understand how the terrible tragedy in his past can haunt his present, Will thinks back to the 1920s: a halcyon time. 
Romantic expectation dominates this period of change and tension when traditional order gives way to the new political awareness, and the ties of family and friends no longer hold so much sway. Mountain lads roam country lanes, loaded pistols in their pockets, and innocence and romance are corrupted by a physical passion that runs all too deep.

A Moth At The Glass

Connie May Fowler

In 1965 Bird, christened Avocet, aged six, is living with her family in a Florida citrus grove.  Daddy and Mama, who run a general store, fight frequently and drink too much; Bird and her older sister Phoebe are beaten equally frequently.  Daddy is eventually found dead in his car; Mama and the girls leave the grove and move into a trailer in the grounds of a motel outside Tampa.  Bird, against Mama's wishes, makes friends with Miss Zora, a black woman in a neighbouring trailer.  Miss Zora is a kindly white witch, whose wisdom and herbal remedies provide a mainstay in Bird's difficult life.  Bird runs away to the city to escape her mother's cruelty, and meets a gentle biker who brings her home.  Mama finally agrees to get help for her alcoholism, and Miss Zora takes Bird and Phoebe to live with her at her home in South Florida.

Before Women Had Wings

Marjorie Riddell

Mother always knows best... 
 
Safely ensconced in the village of Wether Bilbury, Mother reconciles herself as best she can to her daughter's move to London. She keeps in constant touch by letter and phone, offering sage advice about good hot lunches (milk pudding is most nourishing and rich in vitamins), warm underclothes (combinations are splendid), and the perils of galloping about London in six-inch heels from one bed-sitting-room to another and pints of black coffee. 
 
Reported conversations with disapproving aunts, inquisitive neighbours, and triumphant friends whose daughters have married well or have steady jobs with pensions, underline the hopelessness of Mother's cause. But she battles on bravely, sustained by the knowledge that 'When you're eighty and your wasted life is a mirror of empty cosmetic jars and bed-sitting-rooms with no roots ... at least you won't be able to turn round and blame me.' 
 
First published in 1954, this enchantingly funny book is essential reading for everyone who's ever had, or been, a mother.

M For Mother

Domnica Radulescu

1980s Romania: 
 
As the sun sets on the magical shore of the Black Sea and casts its last rays across the water, all Nora Teodoru can think about is pursuing her dream of becoming an accomplished artist - and of her love for Gigi, her childhood boyfriend from the Turkish part of town. 
 
But storm clouds are gathering as life under Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu becomes increasingly unbearable. His secret police are circling, never far from the young couple's doors. 
 
Nora and Gigi make plans to escape to Turkey. But nothing can prepare them for the events that follow...

Black Sea Twilight

Robert Edric

It is the not too distant future. The Gulf Stream has ceased and the climate is plunged into turmoil. England has changed. 
 
Civil Servant Quinn is dispatched to conduct an audit on a remote plot of land up North, designated for a brand new model town. But he swiftly realises how inflammatory his presence is when confronted by those on the sharp end of the new reality: Owen, a suicidal farmer whose livestock has been destroyed after a slew of viruses; Winston, a disillusioned journalist with a gallery of photos that show the truth about the site; and Pollard, the local man of God whose faith is up for sale. 
 
But it is Anna, Quinn's sometime girlfriend, in charge of filling the dead cattle pits, who faces the deepest abyss of all. As the heavens open once again, the mountains of toxic soil that surround the site slowly begin to shift, and Quinn will face the ultimate test of his integrity.

Salvage

Priya Basil

An epic Romeo and Juliet for the 21st century 
 
In a bustling London café, Anil, now a famous architect, sits waiting for Lina. It is years since he last laid eyes on her, the love of his life. 
 
Lina is running for the train - punctuality has never been her strength. After all this time she cannot be late to meet Anil. 
 
Together, they think back to tragedies both personal and political, betrayals large and small. A past played out across three continents that house their rival worlds: Sikh and Muslim, wealthy and modest, liberal and orthodox, corrupt and moral.... 
 
Lina has one more revelation that must be shared with Anil. Might it unite them once and for all, or has it come too late?

The Obscure Logic of the Heart

It was Patrick's idea that they should have the tennis party. After all, he has the perfect setting - the White House, bought out of his bonuses as an investment banker. He hasn't actually told Caroline, his brash and beautiful wife, what the real reason for the party is. She is glad to welcome Stephen and Annie, their impoverished former neighbours, less glad to see newly wealthy Charles and his aristocratic wife Cressida, and barely able to tolerate the deadly competitive Don and Valerie. 
 
But as the first ball is served over the net it signals the start of two days of tempers, shocks, revelations, the arrival of an uninvited guest, and the realization that the weekend is about anything but tennis.

The Tennis Party

Marius Brill

He was out of her league. She was out of her depth. 
 
When Miranda, the Miss Lonely Hearts of Shepherd's Bush, suddenly finds herself romanced by a tall, dark and deadly spy, she finds her life turned upside down. Could it have anything to do with the book she innocently took from the library, a book with a conspiracy theory about 'love' so devastating that every other copy has been destroyed by MI5 and the writer 'disappeared'? 
 
Spliced through Miranda's romantic adventure are pages from the 'lost' book itself. But the loudest voice in this piece of postmodern madness belongs to the lovelorn book itself, a sentient mass of paper and ink that cannot help falling in love with its reader. 
 
Marius Brill's send-up of po-faced conspiracy stories, spy thrillers and pulp romance is as sharp as Tom Sharpe - imagine Umberto Ecco with a sense of humour. Ludicrously logical and finely spun, this is hare-brained literary fantasy, an erudite romp, and above all, a novel to fall in love with ...

Making Love: A Conspiracy Of The Heart

Rhys Thomas

Society is on the brink of collapse. The Old World is vanishing, the New World is taking over. There are no rules. Not now that a deadly disease is spreading that causes its victims to turn violent. Previously loving people become murderous. No-one can tell who will turn and who will not. 
 
 
A work of force and dark brilliance - the perfect expression of the terrors of the 21st Century

On The Third Day

John Boyne

At the start of his school holidays, Danny Delaney is looking forward to a trouble-free summer. But when his mother returns home one afternoon, flanked by two policemen, he knows that something terrible has happened. 
 
Mrs Delaney has accidentally hit a small boy with her car. The boy is in a coma at the local hospital and nobody knows if he will ever wake up. 
 
Consumed by guilt, Danny's mother closes herself off, while Danny and his father are left to pick up the pieces of their fractured family. 
 
Told in John Boyne's unique style from the point of view of a twelve-year-old boy, The Dare is a brilliantly compelling story about how one moment can change a family forever.

The Dare

Matthieu Zela has lived his life well. In fact, he's lived several lives well. Because Matthew Zela's life is characterised by one amazing fact: his body stopped ageing before the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
Starting in 1758, a young Matthieu flees Paris after witnessing his mother's brutal murder. His only companions are his younger brother Tomas and one true love, Dominique Sauvet. The story of his life takes us from the French Revolution to 1920s Hollywood, from the Great Exhibition to the Wall Street Crash, and by the end of the twentieth century, Matthieu has been an engineer, a rogue, a movie mogul, a soldier, a financier, a lover to many, a cable TV executive and much more besides. 
 
Brilliantly weaving history and personal experience, this is a dazzling story of love, murder, missed chances, treachery - and redemption.

The Thief of Time

Joanne Harris

This captivating and charming novel from international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris takes us back to the French village we first discovered in Chocolat. Seamlessly interweaving the past and the present, magic and memory, it is a sensual rollercoaster that will appeal to fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy, Maggie O'Farrell and Rachel Joyce. 
 
 
'Thickly sensuous, wildly indulgent, magical escapism: Chocolat lovers will drink deeply' --GUARDIAN 
'Joanne Harris has the gift of conveying her delight in the sensuous pleasures of food, wine, scent and plants... Blackberry Wine has all the appeal of a velvety scented glass of vintage wine' -- DAILY MAIL 
'A wonderful story' -- ***** Reader review 
'A beautiful story... beautifully written and very atmospheric' ***** Reader review 
'I could NOT put this book down' ***** Reader review 
'A very good book, lots of warmth and light' ***** Reader review 
 
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Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscape of his childhood, to which he longs to return. 
 
A bottle of home-brewed wine left to him by a long-vanished friend seems to provide the key to an old mystery. As the unusual properties of the strange brew take effect, Jay escapes to a derelict farmhouse in the French village of Lansquenet. 
 
There, a ghost from the past waits to confront him, and the reclusive Marise - haunted, lovely and dangerous - hides a terrible secret behind her closed shutters. 
 
Between them, a mysterious chemistry. Or could it be magic?

Blackberry Wine

from Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat, comes a tantalising, sensuous and magical novel which takes us back to the charming French village of Lansquenet

From the pen of international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris, Coastliners is a powerful novel of a hardy island community fighting the encroaching seas. Written with her characteristic vivid descriptions, expert characterisation and sensuous language, this is a real treat for fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy, Maggie O'Farrell and Rachel Joyce. 
 
'A winning blend of fairy-tale morality and gritty realism' -- INDEPENDENT 
'Sensuous, evocative...you can almost feel the sand between your toes and taste the salty air' -- HEAT 
'I was hooked by page 2. Brilliantly written' -- ***** Reader review 
'This book kept me gripped from start to finish' -- ***** Reader review 
'Page turner to the last page' -- ***** Reader review 
 
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On the tiny Breton island of Le Devin, life has remained almost unchanged for over a hundred years. For generations, two rival communities have fought for control of the island's only beach. 
 
When Mado returns home to her village after a ten-year absence, she finds it threatened, both by the tides and by a local entrepreneur. Worse, the community is suffering from an incurable loss of hope. Taking up the fight to transform the dying village, Mado must confront past tragedies, including the terrible secret that still haunts her father.

Coastliners

from Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat, comes a heartfelt, lyrical and life-affirming novel of courage and conviction

A gripping page-turner set in occupied France from international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris. With the sensuous writing we come to expect from her, this book has a darker core. Perfect for fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy, Maggie O'Farrell and Rachel Joyce, this fascinating and vivid journey through human cruelty and kindness is a gripping and compelling read. 
 
'Her strongest writing yet: as tangy and sometimes bitter as Chocolat was smooth' -- Independent 
'Harris indulges her love of rich and mouthwatering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses... Thoroughly enjoyable' -- Observer 
'Outstanding...beautifully written' -- Daily Mail 
'Very thought provoking. I read the book in two days and am still thinking about it a few days down the line' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absolutely gripping from the very first page' -- ***** Reader review 
'Joanne Harris at her very best!'-- ***** Reader review 
'Superb' -- ***** Reader review 
'I just couldn't put this one down'-- ***** Reader review 2 
 
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THE PAST WILL ALWAYS CATCH UP WITH YOU... 
 
Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire: smooth and brown as a sunning snake - but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow, plies her culinary trade at the crêperie - and lets her memory play strange games. 
 
As her nephew attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes Framboise has inherited from her mother - a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers - memories of a disturbed childhood during the German Occupation flood back, and expose a past full of betrayal, blackmail and lies...

Five Quarters Of The Orange

from Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat, a powerful drama about the dark repercussions of Nazi occupation in a rural French village

By the bestselling author of Chocolat, international multi-million copy seller Joanne Harris, comes a passionate story of love, nuns and witches, set in 17th-century France. Perfect for fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy, Maggie O'Farrell and Rachel Joyce. 
 
'Truly sensational... This is a wonderful novel. It draws you in from the very first page' -- SUNDAY EXPRESS 
'Hugely enjoyable... Both consoling and wise' -- New Statesman 
'With this bold, inventive book, Harris confirms her position as one of Britain's most popular novelists' -- DAILY MAIL 
'Stunned, but in a good way' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absorbing' -- ***** Reader review 
'Keeps you hooked from the start' -- ***** Reader review 
'Fabulous' -- ***** Reader review 
'A great page-turner' -- ***** Reader review 
 
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In seventeenth-century France against a backdrop of witch trials, regicide and religious frenzy, Juliette, one-time actress and rope-dancer, seeks refuge with her young daughter in a remote abbey and reinvents herself as Soeur Auguste. 
 
Until a new Abbess is appointed, bringing with her a ghost from Juliette's past - a man she has every reason to fear.

Holy Fools

a thrilling historical mystery from Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat

Fleur is beautiful, unscrupulous, and has a large wardrobe of black designer suits. With the help of The Times announcements page she gatecrashes the funerals and memorial services of the wealthy, preying on rich, vulnerable men. She charms her way into their lives and onto their platinum credit cards, takes what she can, and then moves swiftly on. 
 
When Richard, a dull but wealthy businessman, meets Fleur at his wife's memorial service, he's bowled over. Gradually Fleur works her spell on Richard's family - transforming their lives while she moves in on their wealth. But she finds herself lingering longer than she meant to ...

The Gatecrasher

Starling Lawrence

The Lightning Keeper is a sweeping epic novel of ambition, love and enterprise in America. It is the story of an unlikely Romeo and Juliet romance at the dawn of the electric age, with the nation balancing on the brink of world war and a scientific revolution. 
 
In 1914 Toma Pekocevic is a penniless immigrant in New York, recently escaped from the bloody politics of the Balkans that have claimed most of his family. Also a gifted inventor, he designs a revolutionary water turbine while working with Harriet Bigelow, scion of a proud Connecticut iron-making dynasty now fallen on hard times. Their attraction is immediate and overwhelming, but every circumstance is against them. 
 
Toma is eventually drawn inside the industrial empire of General Electric, his machine an essential cog in its grand scheme to provide electricity to the entire country. After he loses Harriet to a wealthy politician, his invention is all he has - but Toma is determined to win her back. The stage is set for a confrontation that could change not only his life but the course of scientific progress. 
 
Deeply evocative and utterly engrossing, The Lightning Keeper is a rich tapestry of technology, romance and war - an unforgettable and distinctly American saga that establishes Starling Lawrence as one of the most talented writers at work today.

The Lightning Keeper

Julia Stuart

A perpetual breeze blows through Amour-sur-Belle, a village so ugly that even the English refuse to live there. 
 
Guillaume Ladoucette, the barber, is forced to give up his business as the advancing age of his customers means many have gone bald. He decides to set himself up as a matchmaker instead, for, despite its name, love is the one thing that Amour-sur-Belle lacks. Some shun Denise Vigier because her grandmother was found guilty of horizontal collaboration during the war. The bar owner refuses to serve Madame Fournier, the mushroom poisoner. And Madame Ladoucette and Madame Moreau have been trading insults for so long they have become almost a form of greeting. 
 
'Not everyone falls instantly head over heels,' the matchmaker counsels. 'Love is like a good cassoulet, it needs time and determination.' But how can a matchmaker make love simmer - when he has not yet solved the problem of his own troubled heart?

The Matchmaker Of Perigord

Anne Fine

Colin is in many ways an ideal citizen. He holds down a responsible job for the council. He visits his aged mother Nora, shops for her, cooks for her, and listens to her grumbles. He also keeps in touch with his sister Dilys, long estranged from her mother, in a vain attempt to maintain family ties. But neither Dilys, Norah nor Colin's colleagues know about his other - much more secret - life that involves a garden shed, a circus acrobat, a much adored three-year-old charmer, and a certain Mr Haksar's increasingly disquieting penchant for squabbling with his neighbours. 
 
What Colin doesn't know is that, thanks to a house insurance policy incorrectly filled in by his mother, his two lives are set to collide, and there is nothing he can do to stop them. With her customary wit and perception, subtle yet razor sharp in her powers of observation, Anne Fine has produced another tour de force. Her portrait of the complex dynamics of family relationships is as lucid as it is uncomfortable, ending with a climax that in its wry irony and sheer unexpectedness is truly shocking.

All Bones And Lies

Luke Sutherland

In London's Delphi Restaurant, Bohemond - black, French, obsese, lonely and a wondrously talented head chef - has drawn on mythological symbolism to begin preparing the perfect wedding meal for his boss Hermione and her womanizing fiance Paris. But when he discovers a mysterious love letter, he wonders what to do. Bohemond secretly loves Hermione - should he warn her about Paris? Or does she already know? 
 
Meanwhile, the hotel's ancient leader Faulkner spends the evenings recounting an incredible saga of his clashes with supernaturally evil enemies. It's a great story; but when the more scurrilous members of the Delphi's staff begin reporting terrifying encounters with one of Faulkner's creations, Bohemond starts wondering if everything is morphing into something between truth and fable. Building on the promise shown in his first novel, Luke Sutherland writes with an intoxicating rhthym and style, proving himself one of the most inventive young writers around.

Sweetmeat

Nigel Farndale

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD &amp; A RICHARD &amp; JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 
 
He had always been scared of flying. Now, the fear is real. A plane crash. The water is rising over his mouth. In his nostrils. Lungs. As Daniel gasps, he swallows; and punches at his seat-belt. Nancy, the woman he loves, is trapped in her seat. He clambers over her, pushing her face into the headrest. 
It is a reflex, visceral action made without rational thought... 
 
But Daniel Kennedy did it. And already we have judged him from the comfort of our own lives. 
 
Almost a hundred years earlier, Daniel's great-grandfather goes over the top at Passchendaele.A shell explodes, and he wakes up alone and lost in the hell of no-man's-land. Where are the others? Has he been left behind? 
 
And if he doesn't find his unit, is he a deserter? 
 
Love; cowardice; trust; forgiveness.How will any of us behave when we are pushed to extremes? 
 
'A great achievement...To take on the First World War as so very many have done and make it fresh is remarkable.' MELVYN BRAGG 
 
'A book that won't leave your fingernails intact...a terrifically exciting and thought-provoking must-read' DAILY MAIL

The Blasphemer

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD & A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

John Irving

'Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-thirty-second event - the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age.' 
 
While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband's left hand, that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy...

The Fourth Hand

'According to his mother, Jack Burns was an actor before he was an actor, but Jack's most vivid memories of childhood were those moments when he felt compelled to hold his mother's hand. He wasn't acting then.' 
 
Jack Burns' mother, Alice, is a tattoo artist in search of the boy's father, a virtuoso organist named William who has fled America to Europe. To fund her journey, she plies her trade in the seaports of the Baltic coast. But her four-year-old son's errant father can't be found, and soon even Jack's memories of that perplexing time are called into question. It is only when he becomes a Hollywood actor in later life that what he has experienced in the past comes into telling play in his present......

Until I Find You

Joanna Trollope

Fans of Elizabeth Noble, Erica James and Amanda Prowse will love this absorbing, emotionally charged and beautifully written novel from multi-million copy bestselling author Joanna Trollope. Our lives are not always as rock-solid as we think... 
 
'Inventive, surprising and fascinating' - The Times 
'A page-turner that feels like sinking into a warm, deep bath. With Trollope you are always in safe hands. Highly recommended' -- Sunday Express 
'Trollope is shrewdly observant of human interaction' -- Daily Telegraph 
'Fascinating' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absolutely gripping' -- ***** Reader review 
'I could hardly bear to put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
'Another unputdownable book from Joanna Trollope' -- ***** Reader review 
 
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SOME SECRETS ARE TOO BIG TO STAY HIDDEN... 
 
Chrissie had always believed that her husband Richie was the one. With their three daughters, a lovely house and a fulfilling career, things couldn't be much better. And even if he hadn't given her the one thing she really wanted, she knew he loved her. 
 
But suddenly Richie is no longer there and, without him, Chrissie's carefully constructed life comes tumbling down and the secrets start to come out. 
 
As the practicalities of Richie's will must be sorted out, Chrissie must tell her daughters of their father's other family, a wife and son he had abandoned years before and sworn never to see again. And now, it is finally time for the two families to face each other...

The Other Family

an utterly compelling novel from bestselling author Joanna Trollope

At eighteen, Milly was up for anything. So when a friend asked her to marry him just so that he could stay in England, she didn't hesitate. To make it seem real she dressed up in wedding finery and posed on the steps of the registry office for photographs. 
 
Now, ten years later, Milly is a very different person. Engaged to Simon - who is good-looking, wealthy and adores her - she is about to have the biggest and most elaborate wedding imaginable, all masterminded by her mother. Nobody knows about her first marriage, so it's almost as though it never happened - isn't it? 
 
But with only four days to go, it looks as though Milly's past is going to catch up with her. Can she sort things out before her fairytale wedding collapses around her? How can she tell Simon? And worse still, how can she tell her mother ...?

The Wedding Girl

Gigi Levangie

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman called Cynthia, queen of glittering Manhattan, who had everything she could ever want. Including a handsome king, otherwise known as her husband, sexy Jack Powers, wealthiest man in New York, and apparently devoted to wife and family. 
 
But wait a minute, isn't that a wicked witch in the distance? Cynthia's just discovered her husband's playing away with beautiful TV anchor Lara Sizemore, who's head over heels in love with Jack. Now she has to decide whether her fairytale is worth trying to save... 
 
Will they all live happily ever after - or can only one person have a true Fairytale Ending?

Fairytale Ending

Chitra Divakaruni

Born in a big old Calcutta house on the same night, the wild, tragic night both their fathers were mysteriously lost, Sudha and Anju are cousins. Closer even than sisters, they share clothes, possessions, worries, dreams - and three mothers, who preside over the matriarchal Chatterjee household where the cousins grow up, cocooned in a timeless world of feminine lore. But when Sudha learns a terrible secret about the past, and hides it from her cousin, and then when Anju discovers the sister of her heart is secretly nurturing a forbidden love, their mutual loyalty is sorely tested. 
 
As the day of leaving school draws near, a family crisis forces the cousins to abandon their university plans, and their mothers swiftly start the serious business of arranging their marriages to the sons of suitable families. And thus the inseparable pair is torn apart: Sudha moves to her new family's home in rural Bengal, while Anju joins her immigrant husband in California. But although they have both been trained to be perfect wives, nothing has prepared them for the great challenges, for the pain as well as the joy, that each will have to face in her new life. 
 
Compelling and passionate, rooted in Indian folklore and steeped in the mysticism of ancient tales, this bright, jewel-like novel shines its light on the bonds of family, on love and loss, against a backdrop of the realities of traditional arranged marriages, and the adjustments needed for modern-day life in the West.

Sister Of My Heart

Five Minute Mum

Flaptastic

Fluffy

Folk Art

Football Academy

Football Skills

Forbidden Spaces Trilogy

Foul Play

DICK FRANCIS was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys and author of forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), the biography of Lester Piggott and his own autobiography (The Sport of Queens). He was rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world. 
 
 Since his death, his son FELIX FRANCIS has taken over the literary reigns from his father and Dick's legacy lives on through the Dick Francis novels. The Francis flair is clear for all to see in these national treasure thrillers, and readers will appreciate the sporadic reappearance of beloved series characters Sid Halley and Jeff Hinkley.

Francis Thriller

Frank Behr

Once a Detective Inspector in the Nottinghamshire Force, Frank Elder has retired to an isolated cottage in Cornwall, and is trying to live the quiet life. The past, however, is never far behind him.

Frank Elder

Fred

Free Collars Kingdom

Jean Plaidy combines imagination with facts to bring the French Revolution alive in this dynamic historical fiction series. From Louis XV’s debauchery to Marie Antionette’s demise, it is clear there was only one way this was going to end.

French Revolution

French Vintage Classics

Frieda Klein

Fright Club

From Scratch

Frontline Nurses Series

Frostheart

Fun With Ladybird

Funnybones

G.F. Newman’s The Corrupted

Gabriel's Inferno

The Roman grip on Britain is growing weaker and Druids are on the rise. Emperor Nero has turned away. Boudicca is preparing to lead tribes to war. 
 
Standing in her way is Gaius Valerius Verrens, commander of the veterans legion. In this battle he earns the accolade of Hero of Rome - but where will that title lead him next?

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