Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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Newlyweds Adam and Aisha are in an airport lounge in Delhi, their honeymoon abruptly cut short by the murder of Adam’s best friend. While Aisha waits, Adam disappears, leaving only a cryptic message: 'I’m sorry'. 
 
Stranded in India without documents, Aisha is interrogated by RAW, India’s intelligence agency, and the FBI – both of whom seem to know more about her husband’s disappearance than she does. 
 
At the same time Adam’s ex-lover, Sara, receives an urgent message from him: 'Help her'. 
 
Thrown together by circumstance and suspicion, Aisha and Sara decode Adam’s clues, which lead them across the US in a hunt to find Adam before it’s too late. 
 
EDEN FALLS is a high-stakes thriller that spans continents and delves into the shady world of AI and tech billionaires. It is a gripping tale of intrigue, weaponised AI and the relentless pursuit of truth.

Eden Falls

'Outstanding' SUNDAY TIMES 
'Hugely entertaining' ANN CLEEVES 
'A rip-roaring mystery that's engrossing from start to finish' ABIR MUKHERJEE 
 
Detective Sergeant Kamil Rahman is riding high on newfound fame and a thrilling new case: the mysterious death of the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London.Meanwhile ex-partner Anjoli’s luck is about to change too. Her struggling detective agency has been asked to investigate a series of death threats targeting a high-profile, and controversial, climate activist. 
 
Unbeknownst to them both, rogue historian Rohan Gill is planning the ultimate heist—to reclaim the Kohinoor diamond from the Tower – and Kamil and Anjoli, are an integral part of his plan. 
 
With the Tower locked down and tensions soaring, will Kamil and Anjoli find the strength to do what’s right, or will they be swept away by the tides of history?

The Patriot

Carys Green

A tense psychological thriller about a desperate mother who gets a clone of herself to help with her baby. For readers of Gillian McAllister, Sarah Pinborough and fans of the TV shows HUMANS and SEVERANCE. 
 
'How would you react to sharing your home with your clone?... Gripping and haunting' Tess Mackey 
 
‘It will be all right,’ Nellie assured her with startling confidence. 
‘I’m here to make things better. You’ll see.’ 
 
Elena and Stu are barely holding it together. Their newborn screams through the night, their nerves are frayed, and their marriage is hanging by a thread. 
 
Then comes More You: a company offering an impossible solution — a clone. For a price, they can have another Elena. One who is fresh. Alert. 
 
At first, it feels like salvation. The clone is calm, capable, perfect. But soon she starts to pick up Elena’s habits. Her voice. Her smile. And in the quiet hours of the night, something in the house begins to shift. 
 
When the cracks finally split wide open, Elena is forced to confront a terrifying question: if someone takes your place, what happens to you? 
 
'Clever and thought provoking...profoundly chilling' Ajay Chowdhury, author of THE WAITER 
 
'Gripping and deeply unsettling' Natalie Chandler, author of THE VOICES

The Other You

Abir Mukherjee

In the Burning Ghats of Calcutta where the dead are laid to rest, a man is found murdered, his throat cut from ear to ear. 
 
The body is that of a popular patron of the arts, a man who was, by all accounts, beloved by all: so what was the motive for his murder? Despite being out of favour with the Imperial Police Force, Detective Sam Wyndham is assigned to the case and finds himself thrust into the glamorous world of Indian cinema. 
 
Meanwhile Surendranath Banerjee, recently returned from Europe after three years spent running from the fallout of his last case, is searching for a missing photographer; a trailblazing woman at the forefront of the profession. When Suren discovers that the vanished woman is linked to Sam's murder investigation, the two men find themselves working together once again - but will Wyndham and Banerjee be able to put their differences aside to solve the case? 
 
From the critically-acclaimed author of HUNTED comes the next instalment in the popular Wyndham and Banerjee series.

The Burning Grounds

Every floor has its secrets.Washed-up American heart-throb George Abercrombie hates India, even from the rarified heights of his apartment on the 68th floor of the Pinnacle, Mumbai’s grandest luxury skyscraper. He hates the noise, he hates the heat and maybe he’s even grown to hate his much younger wife, the newest queen of Bollywood, Sweety Sahota.When George wakes from a drunken stupor to find Sweety murdered in their bedroom, he knows he will be the prime suspect. But where is her computer, her phone – and where has his personal assistant gone?As George scrambles to piece together the night, others in the building are covering their tracks. Sweety’s assistant must find who is blackmailing her, and a servant who knows too much goes on the run.Welcome to the Pinnacle. A place where murder meets luxury and the world’s most privileged depend on the most desperate.From the winner of the 2025 British Book Awards Thriller of the Year comes a pulse-pounding new novel, set in a world of lavish opulence where someone is always watching, because everyone is hiding something.

The Pinnacle

Janet Tay

Every morning before sunrise, Lim Ah Hock opens the shutters of his small kitchen on Carpenter Street, lights an incense stick and prepares the best laksa soup in all of Kuching. According to Lim family legend, the laksa’s secret ingredient – their ancestral broth – was gifted to them by a deity, who promised the family prosperity as long as the broth is passed down through the generations. 
 
But Ah Hock is aging, and the broth’s quality is fading. His only son, Wei Ming, has no interest in the family business, having spent eight years in Hong Kong trying to prove himself as a chef. Now, he's struggling with gambling debts, embroiled in a love triangle, and the restaurant he's been left to run has lost its Global Restaurants Guild star. 
 
Invited home to Malaysia for his father's 60th birthday, Wei Ming sees a chance to escape his troubles. But when old conflicts resurface and a local businessman threatens to destroy the family legacy, father and son are forced to ask themselves what truly matters.

Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe

Álvaro Enrigue

In the contested borderlands between Mexico and the United States, a Mexican woman flees into the desert after a devastating raid on her dead husband’s ranch. Meanwhile, a lieutenant colonel of the fledgling Republic, sent in pursuit of cattle rustlers, will soon discover he’s on the trail of a more dramatic abduction.Decades later, with political ambitions on the line, the American and Mexican militaries try to manoeuvre Geronimo, the most legendary of Apache warriors, into surrender. And in our own day, a family travels through the region in search of a truer version of the past. 
 
Now I Surrender is Álvaro Enrigue’s most impassioned novel yet. Part epic, part alt-Western, it weaves past and present, myth and history, into a searing elegy for a way of life that was an incarnation of true liberty – that still sparks in us the thrill of almost unimaginable freedom.

Now I Surrender

Ela Lee

The night the baby without a surname was born, the army rolled into his mother’s town 
 
Incheon, South Korea, 1985. The country is revolting against a dictatorship, but in the local boarding-house, the chaos inside is only just beginning. When Hana is pulled from school to work in her family’s minbak, all she wants is to escape her small town. When she finally does, she leaves as an exile, a ruin, or a martyr, depending on who you ask. Her mother Youngia is left behind with the torment of both of their decisions. 
 
London, 2008. Ada knows little about her mother, Hana. When tragedy hits, Hana has no choice but to move her daughter and ailing mother into a single room and turn the rest of their home into a minbak. As the past collides with the present, Ada is determined to unearth her mother’s secrets. But her obsession will lead to a discovery that unravels not just her family’s dark past, but that of an entire country’s. 
 
From Korea’s industrial estates to London’s suburbs, the three women cross continents and generations to find truth, forgiveness and compassion. 
 
‘Had me utterly engrossed. An incredible story of love, conflict and heartbreak.’ Rosie Price 
 
‘Lyrical and devastating MINBAK is a flawless meditation on memory, love and misunderstanding.’ Ella King 
 
‘A poignant and precise novel by a writer of great skill.’ Nicola Dinan

Minbak

Nicholas Shakespeare

In a world of lies, proof is power. Ex-journalist John Dyer must take on a dangerous political conspiracy in order to bring his friend's killer to justice in this gripping thriller by an award-winning writer. 
 
John Dyer is living a quiet life when he receives a call that changes everything: an old university friend, Lia, has been killed. Decades have passed since his last heartbreaking conversation with her, but Dyer finds himself driven to investigate. 
 
What Dyer uncovers puts him in the path of a political conspiracy with one man at its heart. A man who forty years ago committed a crime witnessed by just four people. When another of the witnesses dies in suspicious circumstances, Dyer finds himself in danger of his life. To combat the forces arrayed against him, he needs incontrovertible proof – but will he find it in time? 
 
As Dyer chases his leads from Tasmania to Argentina and finally to Michigan, where it all began, he unwittingly pits himself against an adversary more powerful than he could have imagined, in a race as heartstopping as tomorrow’s headlines. 
 
 
PRAISE FOR NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE: 
 
'A remarkable contemporary thriller... A triumph' William Boyd 
 
'An absorbing thriller with shades of John le Carré' Evening Standard 
 
'One of our best and truest novelists' The Times 
 
'Exciting... A page-turner' Daily Telegraph 
 
‘Wonderfully well written... with an insidious escalation of menace, and paranoia that fairly shimmers off the pages’ Guardian

Frame 37

Josie Lloyd

Emlyn Rees

One couple. One past. A million tomorrows. Adam and Jules have been married for 25 years when they discover a time machine in their shed - can it bring back their romantic spark? Or will it unravel everything? 
 
Meet Adam and Jules. Married for nearly twenty-five years and stuck in a rut, their future looks, well, boring. 
 
Then Adam stumbles across a pile of old mixtapes he and Jules made for each other when they were young and falling in love. He dusts off his vintage stereo, inserts one of the cassettes, presses play…and the unbelievable happens. 
 
With the power to travel back in time, he and Jules can revisit pivotal moments in their pasts. Is this the key to getting their sparkle back? They embark on an epic hunt through the multiverse for their perfect love story. But as they visit the past, they realise that time travel could be as dangerous as it is addictive, because the temptation to change just a few tiny things is irresistible. 
 
As the consequences start to spiral out of control, can they find a way back to their messy, imperfect, glorious real life? Or will they lose each other forever? 
 
Funny, heart-warming and honest, You & Me & You & Me & You & Me is a time travel rom-com with all the joyful hallmarks of an instant feel-good classic.

You & Me and You & Me and You & Me

Jane Healey

It’s the summer of 1957 and Max, a piano prodigy, is on a sold-out concert tour. 
His beautiful twin sister, Natasha, serves as his manager and minder. But despite Natasha’s careful planning, he begins, for the first time in his career, to make mistakes on stage. Upending his schedule to seek a cure in Paris, Max sets up the pair in the sprawling mansion of a handsome and wealthy count. But Henri is more than just a patron of the arts; he has also been – unknown to Max – Natasha’s lover.Freed from the familiar dynamic of manager and talent, Natasha’s simmering resentment and Max’s deep insecurity turn into a rivalry, as the two vie for Henri’s attention. While Henri woos Natasha in galleries and cafés during the day, it is Max’s playing that draws him from bed each night.As the twins compete, the fractures in their already vulnerable relationship start to show, with devastating consequences for both.

Crescendo

Édouard Louis

Édouard’s brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, that he will earn his father’s love. 
 
But his reality allows none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him – his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others – condemns him. 
 
At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.

Collapse

Robin Brookes

Leo and Viv's Friday night starts out like any other. A bottle of wine, a takeaway from their favourite Chinese restaurant, a movie, then an early night. But when Leo wakes up, he finds he's not in London anymore; he's naked and alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an anonymous hotel, on the other side of the world. 
 
Viv wakes up to a ringing phone. It's Leo - he claims that he's in Australia, despite the impossibility of it. An emergency passport is arranged. A return flight to London is booked, but before Leo can make it onto the plane, there's a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he wakes up in another bed, in another hotel room, in another country. 
 
Disoriented, Leo soon discovers he's not alone. Someone with access to a groundbreaking technology and an axe to grind is beaming a group of individuals around the globe - and hunting them down, one by one, committing perfect, untraceable murders. 
 
As Leo fights for his life, back in London, Viv is struggling to understand what's happening. But as her investigation deepens she starts to unearth secrets from Leo's past. Dark secrets. Secrets that might be enough to make someone want to kill him. And the more she learns about Leo, the less she seems to know - and the less certain she is that her husband is a man worth saving.

The Arrival

Elin Anna Labba

Every summer, Ingá, her mother Rávdná, and her Aunt Ánne travel west to their village on the lake. But the summer Ingá is thirteen, they arrive to find their home and possessions have disappeared under water, the land flooded by a dam built to supply hydropower to a society that has continually stolen from them. 
 
The Home of the Drowned follows these women’s fortunes over forty years – from 1942 to 1982 – as the water their people have lived near for centuries is transformed into a menacing force that threatens all they hold dear. Defying the authorities, Rávdná decides to build a house on the lake to replace what was lost, becoming an unlikely activist. Meanwhile, Ánne’s health is in decline, and a concerned Ingá merely longs to live like everyone else – an impossible wish when the Swedish state is relentlessly drowning her world. 
 
Drawing on her own family’s history of forced relocation and violent colonial dispossession, Elin Anna Labba’s debut novel brings Sámi history to the fore. The Home of the Drowned reveals connections between land, water and people that hauntingly reverberate with the question: what is it that makes a home?

The Home of the Drowned

Erin Kelly

When schoolgirls start fainting one after the other at a convent boarding school, old legends twist into new scandals. From irresistible bestselling storyteller Erin Kelly comes the new compulsive thriller that will leave you craving to read more. 
 
'Had me hooked from page one. . . a twisty, confounding mystery' JENNIE GODFREY 
 
Centuries of tradition are coming to an end at St Cordula's school. Deputy Head, Fiona Fox, is about to preside over a controversial move to save it from ruin. But it’s not easy to change things at a school this old. 
 
Legend has it that the ghost of fifteenth-century nun, Sister Matilda, will keep St Cordula’s safe. But only as long as the words ‘GOD FORGIVE ME’, scrawled by Matilda on a chapel staircase wall before she fell to her death, are repainted every year. The words have only been allowed to fade once, in 2002. But then, fits of vertigo spread through the pupils, and a second girl fell to her death on the night stairs. Only three people know the truth of what happened on the night of the tragedy. 
 
Now the vertigo is back, and Fiona must stem the outbreak before it threatens St Cordula’s future, or worse, another girl loses her life. But when one of her pupils begins a dangerous investigation into the past, old secrets start to twist into new scandals… 
 
'Like falling into a fever dream – enchanting, embroiling, and addictive. An absolute classic from the peerless Erin Kelly' Sarah Hilary 
 
PRAISE FOR ERIN KELLY: 
 
‘So thrilling and unexpected that it made my head spin’ LISA JEWELL 
‘Gripping, twisting, furiously clever’ RUTH WARE 
‘Erin Kelly is supremely skilled at unusual and intelligent suspense plots’ DAILY MAIL 
‘Original, suspenseful, and with complex characters that spring irresistibly to life on the page’ LOUISE CANDLISH 
‘An incredibly atmospheric psychological thriller with a clever, elaborate plot’ GRAZIA 
‘Incomparable…captivating, cleverly constructed’ PAULA HAWKINS 
‘A completely addictive story…Erin Kelly is a genius’ JANE CASEY 
‘Magnificent’ MARIAN KEYES 
‘A gripping tale of secrets, revenge and obsession, masterfully done’ GUARDIAN 
‘A unique storyteller; impossible to predict, impossible to put down’ JOHN MARRS 
‘Propulsive… atmospheric, original’ GILLIAN McALLISTER 
‘A taut chamber-piece of psychological suspense’ FINANCIAL TIMES 
'The worlds she creates are so rich and alive' JANE FALLON

The Night Stairs

Sarah Hilary

'A master of her craft... she makes the words sing' ANN CLEEVES 
‘An astonishingly gifted writer’ MARIAN KEYES 
 
Every place has its ghosts. 
 
Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since. 
 
Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive. 
 
Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present. 
 
But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…

The Drowning Place

Karl Ove Knausgaard

The haunting new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Death in the Family. 
 
The year is 1976. Syvert is on his way back to his wife and two sons after a work trip, when his car breaks down outside Arendal and he has to spend the night in the city. It is winter and bitterly cold, and ice lies all the way to the sea, so thick that cars can drive on it. There, almost home, but caught up in memories of his doomed love affair with Asya, a space opens up between the known and the unknown for Syvert. Both in the city, as he wanders along the streets in the dark, and in him. 
 
Arendal is a novel about impossible love and about impossible life. About ships of the dead, about fire and ice, dizzying starry skies and a man trying to find his foothold in the world. 
 
 
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD: 
 
‘Absorbs you utterly’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read’ Brandon Taylor 
‘Addictive’ Daily Telegraph 
‘Brilliant storytelling . . . Epic’ Independent 
‘As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama’ Spectator 
‘Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive’ New York Times 
 
 
Arendal is set in the Morning Star universe.

Arendal

Amil

In a future Korea, the world has been ravaged by dust clouds and the deadly Akanta virus. Rather than live in their nightmarish present, people slip on virtual reality headsets to indulge in simulations of the past. 
 
Eighteen-year-old Soop - stigmatised by her brush with Akanta, which causes VR Rejection – is bullied at school for having to live solely in the real world. Her only solace comes from the K-pop music she listens to on repeat. When Soop comes face to face with her idol, Yichae, whose new music video is being filmed at Soop's high school, she hopes this might be her chance at real connection. 
 
But Yichae has her own troubles. She is one of the few remaining ‘real’ human idols, forced to live up to unattainable beauty standards while being celebrated for her supposed authenticity. 
 
The Forest Called You is a love letter to K-pop, romance and high school politics – a novel about staying true to our passions and loving ourselves and each other in an increasingly artificial world.

The Forest Called You

Ada Moncrieff

**THE COSIEST OF CRIMES FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON** 
 
A SCHOOL REUNION... A PARTY TO DIE FOR. 
 
December 1937. Daphne King is attending the twentieth anniversary reunion at her secondary 
school, Midwinter Academy. It is a weekend of resurrected rivalries and alliances. A string of peculiar incidents prompts Daphne to suspect that she and her friends are being sent messages - or warnings - related to the disappearance of a classmate twenty years ago. 
 
It was a mystery which clouded their final year at the school - and one which Daphne, as a budding 
eighteen-year-old sleuth, solved. But now, the morning after the reunion, another of Daphne's old school friends is found dead; and Daphne finds herself in the role of investigator once more. Are the two cases linked? And has Daphne learned from the mistakes of her past? 
 
Readers LOVE Ada's festive romps 
'Reminds me of PG Wodehouse' 
'Compelling and engaging' 
'A modern rival to Agatha Christie' 
'A festive favourite' 
'Loved it'

Murder At Midwinter

Maureen Johnson

Jay Cooper

November 1933, London. Seven people receive mysterious letters: Someone knows their terrible secrets. They are summoned to an opulent townhouse where one of them is stabbed right in front of the others, but somehow no one saw a thing. Can you help Scotland Yard solve the mystery? 
 
* 
 
Dear Detective, 
 
Surely you have seen the papers and read about the murder of the American novelist Roy Peterson—stabbed while in a room with six other people, and yet no one went near him or saw the murder occur. The crime is so devious, so logistically impossible, that it seems to have been committed not by a person but by a disembodied hand. 
 
I must confess that we are at a loss. Who wrote the poison pen letters that lured these seven people to this deadly gathering? What do a poet, an Earl, an actress, a cook, a telephone operator, and a lothario have in common? And how can a man be stabbed in a room full of suspects when none of them could have done it? 
 
We have had our best people on the case, Detective, and we still can’t make heads or tails of it. We are giving this case file to you. Can you decipher the clues, decode the witness statements, and identify the murderer? You are our last hope. Can you help us crack the Case of the Creeping Hand? 
 
Yours truly, 
 
Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police 
 
* 
 
An interactive murder mystery from the bestselling author and illustrator of Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

You Are The Detective

The Creeping Hand Murder

'[An] almost dangerously immersive reading experience that will completely take over your life. . . by turns bleak, funny and horrifying, but never less than utterly captivating' Martin MacInnes, Booker longlisted author of IN ASCENSIONLondon. 1985. A city rife with possibility and desire. One young man who wants it all. 
 
Kristian Hadeland, newly arrived in the city, seethes with ambition and contempt. His family in Norway never understood him; his fellow photography students bore him. But he knows he and his art are destined for more. 
 
Then he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist. With Hans, the future Kristian yearns for is tangible. All art is possible. Any line can be crossed. 
 
But success comes at a price. And when Kristian does the unthinkable, will he be prepared to pay it? 
 
Electrifying and unflinching, The School of Night is a singular novel about artistic creation and human corruption. It is the story of one terrible man's rise and fall, and a reckoning with the darkest parts of human nature. 
 
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD: 
 
‘Absorbs you utterly’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read’ Brandon Taylor 
‘Addictive’ Daily Telegraph 
‘Brilliant storytelling . . . Epic’ Independent 
‘As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama’ Spectator 
‘Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive’’ New York Times 
 
 
 
The School of Night is set in the Morning Star universe.

The School of Night

Brigid Lowe

Three powerful heroines – a queen, a sorceress and woman made of flowers – plot revenge against the villain who wronged them. A gorgeously dark debut novel inspired by Celtic Britain’s original fantasy fiction. 
 
Man is cruel but the flowers will take their revenge. 
 
Three great heroines – slave queen Goewin, the reclusive sorceress Arianrhod, and Blodeuwedd, a woman conjured from flowers – unite to avenge themselves on the most dangerous man in ancient legend. 
 
Gwydion is a powerful sorcerer, whose ambition and cruelty wreak havoc across the kingdom. When at last the earth itself is put at stake, Goewin, Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd each unleash their uncanny powers to challenge him. 
 
In this vital and visceral novel, Brigid Lowe casts ancient light on desire, sex and our relationship with nature to bring these Celtic heroines to explosive, sensuous, blossoming new life.

The Bloody Branch

Out of the World is Karl Ove Knausgaard's award-winning debut novel. 
 
 26-year-old Henrik Vankel works as a teacher in northern Norway. At the school, he becomes infatuated with Miriam. But she is a student in his class. 
 
 Out of the World was the first ever debut novel to win the prestigious Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature.

Out of the World

Annie Lord

Modern dating’s a mess. Unfortunately, so are they. 
 
 Daisy and Maya bounce around the city like they own it, from all-night house parties to sticky-floored smoking areas, drinks in hand. 
 
 But after a particularly regrettable one-night stand with her annoying friend James, Daisy starts to look around and wonder why, in a sea of intelligent, gorgeous women, all their prospects seem so hopeless. It’s time for The Project, a radical reinvention of dating, and who better to start with than James? 
 
 James may be raw material, but he’s quite happy to go along with Daisy and Maya if it means a little more time alone with Daisy. But falling for James was never part of The Project - can she bring down her walls enough to let someone in? Because she might not find someone perfect, but she might find something real.

The Project

Kim Jee Hye

Welcome to Soyangri Book Kitchen 
 
In a peaceful village in the countryside, far from the bustling heart of Seoul, lies a book lovers’ paradise. With its wafts of delicious food and book-filled shelves, Soyangri Book Kitchen is dotingly managed by its plucky proprietor Yoojin. Her aim? To create a sanctuary for weary souls like herself. 
 
But the book kitchen is more than just a place to eat or read – it’s a place which offers its guests a true escape, not just inside the pages of its many books, but in the warm embrace of an overnight bookstay. 
 
Over the course of a year, seven individuals, all at a crossroads in their lives, find their way to Yoojin’s book kitchen. Among them are Da-in, a singer grappling with an identity crisis, Sohee, a promising lawyer confronted with a daunting medical diagnosis, and Soohyuk, a young musical director whose dreams have been stifled by failure. 
 
As they arrive in Soyangri, each of them will find their life subtly transformed by the magic of its books and the kindness of its people.

Soyangri Book Kitchen

Nagi Shimeno

After a long and happy life with a loving human family, tabby cat Fuuta has passed into the afterlife. But he is not as far from his owner Michiru as it seems. Sometimes the divide between the lands of the living and the dead can be traversed. 
 
Eager to see Michiru again, Fuuta interviews for a position at Café Pont, which sits in the liminal space between the two worlds. The café is known for its unique service: its living customers can request meetings with the person they'd most like to see again, through the specially selected spirits of messenger cats. 
 
Fuuta must investigate and deliver his messages without unnerving the living, or worse, upsetting the balance of the universe itself. It is a weighty task for a tabby cat, but Fuuta rises to the challenge. After all, the job offers a special reward: he will get to see Michiru again. And he'll do anything to reunite with his family.

Messenger Cat Café

Rebecca Lehmann

Anne Boleyn returns from the dead to seek justice in this compelling, entertaining and original novel 
 
Disgraced. Beheaded. Revived . . . 
 
When Anne Boleyn wakes up after her execution she finds she is not yet ready for death. She has unfinished business with the king who had her murdered and is determined to secure her daughter, Elizabeth’s, future. Discarded by Henry for failing to produce a male heir, reviled by the court for being too smart for her own good and beheaded on trumped-up charges, Anne has one last chance to turn her fate around. She escapes the tower, sews her head back on, and sets out on a quest for justice. 
 
But Anne’s path will not run smoothly as she encounters the dangers of London and the countryside, and rumours start to swirl about sightings of her ghost. Luckily for her, she will find help from a chance meeting with fenlander Alice, who offers her the possibility of a different future. 
 
The Beheading Game takes you into the heart and mind of one of the most talked-about women of all time and finally gives her the chance to tell her side of the story. 
 
‘Magic, romance, revenge, and an utterly irresistible heroine – this book is an instant classic’ Lev Grossman, author of The Bright Sword 
 
'Fabulous! A marvelously inventive and mythic reworking of the story of Anne Boleyn. I loved it' Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love

The Beheading Game

Anna Kovatcheva

Yana hunts monsters. Anka might be one. They'll need each other to survive. 
 
'This exciting, gorgeous novel reminded me why I love vampire stories... I still have chills' Kate Heartfield, author of The Embroidered Book 
 
Yana, a vampire hunter, rides into Koprivci promising salvation. The village’s curse has endured for many years and rumour has it that Anka – whose parents died on the night of her birth – is to blame. But enduring the villagers’ suspicion is the least of Anka’s worries; now she has reached womanhood, she can no longer avoid the odious marriage that seems to be her only option. 
 
When animal corpses start to appear in the village square and eggs filled with blood are found in the chicken coops, panic rises. The villagers look to Yana for hope. She knows all about the monsters that stalk the night, monsters that only she can vanquish. But Yana is a liar. And monsters come in all different forms. 
 
Yana and Anka become unlikely allies in hatching a plot to save both Koprivci and Anka from their fates. But then their plan takes on a horrifying life of its own... 
 
'[A] tale of dark secrets, unnatural lusts and hidden violence' Annie Garthwaite, author of Cecily 
 
'Poetic, visceral, dark... A terrifying read' Isabelle Schuler, author of Lady Macbethad 
 
'An exquisitely-written feminist vampire story. . . Mesmerising' Anna Mazzola, author of The Clockwork Girl

She Made Herself A Monster

Haruki Murakami

‘What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real.’ A lavishly illustrated edition of Murakami’s classic story. 
 
Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs. A skinny little man no more than five foot three, Katagiri was overwhelmed by the frog's imposing bulk. 
‘Call me “Frog,”’ said the frog in a clear, strong voice. 
Katagiri stood rooted in the doorway, unable to speak. 
‘Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. Just come and close the door. Please.’ 
Briefcase in his right hand, grocery bag with fresh vegetables and canned salmon cradled in his left arm, Katagiri didn't dare move. 
‘Please, Mr. Katagiri, hurry and close the door, and take off your shoes.’ 
 
Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this special edition of Murakami’s celebrated short story sees the bewildered Katagiri find meaning in his humdrum life through joining forces with Frog in an effort to save Tokyo from an existential threat. 
 
‘No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades’ Financial Times 
 
‘A master storyteller’ Sunday Times

Super-Frog Saves Tokyo

Susan Stokes-Chapman

A beautiful collection of seasonal stories inspired by the Christmas carol, from the Sunday Times No. 1 Bestselling Author 
 
The air glitters with hope as the snowy village of Merrywake celebrates the Christmas season after the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. 
 
As the Viscount’s famous Twelfth Night Ball draws closer, many of the villagers have a story to tell – we meet a lovelorn vicar and kindly maid reunited after a misunderstanding, three sisters vying for the hand of a dastardly duke, two servants hiding a dangerous secret and a solider making his way home, unsure of the welcome he might receive. As their tales braid together, we see life and love in the village from belowstairs to high society. 
 
Reimagining each of the traditional carol's gifts, and written in tribute to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, The Twelve Days of Christmas is a collection of festive tales filled with seasonal cheer and heart-warming characters. Will the challenges and mysteries that the Viscount’s guests encounter be resolved by the night of the ball? 
 
'Kind, heartwarming historical fiction at its most glorious...Witty, delightful and hugely satisfying...the perfect gift' Kate Griffin 
‘A glorious treat…uplifting, poignant and astutely observed, this felt like being whirled away into a Regency ball' Naomi Kelsey 
 
Clever, funny and heartfelt... I found myself laughing and crying along with the characters. It’s the perfect comfort read. Fans of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer will love it' Theresa Howes 
 
Readers love Susan: 
'So addictive... the perfect mix of historical fiction, mystery, fantasy and romance' 
'Wonderfully atmospheric' 
'A beautifully written piece of historical fiction' 
'Crackles with danger and mystery... a joy to read' 
'An utterly magical book full of secrets, love and hope' 
'Beautifully written, gripping and evocative'

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