Cordelia Russell has been living on the French Riviera for twenty-five years, passing herself off as an English socialite. But her luck, and the kindness of strangers, have run out. The arrival of a visitor from her distant past shocks Cordelia. She reacts violently to the intrusion and flees her flat to spend a drunken night at a glittering party....

It only took a split second for an assassin's bullet to fell presidential candidate Clyde Ritter-and to destroy the career of Secret Service agent Sean King, the man in charge of protecting him at all costs. Eight years later another presidential candidate is abducted under the watchful eye of special agent Michelle Maxwell, begging the question: A...

Brother Medardus is chosen to take a message to Rome and he leaves the monastery with a bottle of Syracusan wine, said to have been wrested from the devil by St Anthony. On his journey he goes through delirious experiences - he is involved in a game of double impersonation and attempts to rape a woman - Aurelia. This is a story of religious fervor...

Be cruel to animals at your peril - this story extols the virtues of being kind to all creatures to achieve happiness in life, a lesson that our unhappy protagonist is far from learning, whether in regards to human or animal life. A shocking story told with a dry dark humor, this tale is to be heard to be believed and is a true classic from the mas...

This collection comprises the best of classic horror writing, with the atmospheric genius of Edgar Allen Poe, the invention and eeriness of Bram Stoker, and the suspense of Wilkie Collins amongst the terrifying gems contained. A veritable schooling in the origins of modern-day horror and fantasy, some of the best minds in the history of English lit...

In ''Atrophy,'' an unhappily married matron named Nora Fenway hears that her one-time clandestine lover, Christopher, is severely ill; she risks her reputation by going to visit him, but is turned away by his sanctimonious sister. A heartbreaking tale which emphasises the importance of human bonds but also examines the restraints we endure at the h...

A popular story in the acclaimed 'Pat Hobby' series. Poor Pat Hobby's fates go from bad to worse when he gets the wrong impression of a heated situation. Amusing and delightfully cringeworthy at times, Pat Hobby is a stubborn anti-hero who you won't be able to resist.

Bill Nighy returns as Charles Paris: unsuccessful actor, bad husband and dipsomaniac. Desperately in need of work, having been kicked out of the marital home, Charles jumps at playing a missing property developer in a crime reconstruction programme. But the missing person case soon turns to murder when severed body parts begin to appear. Television...

Never forgive, never forget. Jack Reacher lives for the moment. Without a home. Without commitment. But he has a burning desire to right wrongs - and rewrite his own agonizing past. Never apologize. Never explain. When Reacher witnesses a brutal kidnap attempt, he takes the law into his own hands. But a cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right...

Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook have a lot in common. Both were army high-flyers. Both were acquainted with Jack Reacher. Both were forced to resign from the service. Now they're both dead. Found in their own homes, naked, in a bath full of paint. Apparent victims of an army man. A loner, a smart guy with a score to settle, a ruthl...

A woman wades into the waters of Morecambe Bay in a drunken bid to commit suicide. She finds herself instead saving the life of a young Chinese cockle picker, a survivor of a tragic mass drowning. Wen and Angie share neither language nor experience, but she agrees to let him stay with her and disappear. Within a short time their unlikely pairing bl...

Christmas Eve, 1814. Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at the Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood...

Aurora Teagarden mystery From the New York Times bestselling author of Last Scene Alive and the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Not just any woman in Lawrenceton, Georgia, gets to be a member of the Uppity Women Book Club. But Roe's stepsister-in-law Poppy has climbed her way up the waiting list of the group-only to die on the day she's supposed to be in...

After battling a sleeping sickness, The Diviners are up against a group of new and malevolent foes-ghosts! Out in Ward's Island sits a mental hospital full of lost souls from people long forgotten. Ghosts who have unusual and dangerous ties to the Man in the Stovepipe Hat also known as the King of Crows. With terrible accounts of murder and posses...

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales sends an inspiring message about how we can change the course of environmental destruction by living in harmony with Nature. In an adaptation of his adult book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World for young readers, The Prince shares how many years of research have led him to a series of holistic solutio...

Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger... "We always look forward. We never look back." That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklin, a bri...

Hollywood actor Robert Soloman stands accused of the brutal stabbings of his wife and her lover, but he is desperately pleading that he had nothing to do with it. This is the trial of the century, and the defence want Eddie Flynn on their team.The biggest case Eddie has ever tried before, he decides to take it on despite the overwhelming evidence t...

A BBC Radio 4 drama of mesmerising delicacy from Julia Blackburn, winner of the Pen Ackerley prize for memoir 2009, and daughter of poet Thomas Blackburn. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 29 March 2011. Thomas Blackburn was an alcoholic before he became a poet, but in spite of his drunken rages, his erratic behaviour and his crazy ob...

Lancashire, 1934. When Tam Crawford is unexpectedly bequeathed some money, he can finally realise his dream of settling down in the beautiful village of Ellindale. Tam knows he can be impulsive - his nickname isn't Crazy Tam for nothing! - but this time he is determined not to be ruled by his big heart and hot head. Yet somehow, within just one day...

Before she went to join Sam and Mogget downstairs, Lirael paused for a moment to look at herself in the tall silver mirror that hung on the wall of her room. The image that faced her bore little resemblance to the Second Assistant Librarian of the Clayr. She saw a warlike and grim young woman, dark hair bound back with a silver cord rather than han...

Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Abandoned by her mother, ignorant of her father's identity, Lirael resembles no one else in her large extended family living in the Clayr's glacier. She doesn't even have the Sight-the ability to See into the present and possibly futures-that is the very birthright of the Clayr. Nonetheless,...