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Little, Brown and Company
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I’ve already smoked the guy who was the pain in the CIA’s you-know-what for the past few years. But now, in the power vacuum left by the death of Edward ‘The Raptor’ Samos, a struggle for supremacy has begun between his former allies. The CIA feels the balance must be maintained. So when a Valencian Were agent discovers a plot to assassinate the Coven of Inverness’ leader, me and my vampire hottie (and boss), are drafted in. Our mission — to take out the woman hired to do the deed, a killer who might be as wily and Gifted as ourselves. So it’s off to the Scottish Highlands for some twisted fun among murderers, demons and half-crazed relatives. Sometimes being a top-secret CIA assassin isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. |
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Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching neck, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realises the decision has been made for her. Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that's where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful, undead redhead walks through the door ...and proceeds to rock Tommy's life — and afterlife — in ways he never imagined possible. |
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Both a spellbinding love story and a superb evocation of Cornwall's mythic past, Castle Dor is a book with unique and fascinating origins. It began life as the unfinished last novel of Sir Arthur Quiller — Couch, the celebrated 'Q', and was passed by his daughter to Daphne du Maurier whose storytelling skills were perfectly suited to the task of completing the old master's tale. The result is this magical, compelling recreation of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, transplanted in time to the Cornwall of the last century. A chance encounter between the Breton onion-seller, Amyot Trestane, and the newly-wed Linnet Lewarne launches their tragic story, taking them in the fateful footsteps of the doomed lovers of Cornish legend ... |
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Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners — three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy. Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching... Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret ... Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover... Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances... Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. The Night Watch is thrilling. A towering achievement. |
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The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very starsThe war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction. Consider Phlebas — a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination. |
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Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time ... Chief Scientist Gadfium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been waiting for from the Plain of Sliding Stones ... And Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt ... And everything is about to change ... For this is the time of the encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand. The King knows it, his closest advisers know it, yet sill they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery. The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures. |
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Massie Block stands at the threshold of a huh-yuge secret: a hidden room at Octavian Country Day. But to prove the Pretty Committee is worthy of the key, the girls need to find dates to Skye Hamilton’s ‘famous couples’ costume party. On top of that, Massie has to convince her old crush, Chris Abeley, to be Skye’s date... or else the PC can kiss the room — and their popularity — goodbye. Luckily for the girls, alpha status just happens to come with ESP. Not the actual superpower, but a secret weapon that shows them exactly what their crushes are thinking. The question is, do they really want to know? |
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At journey’s end would a new life begin? When Liane crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Europe, the future seemed bright and beautiful. Only the image of a face haunted her new life in France. Then the Second World War sent her on a fateful crossing, leaving her husband far behind. Suspended between two worlds, Liane was swept into a passionate affair, a bright brief moment of total happiness. Would the voyage seal her love for ever, or leave her stranded on the shores of heartbreak and despair? |
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Charles Cornick is his pack’s enforcer and lives a harsh life, doing jobs other wolves can’t — or won’t. And his most recent task was rescuing Anna Latham from a life of brutality. This leaves him shot and wounded, but he’s happy to pay the price. Charles is strongly drawn to Anna, and her growing ‘Omega’ powers will see his people through dangerous times. Anna desperately needs her new mountainous home to be safer than the life she’s left behind. But when a rogue werewolf starts murdering hikers, Charles and Anna are sent into the winter forests to investigate. Charles is still weak and will need Anna’s strength as they discover a web of witchcraft that could drag down the whole pack. Including its leader Bran, Charles’s father, head of a vast network of wolves. And if Bran weakens, dark madness could run like a fever through half a continent. |
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«Vincent Ruiz (a supporting character in Robotham's debut, Suspect) is hauled out of the Thames with a bullet wound in his leg and no memory of a shooting, let alone how he wound up in the water in Robotham's fine, moody second thriller. Keebal, a nasty cop from internal affairs, hounds Ruiz from the start, and everyone seems to know something Ruiz doesn't. When psychologist Joe O'Loughlin (the protagonist of Suspect) shows Ruiz a picture of young Mickey Carlyle—a seven-year-old girl kidnapped three years earlier whom everyone but Ruiz thinks is dead—he figures there must be some connection between her case and his shooting. Despite his injuries, Ruiz retraces this investigation with the help of his partner, a young Sikh woman named Ali. The past returns in dribs and drabs and none too gently. Mickey is the daughter of a Russian-born crime lord, Aleksei Kuznet; a cache of diamonds and a man known as a «grooming paedophile» also figure prominently in the splintered plot. The warm relationship between Ruiz and Joe, who suffers from Parkinson's, counterpoints the main story line's grit. Robotham works some good wrinkles into Ruiz's relationship with Ali and an empathetic nurse, too. The result is a thoughtful and subtle thriller, with convincing, three-dimensional characters.» |
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A teenage girl finds unexpected sexual freedom on a trip to Amsterdam. A woman trapped at a dinner party comes up against an ugly obsession. The stories in FREE LOVE are about desire, memory, sexual ambiguity and the imagination. In the harsh light of dislocation, the people in them still find connections, words blowing in the street, love in unexpected places. Ali Smith examine show things come together and how they break apart. She disconcerts and affirms with the lightest touch, to make us love and live differently. |
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Jake Geismar cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in pre-war Berlin. When he returns in 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference he finds the city unrecognisable — streets have vanished beneath the rubble, familiar landmarks truncated by high explosive. But amongst the ruins Berliners survive, including some he knew and, miraculously, his lost love, Lena. But in the way she would not leave with him before the war, Lena won't join him now without finding her husband and Emil has disappeared from the safe care of the Americans who, turning a blind eye to his links with Hitler, want his expertise as a rocket designer for themselves. Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties. This is a novel of war, an action thriller, a tale of raw emotion and survival. Above all it is a tour de force of the triumph of humanity over man's depravity. |
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In a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one man it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one — maybe two — people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, it means returning to a place she’d thought abandoned forever. Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has become an agent of the Culture’s Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy. Concealing her new identity — and her particular set of abilities — might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else’s war is never a simple matter. |
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Recovered from the vampire attack that hospitalized her in the conclusion of Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005), Bella celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend Edward and his family, a unique clan of vampires that has sworn off human blood. But the celebration abruptly ends when the teen accidentally cuts her arm on broken glass. The sight and smell of her blood trickling away forces the Cullen family to retreat lest they be tempted to make a meal of her. After all is mended, Edward, realizing the danger that he and his family create for Bella, sees no option for her safety but to leave. Mourning his departure, she slips into a downward spiral of depression that penetrates and lingers over her every step. Vampire fans will appreciate the subsequently dour mood that permeates the novel, and it's not until Bella befriends Jacob, a sophomore from her school with a penchant for motorcycles, that both the pace and her disposition begin to take off. Their adventures are wild, dare-devilish, and teeter on the brink of romance, but memories of Edward pervade Bella's emotions, and soon their fun quickly morphs into danger, especially when she uncovers the true identities of Jacob and his pack of friends. Less streamlined than Twilight yet just as exciting, New Moon will more than feed the bloodthirsty hankerings of fans of the first volume and leave them breathless for the third. |
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Before the legend …Before the icon …There was a teenager called Clark Kent… Clark and his classmates have a new substitute teacher — the gorgeous Ms Lilia Sanchez. Pretty soon Clark has a serious crush on her, and he’s not the only one. Lex Luthor has feelings for Ms Sanchez too, and they might just tear the two friends apart. Especially when Clark begins to suspect that Ms Sanchez might be able to read people’s minds. Because if Lex believes Lilia is the key to unlocking Clark’s secrets, there’s no telling how far he’d go to reveal the truth and expose Clark’s powers to the world. |
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If you've ever had one of those days where nothing goes right and it seems like the entire world — even your closest friends — is against you, then you know how Clark Kent feels. There's only one thing he can think to do: leave his family, friends, and home in Smallville and try to make a new life in Metropolis. In the big city, Clark finds a band of other runaways, including a girl who seems to have powers as mysterious as his own: She senses his secrets and somehow knows that he's different from anyone else in this world. And even though Clark thinks he's left his troubles behind, his presence in Metropolis starts a chain of events that could lead to more danger than even he can handle. |
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Just ask C. Thomas Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody, is a vampire. And surprise! Now he's one, too. For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. But word has it that the vampire who initially nibbled on Jody wasn't supposed to be recruiting. Even worse, Tommy's erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue. And that really sucks. |
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Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, has turned his hand to humour. The delightful result is a creation of comic genius. For in the unnaturally tall form of Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, we are invited to meet a memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and of Inspecteur Clouseau’s hapless gaucherie. Von Igelfeld inhabits the rarefied world of the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, a world he shares with his equally tall and equally ridiculous colleagues, Professors Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. Their unlikely adventures are described in three deliciously funny instalments: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances. |
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The next best thing to having the world at your feet is to have a dog at your heels, observed Vogue in 1930. Since 1909, dogs have had a role to play in the glamorous story of Vogue, as companions to style icons and royalty, society leaders, artists and models. Portrayed here are dogs in their own right and dogs with their people. Here are stout-hearted wire-haired terriers; elegant sighthounds; diminutive pugs and Pekinese; poodles, the epitome of French chic; and gentle spaniels and retrievers. The dogs that have appeared in VOGUE have inspired brilliant articles by writers such as Dorothy Parker and Lesley Blanch. Dogs have been painted by many of VOGUE's greatest artists, from Douglas Pollard to René Bouët-Willaumez. This stunning book features dazzling, rarely seen photographs by Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Lord Snowdon, David Bailey, Mario Testino and more. |
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In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from a maximum-security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia's most wanted man. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum-dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry and served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler, and fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. His debut novel, SHANTARAM, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. The result is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films. A gripping adventure story, SHANTARAM is also a superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life. |
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