Twenty-something Londoner Natalie Bowen is envied by many, but her personal life is a disaster. Men can't cope with her career success and Natalie thinks she'll never find real happiness. Then she hears about an exclusive weekend retreat called The Haven, a place that specialises in introducing you to pleasures you could never have imagined. Shocked at the idea, but unable to resist finding out more, Natalie decides it's time to put her fears behind her. Once at The Haven, Natalie meets the enigmatic and disciplined Simon, a man who is used to getting what he wants. And Natalie may very well have met her match...

SPELLBOUND. A fast-paced story of spells and consequences — a bewitchingly beautiful lady casts a thousand-year love spell on the man of her dreams — and unleashes a nightmare that only true love can conquer. EVER AFTER. Wearing an ancient star pendant, an enchanting woman journeys to an otherworldly land — and introduces a skeptical stranger to the magical powers of love...

To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life — first discovered in TWILIGHT, then scattered and torn in NEW MOON and ECLIPSE — seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever? The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.

From her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time at Harvard, where she studied the Victorian ancestors of the form, and later as a writer and reviewer, Margaret Atwood has always been fascinated with science fiction. Here she brings together three Ellmann lectures: 'Flying Rabbits' begins with her early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes' travels into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies' investigates Utopias and Dystopias, including Atwood's own ventures into those constructions. In further essays Atwood explores and critiques the form, and elucidates the differences — as she sees them — between 'science fiction' proper, and 'speculative fiction', not to mention 'sword and sorcery', 'fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction'. In Other Worlds is a must.

Two very different women... Linked by destiny and a power struggle for the English crown. Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, is determined to win back her crown from Stephen, the usurper king, against all odds and despite all men. Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, has always been on Matilda's side but now she is married to William D'Albini, a warrior of the opposition. In a world where a man's word is law, how can Adeliza obey her husband while supporting Matilda, the rightful queen? What does it cost to be 'Lady of the English?'

Madeleine Masterson is deathly afraid of bugs, especially spiders. Theodore Bartholomew is petrified of dying. Lulu Punchalower is scared of confined spaces. Garrison Feldman is terrified of deep water. Which is why this may be the scariest summer of their lives. Worse than detention or summer school. Worse even than the dentist. The foursome must face their phobias head-on at the exclusive and elusive School of Fear. The school is unusual, to say the least. But 'terrifying' would be a more accurate description. The curriculum is simple: Conquer your fears in six weeks or find out just how frightening failing can be.

The year is 1939. Raybould Marsh and other members of British Intelligence have gathered to watch a damaged reel of film in a darkened room. It appears to show German troops walking through walls, bursting into flames and hurling tanks into the air from afar. If the British are to believe their eyes, a twisted Nazi scientist has been endowing German troops with unnatural, unstoppable powers. And Raybould will be forced to resort to dark methods to hold the impending invasion at bay. But dealing with the occult exacts a price. And that price must be paid in blood. Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds is a chilling masterpiece — a tale of a twentieth century like our own and also profoundly different.

Revenge, courage and murky pasts collide in these two exclusive J. D. Robb short stories Midnight in Death Eve's name has made a Christmas list, but it's not for being naughty or nice. It's for putting a serial killer behind bars. Now he's escaped and has her in his sights. With her husband, Roarke, at her side, Eve must stop this madman from exacting his bloody revenge — or die trying... Interlude in Death When respected Commander Skinner offers Lieutenant Eve Dallas a promotion if she'll give her husband Roarke up to custody, she reacts badly. Roarke's Irish past is murky, but he's a changed man — so what is the Commander after? With Eve and Skinner at one of Roarke's holiday resorts for a police convention, Skinner's thwarted vengeance soon brings death to their luxury surroundings...

Life is so unfair, and it sends many things to try Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs and pillar of the Institute of Romance Philology in the proud Bavarian city of Regensburg. There is the undeserved rise of his rival (and owner of a one-legged dachshund), Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer; the interminable ramblings of the librarian, Herr Huber; and the condescension of his colleagues with regard to his unmarried state. But when his friend Ophelia Prinzel takes it upon herself to match-make, and duly produces a cheerful heiress with her own Schloss, it appears that the professor's true worth is about to be recognised. Maddening, idiotic and hugely entertaining, von Igelfeld is an inspired comic creation.

On a sunny day in the countryside, Jenny finds just what she had been searching for: a beautiful vintage china tea set. With a delicate forget-me-not pattern, gold edging and in mint condition, it's an absolute bargain. A young bride on a budget, Jenny will be giving an afternoon tea to all her wedding guests. Trawling car boot sales has finally come up trumps but she quickly realises she's not the only person who's fallen for the china service. Standing nearby is florist Maggie, who desperately needs vintage crockery to satisfy the demands of a bridezilla, and Alison, whose homemade teacup candles are selling like hotcakes. The three women agree to take turns with the lovely tea set, so that no one has to miss out. And by sharing the ups and downs of weddings, family life and past regrets, they become good friends. Over the coming year, with an ex stirring up dangerous feelings for Maggie, the pressures of being the breadwinner wearing on Alison and a last-minute disaster threatening to ruin Jenny's wedding, The Vintage Teacup Club will need each other more than ever.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda, a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody-drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Talented but rude, and widely disliked, K.T. Harris had made an embarrassing scene during dinner. Now she's at the center of a crime scene-and Eve is more than ready to get out of her high heels and strap on her holster, to step into the role she was born to play: cop.

Is there really such a thing as a good luck charm? Ex-soldier Logan Thibault thinks he just might have found one. Haunted by memories of the friends he lost in Iraq, Logan knows how fortunate he is to be home. He believes that a photograph he carried with him, a picture of a smiling woman he's never met, kept him safe. Even though he knows nothing about this woman, he hopes she might hold the key to his destiny. Resolving to find her, Logan embarks on a journey of startling discovery. Beth, the woman whose picture he holds, is struggling with problems of her own: her volatile ex-husband won't accept their relationship is over and threatens anyone who gets too close to her. And, despite a growing attraction between them, Logan has kept one explosive secret from Beth: how he came across her photograph in the first place...

'Don't look back. It wants you to look back.' London's soul has gone missing. Lost? Kidnapped? Murdered? Nobody knows — but when Sharon Li unexpectedly discovers she's a shaman, she is immediately called upon to use her newfound powers of oneness with the City to rescue it from a slow but inevitable demise. The problem is, while everyone expects Sharon to have all the answers — from the Midnight Mayor to Sharon's magically-challenged self-help group — she doesn't have a clue where to start. But with London's soul missing and the Gate open, there are creatures loose that won't wait for her to catch up before they go hunting. STRAY SOULS is the first novel in the Magicals Anonymous series.

The historic hotel in BoonsBoro has endured war and peace, changing hands, even rumored hauntings. Now it's getting a major facelift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect of the family, Beckett's social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there's another project he's got his eye on: the girl he's been waiting to kiss since he was fifteen. After losing her husband and returning to her hometown, Clare Brewster soon settles into her life as the mother of three young sons while running the town's bookstore. Busy with little time for romance, Clare is drawn across the street by Beckett's transformation of the old inn, wanting to take a closer look... at the building and the man behind it. With the grand opening inching closer, Beckett's happy to give Clare a private tour — one room at a time. It's no first date, but these stolen moments are the beginning of something new — and open the door to the extraordinary adventure of what comes next...

The 20 projects included here are easy to make and readily customised with personal details and keepsakes, they range from the everyday and accessible to the slightly more elaborate for the committed steampunker.

Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outsIde a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return — an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly. Iain Banks' celebrated first novel is a work of extraordinary originality, imagination and horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; and compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all.

Englishness is an ancient and powerful concept, but no one seems sure exactly what it means in the twenty-first century. In exploring our national identity, Tony Thorne has compiled a fascinating compendium of the hundred words and phrases that have become the cornerstones of modern English, and have been used — sometimes deliberately, but often inadvertently — to stake out our common ground, to define what makes us essentially English, and thus different from those beastly foreigners who lurk just off our shores.

1920. The Great War has been over for two years, and it has left a very different world from the Edwardian certainties of 1914. Following the death of his wife and baby and his experiences on the Western Front, Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse. Yet death and the aftermath of the conflict continue to cast a pall over peacetime England, and when a young woman he once knew persuades him to look into events that apparently led her brother, John Emmett, to kill himself, Laurence is forced to revisit the darkest parts of the war. As Laurence unravels the connections between Captain Emmett's suicide, a group of war poets, a bitter regimental feud and a hidden love affair, more disquieting deaths are exposed. Even at the moment Laurence begins to live again, it dawns on him that nothing is as it seems, and that even those closest to him have their secrets...

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. It begins in the realm of the Real. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.