When Jenny Humphrey confessed to a crime she didn't commit-starting the rampant fire that burned down Miller Farm-she thought her life at elite Waverly Academy was over. But her last-minute escape from expulsion made her the most talked-about girl in school. What nobody knows is who saved her. Now at the annual Halloween masquerade ball, Jenny has a plan to unveil her secret admirer. Callie Vernon knows who her Prince Charming is: Easy Walsh. But when he discovered she and Tinsley Carmichael tried to get Jenny kicked out, Easy dumped her on the spot. Now Callie is dressing up as Cinderella in hopes of winning back his heart. Can she convince him she's the one before the clock strikes midnight? Or will her glass slipper-and her heart-be permanently broken? Everyone wants a fairytale ending. But there can only be one It Girl. The sixth scandalous novel in the New York Times bestselling series about the naughty hijinx at an elite East Coast boarding school.

«Lovely Rita, Meter Maid» and «Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds» are as much part of popular mythology as «Little Dorrit» or «Macbeth». Strawberry fields, fool-topped hills and long and winding roads are all part of a collective subconscious stretching from New York to New Delhi. This book tells the story behind every one of The Beatles' songs. Who was Eleanor Rigby, and was Polythene Pam a figment of John Lennon's imagination or a real flesh-and-blood person? What stories and emotions influenced them and how do they reflect the development of The Beatles' distinctive musical style?»

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of — a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history. In those few quiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover is her birthright — a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the Dracula myth. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions, and evading terrifying adversaries, one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions — a captivating tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful — and utterly unforgettable.

Want to know the best way to get over being dumped? Do you need to pull a sickie? Do you want to pull a popstar? Or is your flatmate driving you mad having constant sex with her boyfriend? Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Sharon Marshall have had their fair share of life's little grenades. Now they've learned how to throw them back. To live the good life, it helps to be bad sometimes. So this is their take on how to be naughty. Want to spot a love rat? Hitchhike (onto a private jet)? Convince that man you've got the perfect body? It's all here in THE NAUGHTY GIRL'S GUIDE TO LIFE. You'll never want to be well behaved again.

'The Southern Cross cuts through my heart instead of through the sky' Grace Cleave is spending a weekend away from London, where she has been battling with writer's block. But on holiday in the north of England she feels more and more like a migratory bird as the pull of her native New Zealand makes life away from it seem transitory. Grace longs to find her own place in the world if she can only decide where that is. But first she must learn to be comfortable in her own skin, feathers and all. From the author of An Angel at My Table comes an exquisitely written novel of exile and return, homesickness and belonging. Written in 1963 when Janet Frame was living in London, this is the first publication of a novel she considered too personal to be published in her lifetime.

As unrest stirs across the Eleven domains, subversive questions lead to unexpected answers. And ghosts of the dead walk in increasing numbers — for those few that can see. In a land where stonecasters foretell destinies for a fee and gods talk to those who can listen, the future is uncertain and is built on a bloodsoaked past. So what did happen one thousand years ago, when Acton's people came across the mountains? Was Acton himself a hero and liberator, or a bloodthirsty invader and scourge of the travelling people? Wild magic gives Bramble some dangerous insights into a land's disturbed history. And why did Ash's Traveller father not teach him the secret songs of his people? The ultimate answers to all these questions are hidden in time, where perhaps they should stay.

The 'Corrections and Clarifications' column of Old Git magazine continues to offer its readers an opportunity to ask and provide answers to the most pressing questions of our times. Questions such as: Would it help global warming if I left my fridge door open? What's the riskiest game of risk ever played? If I fell down a disused mineshaft would Lassie really run and get help, or just sit there licking his balls? Do Bats Have Bollocks? features a host of completely new and untrue questions and answers. With bags more rude jokes, shaggy dog stories and the odd entry from a new, bewildered editor who's wondering what the hell he's got himself into, this book is every bit as laugh-out-loud funny as last year's hugely successful volume Do Ants Have Arseholes?

On midsummer's day, Phoebe Bowler star-sign demon should have returned home an ecstatically happy new bride. Instead, she's been jilted at the altar. In need of sympathy, perhaps she could turn to her neighbour, the dishy Rocky Lancaster? But with problems of his own he's turned into Mr Grumpy and wants to be left alone. That is until Essie Rivers arrives on the scene, and then Phoebe and Rocky's paths seem destined to collide with a very big bump. Essie knows far more about astrology, personolgy, numerology any 'ology' you care to mention than Phoebe has ever heard of. But it is the secret magic of 'birthday-ology' that catches Phoebe's eye. Can she really use a birthday to find a perfect match or to set her and Rocky back on the path to happiness? Phoebe thinks so, but that's when things start to go really wrong...

Blind since birth, widowed in her twenties, now lonely in her forties, Marianne Fraser lives in Edinburgh in elegant, angry anonymity with her sister, Louisa, a successful novelist. Marianne's passionate nature finds solace and expression in music, a love she finds she shares with Keir, a man she encounters on her doorstep one winter's night. Whilst Marianne has had her share of men attracted to her because they want to rescue her, Keir makes no concession to her condition. He is abrupt to the point of rudeness, and yet oddly kind. But can Marianne trust her feelings for this reclusive stranger who wants to take a blind woman to his island home on Skye, to 'show' her the stars?

A century has passed since the heroic defence of Dros Delnoch. But the people of the Drenai face a new terror: a mad emperor kept in power by two forces of unsurpassed evil. The Joinings are werebeasts of awesome power. The Dark Templars are warrior-priests whose fighting skills are without equal. Against them, the Drenai face certain defeat. One man, an outsider hated by the Drenai for his Nadir blood, and despised by the Nadir for his Drenai ancestry, sets out to bring down the emperor. He is one man against the armies of chaos. He is Tenaka Khan — the Prince of Shadows.

Acclaimed for her 'devastatingly accurate insight' (The New York Times Book Review) into the criminal mind, Ann Rule has chronicled the most fascinating cases of our time in her bestelling Crime Files series. For this sixth stunning collection, Rule has culled from her private files the most-asked about homicide-cases — riveting accounts of seemingly normal men and women who are compelled by a murderous rage to suddenly lash out at innocent victims. Torn from the headlines, here is the shocking case of a Seattle city bus ride that turned to mayhem and murder at the hands of a gunman. While the scene unfolds as in a terrifying movie, Rule answers the haunting question 'how could this happen?' and expertly constructs the unseen chain of events that resulted in an explosive and shattering tragedy. Included here are nine other sensational cases that illuminate Rule's uniquely authoritative view of the human psyche gone temporarily berserk. You may think you know who is safe and who is dangerous; in A RAGE TO KILL, Ann Rule shows that none of us are truly protected from the irrational violence that can erupt from the killers among us.

Shea and Flick Ohmsford have somehow survived the first stage of their quest. With the aid of their childhood friend Menion Leah, and new companions, the dwarf Hendel, Balinor of Callahorn and the elves, Durin and Dayel, they have successfully evaded capture by gnomish warriors, and eluded the Warlock Lord's dread Skull Bearers. Now, with Allanon to guide them, the company must continue north, through the vast peaks of the Dragons Teeth Mountains. It is a route fraught with more danger, but the only path to their goal — the druid keep at Paranor, last resting place of Shannara's fabled Sword, the weapon Shea is destined to wield. So continues the epic tale of The Sword of Shannara — a classic of magic, adventure and epic conflict, from one of the world's greatest living storytellers. The concluding volume, THE SECRET OF THE SWORD is scheduled for May 2004 publication.

A reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared ...Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West — but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in ...Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who brutally slashed and then nearly decapitated her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prize-winning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript. As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own. For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

A farmhouse destroyed by fire. A body amongst the ruins. Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder. The fire has come at the same time as another, even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly — if cryptic — plans for revenge. Chillingly mesmeric in tone, labyrinthine in structure, POINT OF ORIGIN is Patricia Cornwell at her most dazzling.

It began with The Notebook... After thirty years of marriage, Wilson is forced to face a painful truth. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun (originally recounted in The Notebook), and their fifty-year love affair, Wilson is unable to express his true feelings. With his daughter about to marry, and his wife thinking about leaving him, Wilson knows it is time to act. He will do anything he can to save his marriage. With the memories of Noah and Allie's inspiring life together as his guide, he vows to make his wife fall in love with him... all over again.

Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job; loyal friends; his dream home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life, he believes that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite Travis's attempts to be friendly, she seems to have a chip on her shoulder about him. But something compels Travis to get to know his new neighbour. His persistent efforts lead them both to make tough decisions, the consequences of which neither could have foreseen. The Choice confronts us with that most heart-wrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?

The archives of British Vogue define modern portraiture. Its collection remains a stylish barometer of the social and cultural changes that shaped the 20th century. From princesses to rock stars, models to actors, society beauties to world leaders, these are portraits of figures who have made an enduring mark on their age. And just as the pictures are a who’s who of the brilliant and beautiful, the selection of photographers is equally stellar. Daring, discerning, iconoclastic—here are the people who defined their art, including Horst, Beaton, Steichen, Penn, Snowdon, Parkinson, Bailey, and Testino.

Joined in a romantic love that most people only ever dream about, Pat Taylor's marriage to Tom Allanson was all she ever wanted. Both came from fine Southern families, and both longed to recreate for themselves a plantation where they would raise horses, grow roses, and move with grace and style in the highest social circles of Atlanta; in short, to be the Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler of their time. But scarcely two months later, their perfect world had erupted into family hatreds, terror, bloodshed and murder, The beautiful estate was mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom Allanson stood accused of the brutal slaying of his own mother and father. Before the terrifying truth about the perpetrator was revealed, other innocent victims were to suffer attempts on their lives as intricate family loyalties and cruel, obsessive jealousies were played out.

Wren Ohmsford, Scion of Shannara, came from the Westlands, where she lived the life of a Rover. Now she, like her kinsmen, Par and Walker Boh, has been called upon to help the shade of Allanon fight the totalitarian power of the Federation. She must find the Elves, who disappeared from their strongholds more than one hundred years ago... But even knowledge of the Elves is hard to find — only a blind, wise woman of the West knows something of their location. On her advice, Wren and her Rover companion, Garth, journey to the coast of the Blue Divide, where they build a fire and let it burn for three days. With the unexpected help that their blaze attracts, they reach the isle of Morrowindle and near their goal — to find the last of the Elves. But they also find dangers such as they could not have imagined, and Wren will make a discovery that will change her life for ever.