Infamous poet Lord Byron comes to life with incendiary brilliance in this spellbinding blend of gothic imagination and documented fact. Wandering in the mountains of Greece, the supreme sensualist is drawn to the beauty of a mysterious fugitive slave; soon he is utterly entranced, and his fate is sealed. He embarks on a life of adventure even his genius could not have foreseen; chosen to enjoy powers beyond those any vampire has ever known, Byron traverses the centuries and enters a dark, intoxicating world of long-lost secrets, ancient arts and scorching excesses of evil. But Byron's gift is also his torment: an all-consuming thirst that withers life at the root, damning all those he loves. With its impeccable scholarship and breathtaking storytelling, THE VAMPYRE is a wonderful combination of fact and fantasy.

Adam Miller had a long war, and when the US Army let him go he made his way to Venice where his mother was trying to recreate her pre-war life. Exhausted both in body and spirit the pace of the ancient city began to heal him, and when he met Claudia, an Italian Jewess, he was ripe for seduction. Claudia's war had been worse, and after Mussolini's downfall she was quickly betrayed to the SS. While she survived, her father didn't, and to her horror she discovers that the man who was responsible for them being sent to the camp is about to become her new lover's step-father. In a violent confrontation Adam and Claudia are left needing to create an unbreakable alibi, which they do, but to uphold it Adam must establish what really happened to these people and in doing so exposes the ambiguity of morality in peace and in war, and has to grapple with the questions of what is good or evil, what is right or wrong, and does truth really matter?

Lisa Moore's Alligator moves with the swiftness of a gator in attack mode through the lives of a group of brilliantly rendered characters in a city whose spiritual location is somewhere in the heart of Flannery O'Connor country. Madeleine, the driven, ageing filmmaker whose mission is to complete a Bergmanesque magnum opus before she dies Frank, a young man of innocence and determination whose life is a strange anthology of unpredicatable dangers Valentin, the sociopathic Russian refugee whose predatory tendencies threaten everyone he encounters Colleen, at seventeen, a hard-edged female Holden Caulfield, drawn inexorably to the places where alligators thrive.

Contrary to popular belief, some people have had enough of silly love songs. Especially ones that are so overwrought, inept, or narcissistic that they actually do the opposite of their intent: they creep you out. In Touch Me, I'm Sick, Tom Reynolds, the author of the best-selling book on depressing songs, I Hate Myself and Want to Die, analyses 52 love songs that for various reasons have gone off the rails into the realm of the tawdry (Paul Anka's 'You're Having My Baby'), the maudlin (Pearl Jam's 'Black') the obsessive (Eminem's 'Stan'), the self-involved (Kevin Federline's 'To Know Him Is To Love Him') and the stupendously weird (Michael Jackson's 'Ben'). Organising his list into ten different categories, the author examines songs from the 50s to the present day, sung by artists as diverse as James Blunt, Melissa Etheridge, Sinead O'Connor, The Spice Girls and The Police. Complete with a ranked 'Countdown of Creepiness' and sinister black and white line art throughout, Touch Me, I'm Sick is a must-have compilation of rhythmic wretchedness — and the perfect Christmas gift for the music lover on your list.

Blinded Psychologist Alan Gregory has a new patient: Gibbs Storey, whose looks turn grown men into dazzled adolescents. She tells Alan that she thinks her husband, Sterling, may have murdered one of her friends. Blandly recounting a history of dangerous sexual encounters, Gibbs stuns Alan with another revelation: she thinks there are other victims... and that her husband will kill again. Struggling with a strict confidentiality agreement, Alan walks a perilous ethical line by revealing just enough to interest his detective friend, Sam Purdy, and start a search for a missing Sterling Storey and a string of innocent victims. But are they too late to stop more killings? Missing Persons Hannah Grant had volunteered to cover Alan Gregory's practice over the Christmas period, but when he and another colleague called at her office they discovered her body, the cause of death not clear. Then on Christmas Day itself a fourteen-year-old girl is reported missing — eight years to the day after another missing child had been discovered murdered — a girl who had she lived would have been fourteen.Then it emerges that the parents of the latest missing girl had been treated by Alan some years ago, and recently the girl herself had consulted Hannah. Could any of these tangential connections prove to be links to both deaths and the missing girl, or are they mere coincidences?

Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point — really hard, really not fun. At this point you might be in a Dip, which will get better if you keep pushing, or a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try. The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it. According to marketing guru and best-selling author Seth Godin, what sets successful entrepreneurs (and pop stars and weight lifters and car salesmen) apart from everyone else is their ability to give up on Cul-de-Sacs while staying motivated in Dips. Winners quit fast, quit often and quit without guilt — until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. You'll never be number one at anything without picking your shots very carefully. The Dip is a short, entertaining book that helps you do just that. It will forever alter the way you think about success.

Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned form the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories... until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again. Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever.

A young woman returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father. Flooded with memories, she begins to realise that going home means entering not only another place but another time. As the wild island exerts its elemental hold and she is submerged in the language of the wilderness, she sees that what she is really looking for is her own past.

Back when they were students, just like everybody else, Ray Ash and Simon Darcourt had dreams about what they'd do when they grew up. In both their cases, it was to be rock stars. Fifteen years later, their mid-thirties are bearing down fast, and just like everybody else, they're having to accept the less glamorous hands reality has dealt them. Nervous new father Ray takes refuge from his responsibilities by living a virtual existence in online games. People say he needs to grow up, but everybody has to find their own way of coping. For some it's affairs, for others it's the bottle, and for Simon it's serial murder, mass slaughter and professional assassination.

In the still of a snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a girl out riding her horse is hit by a 40-ton truck. Though horribly injured, both thirteen-year-old Grace Maclean and her horse Pilgrim survive. But the impact on their lives is devastating. Grace is the only child of prominent New York magazine editor, Annie Graves, and her lawyer husband Robert. In a way that none of them at first understands, their destiny comes to depend on Pilgrim's. So mutilated and traumatised is he that even the vet who saved him wishes he hadn't. Annie refuses to have him put down, sensing that if she does, something in Grace will die too. Then Annie hears about a man called Tom Booker, a 'whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. Abandoning her job, Annie sets off across the continent with Grace and Pilgrim to find him. Under the massive Montana sky, all their lives are changed for ever.

Things are going well for young film-maker Evan Casher — until he receives an urgent phonecall from his mother, summoning him home. He arrives to find her brutally murdered body on the kitchen floor and a hitman lying in wait for him. It is then he realises his whole life has been a lie. His parents are not who he thought they were, his girlfriend is not who he thought she was, his entire existence an ingeniously constructed sham. And now that he knows it, he is in terrible danger. So he is catapulted into a violent world of mercenaries, spies and terrorists. Pursued by a ruthless band of killers who will stop at nothing to keep old secrets buried, Evan’s only hope for survival is to discover the truth behind his past. An absolute page-turner, Panic has been acclaimed as one of the most exciting thrillers of recent years.

«A new series of supernatural thrillers with a characteristic British flavour, from the acclaimed writer of «Lucifer» and «Hellblazer».»

Trudi Canavan, author of the bestselling Black Magician trilogy, embarks up on a wonderful new fantasy series set in a classical world of magic, heroes, gods and forbidden love.

J.W. Wells seemed to be a respectable establishment, but the company now paying Paul Carpenter's salary is in fact a deeply sinister organisation with a mighty peculiar management team. Paul thought he was getting the hang of it (particularly when he fell head over heels for his strangely alluring colleague Sophie), but death is never far away when you work at J.W. Wells. Unlike the stapler — that's always going awol. Our lovestruck hero is about to discover that custard is definitely in the eye of the beholder. And that it really stings. Tom Holt's exceedingly comic fantasies are populated with evil goblins, annoying sprites and people like us. However, it's not always possible to tell the difference.

«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.»

Jenny Humphrey arrived at elite Waverly Academy with dreams of turning herself into the sophisticated, awe-inspiring Jenny she's always wanted to be. And it's finally, finally happening! She's even rooming with the two most popular girls in school, Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt, and bunking in the notorious Tinsley Carmichael's old bed. Coolness is rubbing off on her, even while she sleeps! Okay, so Callie almost got Jenny kicked out of Waverly on her first night there, but there's a bright side. Like Callie's shaggy-haired boyfriend, Easy Walsh, who just can't seem to focus on his girlfriend anymore. Now everyone is gossiping about boyfriend-stealing Jenny. They can't help but whisper: Jenny's it. But who's that flying in on her seaplane? After getting expelled last year, Tinsley's back and she's not about to let some big-chested, rosy-cheeked city-girl get all the attention. And she's certainly not going to let Callie and Brett forget that she took the fall for them. Now it's their turn. Is Waverly big enough for Jenny, Callie, Brett, and Tinsley? They're all beautiful, captivating, and a little bit crazy, but there can be only one It Girl.

When Jenny Humphrey arrived at Waverly Academy, the student body immediately started buzzing about her and her body. She quickly caught the eye of three of the hottest guys on campus, kissed two of them, and made one her boyfriend: the adorable Easy Walsh. Too bad Easy just happened to belong to somebody else — Jenny's roommate, Callie Vernon. It didn't take long for powerful Tinsley Carmichael to tell Callie their sweet-faced new roommate was really a manipulative skank. So what if Tinsley herself stole a guy out from under their other roommate Brett Messerschmidt's perky little nose? Then Callie and Tinsley threw Jenny and Brett out of their ultra-exclusive club. And just like that, it was war. Now the four roommates have been split up across enemy lines — Jenny and Callie are living together in Dumbarton 303, and Brett and Tinsley are seemingly miles away downstairs. What will happen when Easy sneaks in to see Jenny... but finds Callie instead? And what if Brett discovers the one secret Tinsley's kept hidden for years? Everyone at Waverly is watching and whispering. With girls this wild, anything can happen, but only one can be it.

Adopted as a baby, Vicky McCarthy's curiosity about where she came from has finally got the better of her: she wants to trace her birth mother. If that doesn't cause friction enough, there's a new face to contend with at work: Ed O'Neill, whom Vicky is convinced is being groomed for her job as manager of Dublin toyshop Toys Galore. Sal, Vicky's go- getting best friend, thinks Ed is gorgeous, and that if Vicky doesn't bag him, she will. But Vicky is going out with Marti, manager of an up — and-coming boy band, with a six-year-old son and complications of his own... Something Borrowed is the brilliant fourth novel from Tina Reilly: a fresh, frank, funny tale of loves lost and found.

In Victorian London at the height of the industrial revolution, Horatio Lyle is a former Special Constable with a passion for science and invention. He's also an occasional, but reluctant, sleuth. The truth is that he'd rather be in his lab tinkering with dangerous chemicals and odd machinery than running around the cobbled streets of London trying to track down stolen goods. But when Her Majesty's Government calls, Horatio swaps his microscope for a magnifying glass, fills his pockets with things that explode and sallies forth to unravel a mystery of a singularly extraordinary nature. Thrown together with a reformed (i.e. 'caught') pickpocket called Tess, and a rebellious (within reason) young gentleman called Thomas, Lyle and his faithful hound, Tate, find themselves pursuing an ancient Chinese plate, a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of polite society and a dangerous enemy who may not even be human. Solving the crime will be hard enough — surviving would be a bonus...

Justin Westwood, the detective hero of APHRODITE, is mourning the death of his boss, victim of a terrorist bombing in a local restaurant, when he's called to investigate an air accident: a small plane has crashed on take-off from Hampton Airport. The pilot is dead, but when Justin discovers the body has no ID, the cockpit has been wiped clean of prints and the Federal Air Authority has deleted the aircraft's details he is sure the pilot was murdered. As he tries to get a handle on the man's background he realises there is a link to the bombing, and that the atrocious attack may not have been caused by any terrorist. In fact it looks as though It might have had its origins on Capitol Hill. But what political or financial prize could be worth the slaughter of dozens of innocents? It seems as though Justin may have to sacrifice his own life before he learns the truth.