Livia Pertini is 79 and struggling to interest her granddaughter Rosa in the age-old recipes of her home, Fiscino, a tiny hamlet on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. These recipes reveal the unimaginable hardships of the Second World War — mouse stew, dandelion frittatas — but also tell the story of a young, vivacious Livia. Naive and already war-weary, James Gouding takes up a British Field Security Service position in Naples, 1943. What he doesn't anticipate is that this involves a limited menu of fried Spam fritters and interrogating the would-be Italian fiancees of members of the armed forces. James's chance at true heroism arrives when a German tank is sighted and he is caught in its path. However, it is the imperious and dogmatic Livia who opens the hatch and yells at him to stop being such an idiot. Livia gladly becomes cook, translator and general factotum to James. The two begin to fall in love, knowing that Livia's husband away at war and James's girl back home will mean they can never acknowledge their passion. But the eruption of Vesuvius triggers a chain of explosive events that will force the two to flee behind enemy lines and will alter their lives immeasurably.

Mycroft Holmes, charged with ensuring the personal safety of Queen Victoria, calls on his brother for help when a number of attempts have been made on her life and when two unexplained deaths occur amongst the staff at her Scottish residencies. Accompanied by Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes goes north by train, examining the few facts Mycroft has been able to cryptically supply. To Watson's bafflement he is sure there is a link between these deaths and the murder in the old royal apartments at Holyrood of the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots: a killing which left a bloodstain that daily refreshes itself and in a room where voices can be heard in the darkest hours of the night. Can Holmes's extraordinary deductive powers solve the historical crime as well as the contemporary one? An original, beautifully crafted mystery story which is also a respectful homage to the master of the whodunnit.

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

In Christopher Moore's ingenious debut novel, we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs in the annals of literature. The good-looking one is one-hundred-year-old ex-seminarian and 'roads' scholar Travis O'Hearn. The green one is Catch, a demon with a nasty habit of eating most of the people he meets. Behind the fake Tudor facade of Pine Cove, California, Catch sees a four-star buffet. Travis, on the other hand, thinks he sees a way of ridding himself of his toothy travelling companion. The winos, neo-pagans, and deadbeat Lotharios of Pine Cove, meanwhile, have other ideas. And none of them is quite prepared when all hell breaks loose.

It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he’s barely heard of — part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony — Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer — a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he’s ever known. As complex, turbulent, flamboyant and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, the new science fiction novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale.

Irina Davydovna is a cleaner. She has no time for politics or even for that matter, people: 'rules and rulers may come and go, but dirt never changes.' Boris Aleksandrovich is a revolutionary. He thinks he understands power. But this is Leningrad in 1933 and Stalin is about to turn against their city. When the life of his beloved daughter Natasha is threatened and his old friend Anton saves a skinny little orphan he finds on a Moscow train, Boris' faith in his ideals are put to the test. While Irina, watching it all, must learn the power of loyalty and love.

Benjamin Weaver is awaiting death in Newgate gaol. Mysteriously convicted for a murder he didn't commit by a judge determined to see him hang, he is suddenly — and equally mysteriously — offered the means to escape. What, you may well ask, is going on? It's a question Weaver asks of himself as he slinks out into the London night on a mission to clear his name. In doing so, he steps straight into a labyrinthine plot that weaves, like Benjamin, across eighteenth century London. For the conspiracy against him is part of a grimmer and gaudier picture: one that encompasses double-dealings and dockworkers, the extorting of a priest — and a looming election with the potential to spark a revolution and topple the monarchy. Handily, Weaver is a private investigator. He's also an ex-pugilist, which is also a good thing when it comes to punching his weight in the `polite' society of plotters and politicians, power-brokers, crime lords, assassins and spies. At the apex of which sits, rather precariously, a recent import from Hanover: The King.

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of traditional build, is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea which is made by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between her assistant, Mma Makutsi, and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well, but who admires her greatly. And all of this happens against a background of quiet sessions of bush tea, and of a land that stretches out forever under mile upon mile of empty sky...

Joseph O’Loughlin appears to have the perfect life — a beautiful wife, a loving daughter and a successful career as a clinical psychologist. But nothing can be taken for granted. Even the most flawless existence is only a loose thread away from unravelling. All it takes is a murdered girl, a troubled young patient and the biggest lie of his life. Caught in a complex web of deceit and haunted by images of the slain girl, he embarks upon a search that will take him from London to Liverpool and into the darkest recesses of the human mind. Ultimately, he will risk everything to unmask the killer and save his family.

«In «Scar Tissue» Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself. Raised in the Midwest, he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie, purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends — and found his life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of musicians. But there’s a price to pay for both success and excess and in «Scar Tissue», Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing struggle with an addiction to drugs. «Scar Tissue» far transcends the typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption.»

Ever been offered a promotion that seems too good to be true? You know — the sort they’d be insane to be offering to someone like you. The kind where you snap their arm off to accept, then wonder why all your long-serving colleagues look secretly relieved, as if they’re off some strange and unpleasant hook … It’s the kind of trick that deeply sinister companies like J.W. Wells & Co. pull all the time. Especially with employees who are too busy mooning over the office intern to think about what they’re getting into. And it’s why, right about now, Paul Carpenter is wishing he’d paid much less attention to the gorgeous Melze, and rather more to a little bit of job description small-print referring to ‘pest’ control …

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.

Five years after the horrific crash of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island which killed 230 people, John Corey is inadvertently caught up in the now-closed case by his FBI lawyer wife, Kate, who believes the government's findings of mechanical failure is wrong. The FBI don't take kindly to the case being looked into again and, as John Corey's instincts and investigations clearly show anomalies, he and Kate are sent off to the Yemen and Tanzania for a month or so each as punishment. On his return, John is not put off — he has ten days' leave. Ten days in which to avoid the FBI and to find that elusive video tape taken by two adulterous lovers on the beach which may — or may not — show a sea-to-air missile racing up to hit the TWA Flight 800... An exciting, edge-of-the-seat thriller — Nelson DeMille's best to date.

Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is the one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. He's up to his neck in an investigation into a series of killings, which appears to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psycopath to hunt down. In Mark Billingham's fourth novel, he explores the effects of violence and greed on the lives of those who exploit their fellow beings in a novel of exceptional power.

Popular Gossip Girl character Jenny Humphrey is leaving Constance Billard to attend Waverly Academy, an elite boarding school in New York horse country where glamorous rich kids don't let the rules get in the way of an excellent time. Determined to leave her Manhattan past behind her, Jenny sets off to Waverly with big plans of reinventing herself. She'll be a goddess-she's a sophisticated city girl, after all!-and will find a boy who can properly worship her. But that's going to be a little tricky since her self-absorbed new roommates, Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt, aren't exactly there to help-unless there's something in it for them. Hot guys, new intrigue, and more delicious gossip all add up to more trouble than ever for Jenny. But if getting caught with boys and going up against the Disciplinary Committee is what it takes, Jenny's ready. She'll do all that and more to be The It Girl.

After experiencing a precognitive dream that shatters her engagement and changes her life forever, young California psychology professor Laurel MacDonald decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the long-buried files form the world-famous Rhine parapsychology experiments, which attempted to prove if ESP really exists. Along with another charismatic professor, she uncovers disturbing reports, including a mysterious case of a house supposedly haunted by a poltergeist, investigated by another research team in 1965. The two professors and two exceptionally gifted Duke students move into the grand, abandoned mansion to replicate the investigation, unaware that the entire original team ended up insane... or dead.

Alexandria, Egypt, 1977. During a clandestine dive to an old shipwreck, archaeologist Isabella Warnock unearths an artefact unlike anything she has ever seen: an astrarium, a powerful ancient device rumoured to have shaped the destinies of pharaos and kings since the beginning of time. But her discovery comes at a terrible price, and it falls to her husband Oliver to keep the priceless object safe. Grief-stricken, Oliver refuses to believe in the astrarium's mysterious significance — until he finds himself up against someone willing to go to any lengths to obtain the powerful device. Catapulted into an extraordinary world of conspiracy and Egyptology, where age-old sorcery and ancient legends clash violently with modern-day ambitions and the gritty world of oil exploration, Oliver has little time to get the astrarium to safety, before he, too, pays with his life...

Betsy Taylor has problems that only a vampire queen/suburban wife could possibly understand... such as fifty thousand angry werewolves. That's what Betsy is facing when she takes her werewolf friend Antonia's body to Cape Cod, where the Pack resides at Wyndham Mansion. Because Antonia died in her service, Betsy is alive and well — and wracked with guilt. She has no idea if the Wyndham werewolves will welcome her with fangs or friendship. While Betsy and her husband Sinclair try to make nice, their legal ward BabyJon is freaking out every werewolf he comes in contact with. Meanwhile, Betsy's posse back at the St. Paul mansion are not happy. Increasingly frantic emails alert Betsy to her half-sister's increasingly erratic behavior. Looks like the devil's daughter is coming into her own — and raising hell. All in the name of making Betsy's life easier, of course.

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai, but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away... This is the extraordinary story of a young men, conscripted at nineteen and whose father was a Somme Veteran, survived not just one, but three close encounters with death — encounters which killed nearly all his comrades.

A chilling YA thriller from critically acclaimed author Michael Northrop. The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision.