Five past midnight, three years after the End of the World, and, as usual, there was nothing to be seen or heard in the catacombs — except, of course, for the rats and (if you believed in them) the ghosts of the dead. Runelight is set in a world coming back to life, but it is also a world in conflict. For Maddy, born with the mark of magic on her hand, the return of the old gods and the overthrow of the brutal Order who suppressed them is a time of excitement. But for Maggie, raised as part of the Order, it is a time of chaos and desolation, as her family and values are wiped out. Like the two girls, the new world remains divided — the old regime has gone but with nothing to take its place, anarchy is beginning to spread. Joanne Harris draws us back into the richly imagined world first introduced in Runemarks — a world not unlike our own, had it been shaped by the Vikings instead of the Romans. But if its inhabitants, including Maddy and Maggie, can't solve their differences soon, they will destroy their world altogether.

Where five senses meet, a sixth is born... In a quiet, residential neighbourhood of Portland, Oregon, an unknown young woman uncovers a shocking crime scene by inexplicably sensing the evil within its walls. To the police, she herself is a mystery. She appears on no government records, has no past and can't even tell the police her own name. Christened Jane Doe and suffering terrifying hallucinations, she is assigned to Nathan Fox, a forensic psychiatrist struggling with his own demons after witnessing his parents' murder as a child. Together they must piece together the jigsaw that is Jane's identity. Then a sequence of brutal killings terrorise the city and Fox learns Jane is the only cryptic link between the unrelated victims. To solve the murders, discover who she is and diagnose her condition, Fox must discard his black and white preconceptions, look beyond the spectrum of normal human experience and confront the dark truth of her past... and his own.

A Violent Death: When a hand is found in an alley in Boston's Chinatown, it is detective Jane Rizzoli who finds its owner — a woman whose throat has been slashed so deeply that her head is nearly severed. A Revealing Clue: Two strands of silver hair cling to her body. They are Rizzoli's only clues, but they're enough for her and pathologist Maura Isles to make a startling discovery. This violent end had a chilling prequel. A Secret Better Left Buried... Years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide took place in a Chinatown restaurant, leaving five people dead. But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious, beautiful martial arts master who knows a deadly secret. A secret that will kill again — unless Jane and Maura can track it down, and defeat it...

Set among the apple orchards of rural Maine, it is a peverse world in which Homer Wells' odyssey begins. As the oldest unadopted offspring at St Cloud's orphanage, he learns about the skills which, one way or another, help young and not-so-young women, from Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder — a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether.Dr Larch loves all his orphans, especically Homer Wells. It is Homer's story we follow, from his early apprenticeship in the orphanage surgery, to his adult life running a cider-making factory and his strange relationship with the wife of his closest friend.

It isn't often you receive a letter from the dead. When Vianne Rocher receives a letter from beyond the grave, she has no choice but to follow the wind that blows her back to Lansquenet, the village in south-west France where, eight years ago, she opened up a chocolate shop. But Vianne is completely unprepared for what she finds there. Women veiled in black, the scent of spices and peppermint tea, and there, on the bank of the river Tannes, facing the square little tower of the church of Saint-Jerome like a piece on a chessboard — slender, bone-white and crowned with a silver crescent moon — a minaret. Nor is it only the incomers from North Africa that have brought big changes to the community. Father Reynaud, Vianne's erstwhile adversary, is now disgraced and under threat. Could it be that Vianne is the only one who can save him?

At a tender age, Pak Jun Do, is plucked from his orphanage of Long Tomorrows to be trained as a tunnel assassin, kidnapper and spy. Subjected to the random rules and arbitrary violence of his Korean overlords, Jun Do's life is filled with absurd eventualities — wrestling with sharks, engaging with torturers, and finally, becoming the imposter of the Beloved Leader himself, Kim Jong Il. How far can Jun Do go before he, too, is sent to the paradise beach of eternal retirement?

When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life. The odyssey of a simple man, original, subtle and touching. (Claire Tomalin). From the moment I met Harold Fry, I didn't want to leave him. Impossible to put down. (Erica Wagner, The Times).

CERN Institute, Switzerland: a world-renowned scientist is found brutally murdered with a mysterious symbol seared onto his chest. The Vatican, Rome: the College of Cardinals assembles to elect a new pope. Somewhere beneath them, an unstoppable bomb of terrifying power relentlessly counts down to oblivion. In a breathtaking race against time, Harvard professor Robert Langdon must decipher a labyrinthine trail of ancient symbols if he is to defeat those responsible — the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred years, reborn to continue their deadly vendetta against their most hated enemy, the Catholic Church.

The Capitol Building, Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon believes he is here to give a lecture. He is wrong. Within minutes of his arrival, a shocking object is discovered. It is a gruesome invitation into an ancient world of hidden wisdom. When Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon — prominent mason and philanthropist — is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons. It is to take him on a breathless chase through Washington's dark history. All that was familiar is changed into a shadowy, mythical world in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth...

I've lost it. The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus' family for three generations. And now, the very same day his parents are coming, I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive! A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls at a charity do and Poppy's life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring, but in the panic that followed, she's lost her phone too. As she paces shakily round the hotel foyer she spots an abandoned phone in a bin. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number with the hotel staff. It was meant to be! Except the phone's owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn't agree. He wants his phone back, and doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages and wading into his personal life. As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, phone messages and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents, can things get any more tangled?

On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. The two had met five years before while Coyle was writing his bestselling book, Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force. But this time, Tyler had something else on his mind. He finally wanted to come clean, about everything: the doping, the lying, his years as Lance Armstrong's teammate on U.S. Postal, his decade spent running from the truth. 'I'm sorry', he told Coyle. 'It just feels so good to be able to talk about this. I've been quiet for so many years'. Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell his story — and his sport's story — in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven — and some flawed — characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

Lottie is tired of long-term boyfriends who don't want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. There will be no dates and no engagement — just a straight wedding march to the altar! Next comes the honeymoon on the Greek island where they first met. But not everyone is thrilled with Lottie and Ben's rushed marriage, and family and friends are determined to intervene. Will Lottie and Ben have a wedding night to remember... or one to forget?

When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher — and you have a badly-set, freshly-busted nose, patched with silver duct tape — it isn't easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia, so he doesn't quit. And at last, he's picked up by three strangers — two men and a woman.

Meet Merlin. He's Lucy's bright, beautiful son — who just happens to be autistic. Since Merlin's father left them in the lurch, Lucy has made Merlin the centre of her world. Struggling with the joys and tribulations of raising her adorable yet challenging child, Lucy doesn't have room for any other man in her life.

Five children meet on their first day of school, one bright September morning. Drawn by that magical spark of connection that happens to the young, Gabby, Billy, Izzie, Andy and Sean — each bursting with their own personality, all with strikingly different looks and diverse talents — soon become an inseparable group, known to everyone else as the Big Five. As they grow up, their seemingly perfect lives are altered by families falling apart, unfortunate mistakes, and losses and victories great and small. Throughout their adolescence, the five are able to turn back to their trusted group to regain their footing and steady their course. But as they emerge from school, their futures seem neither safe nor clear. As their lives separate, the challenges and risks they face become greater, the losses sharper, and it becomes much harder to know the right path to choose. But despite life's ups and downs, together they are able to face up to challenges with the help of the important bonds forged all those years ago. And the five realise just how lucky they are to treasure valuable friendships that last a lifetime.

1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where have the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? 2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive — some said mad, others dangerous — scientist when she finds a curious gadget — a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a ... potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever. And that's an understatement if ever there was one... The Long Earth is the first novel in an exciting new collaboration between the creator of Discworld Terry Pratchett and the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter.

Berlin 1920 Two babies are born. Two brothers. United and indivisible, sharing everything. Twins in all but blood. As Germany marches into its Nazi Armageddon, the ties of family, friendship and love are tested to the very limits of endurance. And the brothers are faced with an unimaginable choice... Which one of them will survive? Ben Elton's most personal novel to date, Two Brothers transports the reader to the time of history's darkest hour.

After building an empire that has made her a legend in business, Olivia spends months each year planning a lavish holiday for everyone in her family to enjoy. This summer she has arranged a dream trip on a luxurious yacht in the Mediterranean, which she hopes will be the most memorable of all. More than anything, she hopes to express her love and her regret at all the important times she missed during her children's early years. But her younger daughter, Cassie, a hip London music producer, refuses the invitation altogether as she does every year. Liz, her older daughter, is preoccupied with a chance to recapture her dream of being a writer and is terrified of failure, again. And her sons John and Phillip work for her, for better or worse, with wives who wish they didn't. Immersed in the splendour of the Riviera, this should be a summer to remember, but old resentments die hard, and Olivia is still running the business full-time. As each of these individuals confront the past and the challenges of the present and future, they also learn to accept the enduring, unconditional love of their family — and a mother who is strong enough to take more than her fair share of the blame, and loving enough to accept them as they really are. The question is: can they do the same for her?

Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant cosmologists of our time, and author of the 10 million copy bestselling A Brief History of Time, one of the iconic books of its generation. Now, for the first time, he tells the story of his own life in his own words, in a book expanded from a lecture of the same name. When you are faced with an early death, writes Stephen Hawking, it makes you realize that life is worth living and that there are lots of things you want to do. From his post-war childhood in London through his undergraduate years at Oxford, Hawking was smart but (according to him) undistinguished, not even the brightest child of his brilliant, eccentric parents. A great lover of jokes and bets, he made an art of doing as little work as possible. All that changed, however, when Hawking received a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, at the age of twenty-one, and began his transformation into the (still fun-loving) explorer and explainer of the universe that we know today. Written with wit, humility, and warmth, My Brief History gives us a candid examination of a life well-lived, including insight into his marriages and family life as well as a portrait of his intellectual evolution. The result is an unprecedented glimpse inside the mind of one of the most world-changing people of our time.