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Genre

Protect the Children

£5.50

Is your father a member of a satanic order? And would your own mother conspire to have you silenced in order to keep the secret?

 

When an unsuspecting care worker stumbles across a plan to abduct a young girl from a children’s home, intuition is ignored, the consequences high.

 

Hidden behind the establishment’s polished façade exists a cult. Paedophilia and ritual sacrifice, life-giving blood in exchange for power and wealth are rife.

 

Below Europe’s surface, a labyrinth is discovered. The Atanii, half human half animal, dwell within its realm – the gods worshiped by the elite, the hidden force that has manipulated the world above for thousands of years.

 

Set in three European countries, five lives collide and become tangled in a web of mysterious intrigue. A dark but humorous tale of missing children, reincarnation and mind control.

Psychomachia

£15.00

Published 05/07/2021

 

PSYCHOMACHIA reads like an NA meeting with Donna Tart, Joan Didion, DBC Pierre, James Frey, Angela Carter, Reinaldo Arenas, Virginia Despentes and JT Leroy battling their collective consciousness. Literature like this is usually presented through the male gaze, hence the fashion and rock n roll literati naming Kirsty Allison London’s finest.

 

She’s hilarious – she’s fucked up. Scarlet Flagg is so wasted, she doesn’t know if she killed the arch patriarch of rock n roll, Malachi Wright of Wright States International Touring after he raped her at a festival at 14. Scarlet is the kinda girl you wanna help, fuck, and leave. But is she dangerous? Did she murder Malachi or was it her boyfriend, Iggy Papershoes, frontman of Heroshima? Or perhaps her drug-dealing father? Scarlet doesn’t remember – she hardly remembers her own name.

 

This is brutal female drug-lit at its finest. The first novel of the real nineties, Scarlet is an unreliable narrator of epic fin-de-millennia proportions floating in a Shoreditch-warehouse haze. Her fast moving chronicle of the secret drug-filled, love starved, sex satiated-nightmare world of East End fashion, art and music afterparties is set in an era before MeToo, when stigmas meant keeping schtum, and getting in with the male-dominated in-crowd relied on copious amounts of class-As. Like Jean Genet in a prison cell, without camera phones, social media or mental health awareness, Scarlet searches for redemption in the pursuit of revenge through blurred lines in Ibiza, Paris, London and New York.

Quieter than Killing

£8.99

‘Hilary is my drop-everything writer; always original, always bang-on psychologically, always gripping. I am a huge fan’ -Alex Marwood

 

‘Tremendous’ -Ian Rankin

 

It’s winter, the nights are dark and freezing, and a series of assaults is pulling DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake out onto streets of London. When Marnie’s family home is ransacked, there are signs that the burglary can have only been committed by someone who knows her.

 

Someone out there is playing games. It is time for both Marnie and Noah to face the truth about the creeping, chilling reaches of a troubled upbringing.

Rogues

£6.00

Commissioned by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, these twenty-one all-original stories by a rogues gallery of bestselling authors will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. Featuring stories by Joe Abercrombie, Daniel Abraham, David W. Ball, Paul Cornell, Bradley Denton, Phyllis Eisenstein, Gillian Flynn, Neil Gaiman, Matthew Hughes, Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Lynch, Garth Nix, Cherie Priest, Patrick Rothfuss, Steven Saylor, Michael Swanwick, Lisa Tuttle, Carrie Vaughn, Walter Jon Williams and Connie Willis. George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand new Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of the Ice and Fire saga.

Roy of the Rovers

£8.99

My name is Roy Race. You know me as Roy of the Rovers. This is my story.

 

From the five terrifying kidnappings that threatened to blight his playing career to the stomach-churning murder attempt in 1980, which left Roy in a life-threatening coma; from the sickening car bomb attack that tragically killed eight of Roy’s team-mates while on a pre-season tour of Basran to the horrific helicopter crash in 1993 that resulted in the amputation of Roy’s legendary left foot: this is the shocking tell-all autobiography of one of England’s greatest ever sportsmen.

 

Candid, emotional, optimistic, strangely repetitive, full of crushing lows and dizzying highs, and bearing an inexplicable resemblance to the plot structure of old comic strips, Roy’s autobiography shines as brightly as the Melchester Rovers legend himself. Sit down, kick back, and treat yourself to the greatest football fairytale story of all time.*

 

*except for Leicester

Siphonophore

£10.99

MacGregor is desperate to return home. Unfortunately, he’s marooned in the Gulf of Darién, following independent Scotland’s doomed colonisation attempt at the end of the 17th century. Worse still, he’s a character in a novel whose author is dying, and he’s running out of time.

 

As the author’s preoccupations, memories and spiralling thoughts start to pollute MacGregor’s world, he finds his narrative eroding and his escape routes blocked. Desperately clinging to hope, MacGregor is determined to keep his Creator writing long enough to deliver him home. But will he be able to drive the story to its end before his Creator reaches theirs?

Sticks and Stones

£12.99

‘A revenge thriller to make you punch the air in solidarity’ Eva Dolan, author of This Is How It Ends
‘A gripping story, sensitively told’ Laura Marshall, author of Friend Request
‘Deliciously dark and gripping’ Emily Koch, author of If I Die Before I Wake

 

Imogen’s husband is a bad man. His ex-wife and his new mistress might have different perspectives but Imogen thinks she knows the truth. And now he’s given her an ultimatum: get out of the family home in the next fortnight or I’ll fight you for custody of our son.

 

In a moment of madness, Imogen does something unthinkable: she locks her husband in the cellar. Now she’s in control. But how far will she go to protect her son and punish her husband? And what will happen when his ex and his girlfriend get tangled up in her plans?

 

Sticks and Stones is a deliciously twisting psychological thriller from an unforgettable new voice.

The Bivouac

£6.50

First published in 1837, The Bivouac is a collection of stories set against the backdrop of the Peninsular War (which began in 1808, making 2008 the bicentenary). It opens with a company of foot soldiers encamped in England when they receive their orders to sail for the Iberian Peninsula and follows it through the campaign against the French in Portugal and Spain, including the battles of Vittoria and Busaco. As well as the overarching story of their part in the Peninsular War, it also includes tales told by the characters themselves about other aspects of the lives. Focusing on the officers and soldiers of the company, rather than just on military matters, The Bivouac blends fiction and history and is a charming collection of stories that puts a different perspective on this part of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Bullet That Missed

£20.00

It is an ordinary Thursday and things should finally be returning to normal.

Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers.

Then, a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill . . . or be killed.

As the cold case turns white hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

The Devil’s Playground

£7.99

In his debut novel, Stav Sherez – author of the best-selling Carrigan & Miller detective series – explores a history of terror and mass murder rooted in Europe’s murky past.

 

In a forgotten corner of a rain-lashed park in Amsterdam, the body of a tramp is found. The scarring on his body suggests he may be the latest victim of a serial killer terrorizing the city, but the police can find no name, only the telephone number of a young Englishman.

 

Jon Reed is summoned from London to identify the body of the man he once knew as Jake Colby. With a killer on the loose, he and the detective in charge of the case are determined to help uncover the truth of what happened, no matter where that may lead them.

The Essence of an Hour

£12.99

“Youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald


It’s 1941, the last summer of American innocence, and eighteen-year-old Lillie Carrigan is desperate to love and be loved, to lose her virginity, to experience her life’s great, epic romance. Preoccupied with whiskey and cigarettes, sex and Catholic guilt, Lillie unknowingly sets in motion events leading to death and estrangement from her two best friends.

 

A decade on, Lillie is still haunted by the ghosts of that summer. Did she act solely out of youthful naivety and adolescent jealousy? Or perhaps there were darker forces at work: grief, guilt, sexual assault, and the double standards of her strict religious upbringing. Searching for patterns and meaning in the events of that year, and anxious to understand the person she has become, Lillie reflects on the darkness of her tarnished youth and confesses her sins.

The Glovemaker

£6.99

London, 1649. Oliver Cromwell is running the country, and a law targeting unmarried mothers threatens the life of glovemaker Rachel Lockyer. This is her story.

 

‘This is historical fiction at its best – it is absolutely steeped in atmosphere, and so vividly recreates the interregnum era that I felt as though I’d been transported there. Stacia’s prose has a beautiful originality; and her characters come alive with authenticity and humanity. They are loveable and infuriating by turns, but the reader always believes in them, and invests hopes and fears with them. The story kept me gripped from the very first page; by turns desperately sad, funny and heart warming. I have genuinely enjoyed this book far more than anything else I have read for several months. I loved it!’ Katherine Webb, author of The Legacy and The Unseen

The Harvest of Chronos

£10.99

An epic, homourous and quite unique historical novel which looks at Central Europe in the 16th century – a territory plagued by ceaseless battles for supremacy between the Protestant political elite and the ruling Catholic Habsburg Monarchy, as well as the ongoing battle between the sexes. In Kumerdej’s wonderful saga, history and fiction intertwine in wavelike fashion, producing a colourful portrait of the Renaissance; permeated by humanist attempts to resurrect antiquity through art, new scientific findings, and spirited philosophical and theological debates.

The Howl of the Wolf

£9.99

A man does battle with a wolf, two sworn brothers lock horns – literally – as they drink and brag the night away, and an old man turns to his flame-bellied stove for comfort when facing a bitter winter alone.

 

These are just some of the fascinating folk who inhabit the magical stories of Hong Ke. Set in Xinjiang, the gateway between China and Middle Asia, The Howl of the Wolf paints a colourful picture of frontier life in all its earthy glory.

The Last Hours

£20.00

June, 1348: the Black Death enters England through the port of Melcombe in the county of Dorsetshire. Unprepared for the virulence of the disease, and the speed with which it spreads, the people of the county start to die in their thousands.

 

In the estate of Develish, Lady Anne takes control of her people’s future – including the lives of two hundred bonded serfs. Strong, compassionate and resourceful, Lady Anne chooses a bastard slave, Thaddeus Thurkell, to act as her steward. Together, they decide to quarantine Develish by bringing the serfs inside the walls. With this sudden overturning of the accepted social order, where serfs exist only to serve their lords, conflicts soon arise. Ignorant of what is happening in the world outside, they wrestle with themselves, with God and with the terrible uncertainty of their futures.

 

Lady Anne’s people fear starvation but they fear the pestilence more. Who amongst them has the courage to leave the security of the walls?

 

And how safe is anyone in Develish when a dreadful event threatens the uneasy status quo..?

The Marriage Portrait

£25.00

‘Every bit as evocative and spellbinding as Hamnet . O’Farrell, thank God, just seems to be getting better and better’ i newspaper
‘Her narrative enchantment will wrest suspense and surprise out of a death foretold’ Financial Times
‘Ingenious, inventive, humane, wry, truthful . . . better than her last novel’ Scotsman
‘Finely written and vividly imagined’ Guardian
‘In O’Farrell’s hands, historical detail comes alive’ Spectator

Marriage was her destiny. Now she must survive it.


The breathtaking new novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Hamnet, winner of
the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020.

**AS SELECTED FOR BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB**

The Marriage Portrait is a dazzling evocation of the Italian Renaissance in all its beauty and brutality.

Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here. He intends to kill her.

Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence’s grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband.

What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival.

The Marriage Portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.

The Mermaid of Black Conch: A novel from the Vintage Earth collection

£9.99

Escape to the ocean with the entrancing, unforgettable winner of the Costa Book of the Year – as read on BBC Radio 4.

On a quiet day, near the Caribbean island of Black Conch, a mermaid raises her barnacled head from the flat grey sea. She is attracted by David, a fisherman waiting for a catch, singing to himself with his guitar. Aycayia the mermaid has been living in the vast ocean all alone for centuries.

When Aycayia is caught and dragged ashore by American tourists, David rescues her with the aim of putting her back in the ocean. But it is soon clear that the mermaid is already transforming into a woman.

This is the story of their love affair, of an island and of the great wide sea.

‘Mesmerising’ Maggie O’Farrell author of The Marriage Portrait

‘A unique talent’ Bernadine Evaristo author of Girl, Women, Other

‘Not your standard mermaid’ Margaret Atwood author of The Testaments

VINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.

The Rabbit Hutch: THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER

£16.99

*Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize *

 

* A Waterstones Book of the Year for 2022*

 

* A Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award *

 

‘Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny’ Guardian

 

Blandine isn’t like the other residents of her building.

 

An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents – neighbours, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial centre of Vacca Vale, Indiana.

 

Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch.

 

Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her flat with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives.

 

Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.

‘Gunty writes with a keen, sensitive eye about all manner of intimacies-the kind we build with other people, and the kind we cultivate around ourselves and our tenuous, private aspirations.’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster

The Sacred River

£6.50

Harriet Heron’s life is almost over before it has even begun. At just twenty-three years of age, she is an invalid, over-protected and reclusive. Before it is too late, she must escape the fog of Victorian London for a place where she can breathe.

 

Together with her devoted mother, Louisa, her god-fearing aunt, Yael, and a book of her own spells inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Harriet travels to a land where the air is tinged with rose and gold and for the first time begins to experience what it is to live. But a chance meeting on the voyage to Alexandria results in a dangerous friendship as Louisa’s long-buried past returns, in the form of someone determined to destroy her by preying upon her daughter.

 

As Harriet journeys towards a destiny no one could have foreseen, her aunt Yael is caught up in an Egypt on the brink of revolt and her mother must confront the spectres of her own youth.

 

Award-winning journalist and writer Wendy Wallace spins a tale of three women caught between propriety and love on a journey of cultural awakening through an exquisitely drawn Egypt. In prose both sumptuous and mesmeric, she conjures a sensibility akin to that of E M Forster and Merchant Ivory.

The Satsuma Complex

£16.99

‘Funny, clever and sweet… there is a lot of Mortimer’s ridiculousness’ – Sunday Times
‘The much loved comic proves adept at noirish fiction in a debut whose surrealist humour sets it apart’ – Observer

My name is Gary. I’m a thirty-year-old legal assistant with a firm of solicitors in London. To describe me as anonymous would be unfair but to notice me other than in passing would be a rarity. I did make a good connection with a girl, but that blew up in my face and smacked my arse with a fish slice.

Gary Thorn goes for a pint with a work acquaintance called Brendan. When Brendan leaves early, Gary meets a girl in the pub. He doesn’t catch her name, but falls for her anyway. When she suddenly disappears without saying goodbye, all Gary has to remember her by is the book she was reading: The Satsuma Complex. But when Brendan goes missing, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Satsuma to get some answers.

And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life…

A page-turning story with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Satsuma Complex is the brilliantly funny first novel by bestselling author and comedian Bob Mortimer.

The Sea on Fire

£5.00

When they were young men, Kim and his best friend, Garland Rain, travelled the world. They worked as dive guides, living free and easy by the sea. Garland is still out there, but Kim’s life is different now. He’s married and a father of three.

 

Still longing for the freedom of the water, Kim agrees to help Garland run a one-time trip to the spectacular Brothers Islands in the Red Sea. What neither man expects is just how badly wrong it will go. Drugs and violence collide, and not everyone returns safely.

 

Back on dry land, Kim finds that the decisions you make in the moment can come back to haunt you, even follow you home.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: Winner of the Booker Prize 2022

£16.99

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022

A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest.

But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Karunatilaka is back with a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths.

‘Fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars’ The Booker judges

‘Recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls or Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita … Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country’s history’ Guardian

‘Outstanding… the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade.’ New European

The Wager

£6.50

One of the classics of South American literature. ‘It is not enough to say that he is an important American novelist; he is one of the masters in either hemisphere.’ – New York Times

 

Aires returns home to his native Rio after many years abroad and is captivated by a young widow whom he sees praying at her husband’s graveside. Her charm and the tragic story of her brief marriage increase his fascination, and soon he is indulging in impossible dreams. But the Brazil that Aires remembers from his youth is changing fast. A new era is dawning with events such as the coming of the railway and the abolition of slavery. The future belongs to a younger generation, to men like Tristao, the doctor and political candidate, who is also an admirer of the beautiful widow. This is a story of broken dreams, love, and obsession-universal themes that give the author’s work the timeless quality for which it is renowned.

The Wall of Sky, the Wall of Eye

£5.00

Jonathan Lethem again displays his brilliance in this collection of seven short stories, blurring the boundaries of sci-fi, mystery, and thriller. Tales include ‘Light and the Sufferer’, in which a crack addict is dogged by an invulnerable alien; ‘The Hardened Criminals’, wherein convicts are used as building blocks for new prisons; and ‘The Happy Man’, whose hapless protagonist is raised from the dead to support his family, only to suffer periodic out-of-body sojourns in Hell. Each tale features Lethem’s characteristic deadpan wit and unflinchingly macabre vision of life.

The Windsor Knot

£8.99

On a perfect Spring morning at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II will enjoy a cup of tea, carry out all her royal duties . . . and solve a murder.


The perfect book for fans of The Crown and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

 

The morning after a dinner party at Windsor Castle, eighty-nine-year-old Queen Elizabeth is shocked to discover that one of her guests has been found murdered in his room, with a rope around his neck.

 

When the police begin to suspect her loyal servants, Her Majesty knows they are looking in the wrong place.

 

For the Queen has been living an extraordinary double life ever since her coronation. Away from the public eye, she has a brilliant knack for solving crimes.

 

With her household’s happiness on the line, her secret must not get out. Can the Queen and her trusted secretary Rozie catch the killer, without getting caught themselves?

This is How it Ends

£7.99

LONGLISTED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR

 

Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month

 

The Times Crime Book of the Month

 

Mail on Sunday Thriller of the Week

 

‘Elegantly crafted, humane and thought-provoking. She’s top drawer’ Ian Rankin

 

This is how it begins. With a near-empty building, the inhabitants forced out of their homes by property developers. With two women: idealistic, impassioned blogger Ella and seasoned campaigner, Molly. With a body hidden in a lift shaft. But how will it end?

Three Seconds

£4.00

Piet Hoffman is the best undercover operative in the Swedish police force, but only one other man is even aware of his existence. When an amphetamine deal he is involved in goes badly wrong, he is faced with the hardest mission of his life: to infiltrate Sweden’s most infamous maximum security prison.

 

 

Detective Inspector Ewert Grens is charged with investigating the drug-related killing. Unaware of Hoffman’s real identity, he believes himself to be on the trail of a dangerous psychopath. But he cannot escape the feeling that vital information pertaining to the case has been withheld or manipulated.

 

 

Hoffman has his insurance: wiretap recordings that implicate some of Sweden’s most prominent politicians in a corrupt conspiracy. But in Ewert Grens the powers that be might just have found the perfect weapon to eliminate him…

Under the Mound

£9.00

During the Yule season of 1153 Malcolm mac Alasdair is sent to serve the half-Scottish, half-Viking Earl of Orkney, who is on a quest to regain his earldom from a treacherous cousin. Malcolm is an artistic boy with no knack for warfare, he is certain that he will only hinder the young earl – and get himself killed in the bargain. His father’s reason for sending him out on this adventure does nothing to allay his fears: in a vision he has seen Malcolm go to Orkney with Earl Harald. But this vision is incomplete – he hasn’t seen Malcolm return…

Until the Darkness Comes

£5.00

PI John Craine has come to Hale Island to get away from it all – the memories and the guilt, and a past that just won’t let go.

 

 

But within hours he stumbles across the dead body of a young girl on the beach. When the police arrive the body has inexplicably disappeared. Or – in his already tormented state – did Craine imagine it in the first place?

 

 

Determined to get at the truth, Craine starts asking questions. But it seems no one on the island is talking. And all too soon he finds himself tangled up in a deadly network of fear and violence.

 

 

Someone has a dark secret to keep, and Craine is getting in the way…

White Time

£4.90

Time out of time, people call it., but they’re wrong. It’s all time, like white light is all colours, or white noise is all pitches of noise coming at you together.

 

In this transcendent collection of short stories, Lanagan deftly navigates a new set of worlds in which the boundaries between reality and possibility are paper-thin . . . and sometimes disappear altogether.

 

Prepare to be unsettled, intrigued and dazzled by what a master storyteller can do in a few short pages.

Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies

£4.00

Thomas Cromwell. Son of a blacksmith, political genius, briber, charmer, bully. A man with a deadly expertise in manipulating people and events.

 

Mike Poulton’s ‘expertly adapted’ (Evening Standard) two-part ad adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies is a ‘gripping piece of narrative theatre … history made manifest’ (Guardian). The plays were premiered to great acclaim by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2013, before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End in May 2014.

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