Abilio Estévez

Abir Mukherjee is the bestselling author of the award-winning Wyndham &amp; Banerjee series of crime novels set in 1920s India and the British Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year 2025 Hunted. His books have been translated into sixteen languages and won various awards including the CWA Dagger for best Historical Novel, the Prix du Polar Européen, and the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing. 
 
 
He also co-hosts the popular Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast which takes a wry look at the world of books, writing, and the creative arts, tackling everything from bestsellers to pop culture. Abir grew up in Scotland and now lives in Surrey with his wife and two sons. 
 
 
Website: abirmukherjee.com Twitter, Threads &amp; Instagram: @radiomukhers Facebook: AuthorAbir

Abir Mukherjee

Abolqasem Ferdowsi

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham L. Newman is a professor at the School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University. He is a 2022-2023 Berlin Prize winner and his work has been published in leading outlets like The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Nature, Science, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, and Politico.

Abraham Newman

Abraham Verghese

Absolut Vodka

Ad Putter

Ada Moncrieff is the author of Murder Most Festive, Murder at the Theatre Royale and Murder at Maybridge Castle. She lives and works in London.

Ada Moncrieff

Adam Aleksic is a linguist and content creator posting educational videos as the “Etymology Nerd” to an audience of over two million. As a linguistics student at Harvard College, he founded and served as president of the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. He’s discussed online language on NPR, repeatedly contributed to The Washington Post, and his work has been mentioned in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Guardian. He’s lectured on language and social media at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and other top universities, including a TEDx talk at the University of Pennsylvania. Adam is based in New York City, where he spends a lot of time scrolling TikTok for “research.”

Adam Aleksic

Adam Alter is an Associate Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, and holds an affiliated appointment within the Psychology Department. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel and Behave and has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Wired, Popular Science and numerous other publications.

Adam Alter

Professor Adam Balen is lead clinician at one of the UK's largest and most successful IVF units at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. In recognition of his research on fertility and related conditions, he holds a DSc (the highest academic degree in medicine) from the University of Leeds. Adam is internationally renowned, holding roles with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Federation of Gyneacology and Obstetrics (FIGO) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gyneacologists (RCOG). He runs both NHS and private fertility clinics so he understands the issues that arise from both sides and he works closely with fertility patient support organisations across the UK. Adam regularly features in the media on all aspects of reproductive health and lectures widely throughout the world.

Adam Balen

Adam Baron

Adam Bornstein

Adam Brookes grew up in the UK and was a journalist with BBC News for many years. As a foreign correspondent he was based in Indonesia, China and the United States. Along the way he reported from many other countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea. He lives in Washington DC.

Adam Brookes

Adam Buxton

Adam Christopher is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith and Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town. He has also written official tie-in novels for the hit CBS television show Elementary and the award-winning Dishonored video game franchise. Co-creator of the twenty-first-century incarnation of Archie Comics superhero The Shield, Adam has also written for the universes of Doctor Who and World of Warcraft, and is a contributor to the internationally bestselling Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View anniversary anthology series and the all-ages Star Wars Adventures comic. Adam’s original novels include Made to Kill and The Burning Dark, among many others, and his debut novel Empire State was both a SciFi Now and Financial Times book of the year.

Adam Christopher

Adam Foulds's most recent books are In the Wolf’s Mouth, The Quickening Maze, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature, and The Broken Word, which won the Costa Poetry Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. He has recently been awarded the E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and named as one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’.

Adam Foulds

Dr Adam Fox is a highly qualified and respected allergy specialist and consultant paediatric allergist and clinical lead for Allergy at Guy's &amp; St Thomas' Hospitals. The Times recently named him as one of Britain's top 100 children’s doctors. 
 
www.allergyfreebabyandtoddler.com

Adam Fox

Adam Frost

Adam Galinsky is currently the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He received his PhD from Princeton University in Social Psychology and his B.A. from Harvard University.

Adam Galinsky

Adam Glasser

Adam Goodfellow

Adam Goodwin

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. His books have sold millions of copies, his TED talks have been viewed more than 30 million times, and he hosts the hit podcast Re:Thinking. His pioneering research on motivation and meaning has enabled people to reach their aspirations and exceed others' expectations. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across platforms. He has been recognized as one of the world's ten most influential management thinkers and Fortune's 40 Under 40, and has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. Grant received his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he is a former Junior Olympic springboard diver. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their three children.

Adam Grant

Adam and Charlotte met in Zanzibar while working with Voluntary Services Overseas. Upon their return to the UK, Charlotte completed an MA at Oxford Brookes and started her career in publishing. Adam in the meantime became writer-in-residence at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre before co-founding Storytelling Schools, an international organisation dedicated to training teachers in oracy, literacy and creativity. Adam and Charlotte's first book together was the best-selling and award-winning Spaghetti with the Yeti. Since then, Adam and Charlotte have continued to follow their passion for creating engaging books that inspire interaction and creativity in young readers.

Adam Guillain

ADAM HAMDY is a bestselling author and screenwriter. His most recent novel, The Other Side of Night, was an NPR best book of 2022 and a New York Times best thriller of the year, and has been described as ingenious and deeply moving. He is the author of the Scott Pearce series of modern spy thrillers, Black 13, Red Wolves and White Fire, and the Pendulum trilogy. Keep up to date with his latest books and news at www.adamhamdy.com.

Adam Hamdy

Adam Hart-Davis

Adam Haslett is the author of the story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here and the novels Imagine Me Gone and Union Atlantic. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and his books have been translated into over thirty languages. His journalism on culture and politics has appeared in The Financial Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Nation, and The Atlantic, among others. He lives in New York City.

Adam Haslett

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Susan Sallis

An epic tale of love and rivalry from the Sunday Times bestselling author and multi-million copy seller Susan Sallis, perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy and Rosamunde Pilcher. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING SWEETER THAN WINE! 
"This is a good read with vivid characters and locations." - 5 STARS 
"I'm looking forward to more stories by this author. Hopefully there will be more about these characters in the future." - 5 STARS 
 
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Two families. Two young lovers. Their loyalties divided; their hearts torn in two. 
 
1850, Barbados. A quarrel between two rival families on a sugar plantation sets off years of resentment and rivalry between the Rudolphs and the Martinez. 
 
1927, Bristol. Jack Martinez dances with Maude Rudolph at the Michaelmas Ball. A spark is kindled, a passion grows. 
 
Can the two young lovers bring their families together or will age-old enmities be too deep-rooted...?

Sweeter Than Wine

A heart-warming and uplifting romance from bestselling author Susan Sallis…

Anthea Halliwell

For Fidgie, living in pre-war Wales, the long school holiday stretched blissfully ahead. With her new friend Chaz as companion for idyllic summer days by the sea, she was able frequently to escape her edgy mother and her malicious older sister, Cly. Her father, mercifully, was away from home ... 
 
Through Fidgie's clear eyes the events of a brief hot spell in August unfold: her family and neighbours become involved in adultery, deception, and other, darker, misdemeanours. The eight-year-old child is an engaging and lively narrator; swept along by her extraordinarily compelling tale, the reader will realise that underlying Fidgie's innocent accounts of family meals, fishing trips round the bay, tree-climbing and playing at May Queens, a very adult sub-text is developing. Its conclusion is both tragic and inevitable. 
 
Anthea Halliwell's novel marks the emergence of a delightfully individual voice and a most original storytelling talent.

The Cuckoo's Parting Cry

Patricia Burns

They were the talented ones - young, fresh, arrogant, with a bright golden world swinging ahead of them. Then came that terrible, traumatic summer, their last summer together, the summer that had savagely thrust them into the adult world. 
 
Jill - the leader, brilliant, ambitious. She made it to the top but never recovered from that nightmare summer. 
 
Carol - lovely, languid, destined to be a great artist until her own sexuality destroyed her dreams. 
 
Penny - determined to drag herself from a council estate and a scrounging father to the glittering world of the stage. 
 
Andrea - loyal, obedient, self-effacing - and dazzled to be part of the clever set. She never realized her life was a lie. 
 
They never really knew the truth about that summer - just that it had changed their lives.

With A Little Help From My Friends

Lucy Fitzgerald

Oonagh, Rose and Teresa really only took one thing seriously - having fun.At school they had enjoyed upsetting the nuns by deliberately sticking up for abortion, homosexuals, and Sinead O'Connor, and wearing their school skirts either too long or too short.Big time girls in the small town of Ballycanty, they relieved the monotony of their lives by repeating gossip, and when there wasn't any, by making it up.And when one of them heard that someone in town had an unmentionable disease, well, it was too much of a temptation not to embroider the story a little, just to make it more exciting. 
 
It was Teresa on whom the gossip would backfire.And when her fast-living sister turned up from England amidst a positive welter of rumours, Teresa found life exploding round her.Suddenly 'having fun' was no longer enough and as sadness touched her life for the first time she grew increasingly disturbed - about her friends, sex, the Church, and indeed her whole life.At the end of that burning summer, Teresa faced up to some painful decisions and decided that things must change.

Liar Birds

Elvi Rhodes

Perfect for fans of Kitty Neale, Rosie Goodwin and Dilly Court, this is an emotional and powerful saga by multi-million copy seller Elvi Rhodes. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING THE RAINBOW THROUGH THE RAIN! 
 
"I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed this book." -- ***** Reader review 
"Thoroughly enjoyed this book" -- ***** Reader review 
"Excellent read - I love all Elvi Rhodes books" -- ***** Reader review 
 
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AS THE STORM CLOUDS OF WAR GATHER, WILL HER LIFE BE THE ONE SHE DREAMED OF? 
 
The Brogdens are one of Chalywell's most important families: their antique business is famous for its beautiful furniture and pictures. But the most beautiful - and valuable - thing in Old Jacob Brogden's life is his granddaughter, Lois - for Lois reminds him of the daughter he had lost so tragically many years ago. 
 
When Lois falls in love with John Farrar, the whole family are dismayed, for between Jacob and the Farrars lies a deep and abiding feud that can never be mended. 
 
Lois, conscious of the storm clouds of war gathering over her future, determines that nothing and no-one should come between her and her beloved John. 
 
But as war breaks out and families are torn apart, Lois finds her life changing irrevocably.

The Rainbow Through The Rain

A moving, heart-warming and uplifting story of love and loyalty that you’ll never forget

Sally Stewart

James Rushton dominated both his thriving wine business and large family with all the style of an old autocrat.It was part of his plans that Jane, his only daughter - already thirty-one and likely to become a spinster if she wasn't careful - should marry her cousin William, not a love-match exactly, but highly convenient for the family. 
 
But Jane, slight, plain, quiet, wanted more than William's obedient acquiescence, for she had loved her careless handsome cousin for a long time.On the point of settling for the little she could have, she discovered a shameless betrayal.Humiliated, not really wanted at home, she took the most daring decision of her life - to go and live and work in Italy. 
 
It was to be the beginning of a long, passionate, and overwhelming involvement with the Buonaventura family, aristocratic, and torn apart by the strife of Mussolini's new Italy.To Jane, Ottavio Buonaventura and his family were a fascinating challenge.And the impoverished aristocrats at Castagnolo were to discover that the quiet Englishwoman was to revolutionise their lives.

A Rose For Every Month

Young Janey Rowland lived in Linden Mews, in the flat over the garage. She was the housekeeper's daughter, the chauffeur's daughter, and even though she was a bright and sensitive child, she had been taught to know her place when it came to going round to the big house - the Marchant house - in Linden Square. 
 
But the two families - on the surface separated by a gulf of birth, wealth and breeding - were deeply involved and reliant on each other. Old secrets, old emotions, seethed beneath the respectable facade they preserved between them. And then the war came. 
 
As the barriers between the Marchants and the Rowlands began to crumble, so Jane - quiet, beautiful, and with a great capacity for love - began to become more and more the hub of the wealthy Marchant family, the one on whom they all depended, the one who had to unravel and solve the emotional disasters left over from the past.

Echoes In The Square

William Kowalski

Eddie's Bastard spins the warm, endearing tale of William Amos Mann IV and of the inhabitants of his eponymous small upstate New York town, Mannville. 
 
Related in flashback by the adult Billy, the story begins with him being deposited as an infant on the doorstep of his grandfather's home in a simple wicker basket with a plain two-word message pinned to his shawl reading 'Eddie's Bastard'. Eddie had been killed in Vietnam three months earlier - his father, Thomas Mann Jnr, had given up on life, having lost his only son and, he thought, his only heir. But now, suddenly, Thomas has a grandson and an heir - if not to the once-vast Mann fortune (for Thomas had recklessly squandered that in a foolhardy enterprise just after his heroic return from WWII), then at least to the long legacy of the Mann family stories, stretching back to the Civil War. 
 
Eddie's Bastard is filled with episodes of madcap adventure and resonates with the power of lifelong friendship. By turns hilarious, thrilling and heart-breaking, here is a début that stays in the mind long after the reading is over.

Eddie's Bastard

Fans of Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy will love this warm-hearted and moving novel from multi-million copy seller Elvi Rhodes. The perfect dose of escapism! 
 
READERS ARE LOVING MIXED BLESSINGS! 
"The twists and turns of the main characters keeping you entertained and wanting more" - 5 STARS 
"She really brings characters to life" - 5 STARS 
"Captivates you on every page" - 5 STARS 
 
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CAN OLD LIVES AND NEW LIVES EVER BE RECONCILED? 
 
For Venus Stanton, the attractive young vicar of Thurston, life could not be better. When she first came to this traditional parish, many people found it hard to accept a woman priest. After a tricky start, however, she is now accepted by most of her parishioners, even though some people still cannot and will not recognize her. 
 
 But vicars have their personal lives as well, and to the delight and surprise of the parish Venus is to marry Nigel, the doctor from the local practice. Her eleven-year-old daughter Becky, after some misgivings, has accepted the idea and there is a joyous ceremony at the church, after which the happy pair set off for honeymoon in France. 
 
On their return, they try to settle down to their new life, but Venus soon finds that marriage, motherhood and her priestly duties do not always go together... 
 
Mixed Blessings continues the story started in A Blessing in Disguise...

Mixed Blessings

A wonderfully heart-warming novel guaranteed to stay with you for ever

John Griesemer

1959. The Korean War has been over for six years. Corporal Rudy Spruance, thanks to a little hometown trouble, has just enlisted in the U.S. Army. 
 
The next thing he knows he is being savaged by mosquitoes in one of the most remote places in the world, a military hospital in Qangattarsa, Greenland that doesn't officially exist. "You'll want to scratch," he is told when he wakes up in one of the beds. But Rudy wants to do more than scratch. He wants to know what this strange place is for and why he's there. 
 
And then he discovers the Wing. The Wing is a room of dead people who are still alive - the remnants of American soldiers in Korea whose hearts somehow still beat, men who have been reduced to mere portions of humans. They are too damaged to ever send home and their families believe them gone. It's the most peaceful place Rudy has ever been, and he befriends the only mentally coherent inhabitant, Guy X. 
 
Rudy also falls in love with Irene, a sergeant. And he finds himself starting up a base newspaper. And all the time the days are getting shorter. Soon the Stark Raving Dark of permanent night will be upon them all. As things degenerate and the future of Qangattarsa and the men who live their strange half-lives there becomes increasingly doubtful, Rudy realises he must find a way to save the people he loves - and himself. 
 
This is a moving, powerful and very funny portrait of human absurdity and tragedy that joins Catch-22 as a classic of its kind.

No-One Thinks Of Greenland

With his widely acclaimed debut, 28-year-old William Kowalski emerged as one of the most exciting and distinctive new American writers in years. In his hew book, Kowalski once again proves himself an extraordinarily gifted writer as he follows his hero Billy Mann on his search for the mother who deserted him as a baby. Now 20 years old, Billy travels atop his beloved motorcycle to the last known address he has for her ot a side street named Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is a journey that will teach him many things about family, friends, love - and death. 
 
Filled with wondrous imagery and lyricism, Somewhere South of Here has a lightness of touch that belies how very much it has to say about life's greatest themes of all.

Somewhere South Of Here

Gertrude Wyndham had come to Providence as a young bride and had somehow fused an ill-knit family together and made the beautiful old house a place of refuge and healing. And then the war came. 
 
Her daughter Sybil never returned from France. Defying all convention she went to live with Henri Blanchard, twenty years older than herself, a man who, for years, had been in love with her mother. 
 
Ned Wyndham, the beloved son and heir of Providence, returned from the trenches a shell-shocked ghost locked into his own private hell. Only at Providence did he appear to return to some kind of tranquillity - and now it seemed as though the house must be sold, for the war had devastated the fortunes of the Wyndhams as well as Ned's sanity. 
 
It was Lucy who was to save their home. Frank Thornley, son of a wealthy Birmingham factory owner, desperately loved the third child of Providence. If she married him, the house and the family would be saved. And so Lucy, young, warm, vibrant, married Frank whom she did not love, and hoped that, in time, Providence would make everything come right for all of them.

The Bird Of Happiness

1919 - when Phoebe Maynard - after her mother had died - found the old journal in the attic it reminded her of several things -of her early childhood growing up in Spain, of her father's distress whenever she spoke of that country, and of her mother's long years of fretful ill-health once they had returned to their Oxfordshire manor house.Phoebe, and her sister, Lydia, had never understood why the 'land of nightingales' was such an emotive subject within the family, but when their father died it suddenly became clear.His will revealed that Phoebe and Lydia had a Spanish half-brother - Juan Rodriguez. 
 
It seemed that Juan was as shocked as they were by his foreign connections and was determined to have nothing to do with his English relatives - but the blood-tie was there. 
 
As Phoebe and Lydia finally found a happiness of their own in England, the past constantly intruded on their tranquil lives.It was when young Holly, Phoebe's orphaned niece-by-marriage, came onto the scene that the two worlds met and exploded into an emotional turmoil that was to be made even more violent as Holly and Juan found themselves caught up in the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War.

The Land Of Nightingales

When Lavinia St Clyst married Julian Bossiney at St George's, Hanover Square, it was a marriage of convenience on both sides.Julian was linked at last to the real, the old aristocracy, and Lavinia, tolerated as a poor relation of the wealthy St Clyst family, could finally free herself from living on her uncle's charity and have a home of her own.It was at the fashionable wedding reception that - too late - she met the man she should have married - Jonathan Bossiney, her husband's brother. 
 
As she began her new life in the beautiful old stone house standing high on the Cornish cliffs, so she determined that the unspoken love between her and Jonathan would remain secret and unfulfilled.For her children, Tristram and Jennifer, things would be different.There would be no obstacles to their love.But as the years passed, so the family pattern was repeated, of lovers divided by class, by wealth, by the very passion and wildness of their Cornish blood.It was not until the third generation that at last the cruel divisions were healed, and Lavinia also found her abiding happiness.

The Snows Of Springtime

'Long-shanks Gertie' the village children called her, chasing her all the way to school. It was because she was different, with her long legs and long dark hair and clean pinafore. And, as the daughter of the land-agent on Providence, she accepted that she didn't belong anywhere - not part of the village, and not part of the Squire's family at the Big House. 
 
But she was fascinated by Squire Wyndham's family - Louise, the arrogant daughter of the house who never missed an opportunity of snubbing her. James, who was handsome and wonderful and charming - and who was one day to break her heart. And William, the heir, quiet, bookish, and almost as much as misfit as she was. But above all there was Lady Hester. It was Lady Hester who saw something in Gertrude that no one else had perceived - a quality of strength and endurance that would serve the family well. 
 
Between them Lady Hester and Gertrude Hoskins were to be the salvation of Providence.

The Women Of Providence

Margaret Mayhew

Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Donna Douglas, a saga full of the heart-wrenching emotion and drama of World War II from bestselling author Margaret Mayhew. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING THE CREW! 
 
"I could not put the book down" - 5 STARS 
"Loved this book" - 5 STARS 
"Excellent! Highly recommended! Wonderful WWII story. Great character development." - 5 STARS 
"This book really has you never wanting to put it down until the end." - 5 STARS 
 
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THE HEROIC STORY OF SEVEN MEN...AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVED THEM. 
 
A crew of seven men in one Lancaster bomber: one American, one Scot, one foppish aristocrat, one Aussie, one aged London cockney, one semi blind mid-upper gunner and one seventeen year old who has lied to get into the air force. 
 
Initially they fail to get on or work together - almost crashing on their first landing. Yet, as they begin their first real gut-dropping bombing raids over Germany and despite their mixed backgrounds, they begin to develop as a real crew, depending on each other. 
 
Off the airfield, the women who love them pray every night for their safe return. 
 
A wonderful emotive, gripping, heart-wrenching novel of men, and women, at their best.

The Crew

A perfectly heart-warming, moving and uplifting wartime drama that will capture your heart

In 'A Matter of Time', Martin has inherited a house from his late aunt in New York, and his girlfriend Linda has moved over there with him. She finds herself feeling very lost, though, and wondering why she is there. She loves Martin, but will her new surroundings ever feel like home? 
 
In 'A New Beginning', Primrose is becoming bored of the tedium of farm life. She knows she will miss it - the farm and its surrounding hills and river have been her home for the past twenty-four years. But she is convinced that the bright lights and buzz of London is what she needs now for her new start in life. But a new friendship in the Yorkshire Dales forces her to reconsider whether a new beginning really means moving away. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Summer Promise and Other Stories.

A Matter of Time/A New Beginning (Storycuts)

Joanne Harris

In 'A Place in the Sun', Platinum is the beach everyone aspires to be on - the exclusive Beach of Beaches. Only the most beautiful bodies are permitted to enter. The old, the plain and the overweight have to accept that they will never be allowed in, in spite of all the facelifts, boob jobs and lipos that money can buy. 
 
In 'Al and Christine's World of Leather', Christine and Candy meet at Weightwatchers, and are soon firm friends. The knitting coven they start turns into a thriving hand knitting business, with Candy the designer, and Christine the workforce. But when Candy's designs turn to leather, and Christine starts wondering what the big flap in the trousers is for, their friendship starts to unravel... 
 
In 'The Spectator', elderly Mr Meadows, a retired teacher - before his profession was abolished - likes to take his morning walk past the school, ignoring the signs saying SCHOOL: NO UNACCOMPANIED ADULTS, because he innocently likes to watch the children playing. Surely there can't be any harm in that? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

A Place in the Sun/Al and Christine’s World of Leather/The Spectator (Storycuts)

In 'A Summer Remembered', as Laura is busy with the Christmas preparations, while looking after her children Richard and Millie, she can't help but wish she were back on their summer holiday in Normandy. When her husband presents her with her Christmas gift - a holiday to a destination of her choice, money no object - it is still Normandy she yearns for...but what secret is she hiding from her husband? 
 
In 'Be Your Age, Dear', Chloe Patterson is lucky enough to not only have a daughter and a granddaughter around her, but also her own mother. But she battles with the dilemma of how she is perceived as a grandmother - and how she should be behaving as such - and how she really feels about herself deep down. Sometimes it seems that the older women in the family are the most free-willed and keen to have fun, and the younger seem the most responsible. As a local newspaper asks to write a feature on the four generations of women, tensions come to a head as these women finally realize who they really are... 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Summer Promises and Other Stories.

A Summer Remembered/Be Your Age, Dear (Storycuts)

In 'Any Girl Can Be A Candykiss Girl!', the fashion house Candykiss listens to its consumer, the little girls, not their parents. Their pleasure is creating clothing for them to express themselves, never mind how contemptuous the adult generation - sexually and emotionally threatened - is of them. 
 
In 'Tea with the Birds', the worst crime of all is to be an outsider - wrong face, wrong clothes, wrong voice. And if you never raise your eyes from the ground, you will be labelled a snob by your neighbours. Yet when an isolated, lonely outcast meets a new tenant in the building of bedsits where she lives, she learns to spread her wings. 
 
In 'The G-SUS Gene', Oz 'Mad Dog' O'Shea is the Chosen One. Twenty years ago, mankind experienced near-total wipeout. Now only he is left to lead the quest for enlightenment. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these three short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Any Girl Can Be a CandyKiss Girl!/Tea with the Birds/The G-SUS Gene (Storycuts)

In 'Auto-da-fé', a man's car defines him. Until the Rep of the Year, in his smart blue BMW, goes head-to- head in a showdown with V-man in his smug black Volvo saloon. But who is the real loser in this game? 
 
In 'Free Spirit', a wanderer, a party animal, goes wherever the wind blows, going home to bed with one person after another, old or young, healthy or corrupt, male or female. And then moves on, without regrets, without ever looking back... 
 
In 'Fule's Gold', Mr Fisher has taught at St Swithin's for over forty years, but is resigned to the total lack of imagination of the boys in his creative writing class. Until the day he opens one exercise book and discovers the Holy Grail of literature: an essay of total freshness and originality. But is it just too good to have been written by a mere schoolboy? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these three stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Auto-da-fé/Free Spirit/Fule’s Gold (Storycuts)

Miss Golighty is no young Holly, and the supermarket café where she regularly has breakfast is no Tiffany's. When she befriends Cheryl, the tarty young waitress and teaches her to love old films, she finds a way to help her young friend find the courage to seek a better new life. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Breakfast at Tesco’s (Storycuts)

Christopher Fowler

Early on an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve, Arthur Bryant of the Met's Peculiar Crimes Unit is summoned by the Home Office to attend a crime scene. Later that morning, he meets his colleague John May at a bus stop near Marble Arch. At Bryant's insistence, the two elderly detectives board an open-top tourist bus where he explains that they are in pursuit of the individual who strangled a 54 year-old cleaning lady in her flat the night before. As the old Routemaster trundles past some of London's iconic tourist sights - Oxford Circus, Regent Street, Nelson's Column, Whitehall, the palace of Westminster and even New Scotland Yard (a journey during which Arthur Bryant succeeds in upsetting both his fellow passengers and the tour guide) it becomes clear why the two policemen should have been called upon to investigate such a 'normal' murder. Because, of course, nothing is ever quite that straightforward when Bryant and May are on the case . . . 
 
This short story is part of the Storycuts series.

Bryant & May's Mystery Tour (Storycuts)

In 'Channel Crossing', holidays can provide a huge relief from the daily grind...a fresh experience, new surroundings. Such a relief, in fact, that for many people it can signal the start of a new life, in a foreign country. But is the grass always greener on the other side? 
 
In 'Roundabout', it is Miriam's wedding day, which she thought would be a no-fuss affair. But she has her chief and only bridesmaid, Joan, bustling around, insisting she have flowers, and fussing about the arrangements for the day. However, it is also Joan who is there to reassure Miriam when she has her last-minute doubts - because the bond between these two women runs far deeper than that of bride and bridesmaid. 
 
In 'The Meeting', Meg moved around a lot during her childhood, so meeting up with the rest of her family has always been a big event. But with a ten-year gap between meetings, the numbers dwindle, and the family are faced with the difficult decision of whether they should meet again. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these three short stories were previously published in the collection Summer Promise and Other Stories.

Channel Crossing/Roundabout/The Meeting (Storycuts)

Jilly Cooper

Two fabulous Christmas short stories by the inimitable Jilly Cooper! 
 
In 'Christmas Stocking', unlucky-in-love Caroline is facing possibly the most miserable Christmas of her life. She can't quite see how she'll cope with the season of goodwill to all men - particularly holed up on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors with her boisterous family. And things get a whole lot more complicated when her brother arrives with a deliciously dishevelled friend in tow, Jamie . . . 
 
In 'Sister to the Bride' Helen finds herself in the wedding from hell. The groom's family are constantly sneering at her, her bridesmaid's dress is frightful, and she just can't shake off the unwanted attentions of ginger chinless wonder Tubby Langley. But then Helen meets the devastating David. Dare she risk her fragile heart once again?

Christmas Stocking/Sister To The Bride (Storycuts)

In 'Class of '81', when the graduates of wizardry school meet for their twenty-year reunion at Bella Pasta, the talk is all about love charms, cantrips, who has put on weight and who has had a body job. But one member of the group has sold out to a husband, home and children, thinking, 'Who needs magic when you can have security?' And yet - what really happens when the magic runs out? 
 
In 'Come in, Mr Lowry, your number is up!', numbers rule our lives, or so believes the insurance assessor in this tongue-in-cheek story. And that if you take into account all the statistics and calculate all the odds, chance will never play a part in what happens to you. But then fate, of all things, intervenes... 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Class of ’81/Come in, Mr Lowry, Your Number Is Up! (Storycuts)

In 'Eau de Toilette', in her boudoir Madame, a famous eighteenth-century French beauty of dubious hygiene habits, awaits, en déshabillée, the hot water for her six-monthly bath. Will it help to return Monseigneur de Rochefort, her favourite admirer, back to her side? 
 
In 'Fish', Melissa and Jack are on their honeymoon in Naples, but things aren't going well between them. He longs to explore the sensuous riches of Neapolitan food, but she is a lactose-intolerant, wheat-allergic vegetarian, and has objections to every restaurant. Jack finally entices her to Casa Rosa, a small fish restaurant down by the harbour, but there the battle between food and love will really begin... 
 
In 'Never Give a Sucker...', Reggie Noakes was a vampire for seventy-five years, but he doesn't fit in any more, ousted by market forces. You're just the wrong kind of vampire, they tell him. He never liked blood that much anyway, it's a bugger trying to get any when you're fat and balding and no virgin would look at you twice. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Eau de Toilette/Fish/Never Give a Sucker... (Storycuts)

In 'Faith and Hope Go Shopping', Faith has spent twenty years in a wheelchair. Together with her blind friend Hope, she lives in a nursing home. Their favourite carer calls them Butch and Sundance, and like their namesakes, they make a final dash for freedom - in pursuit of a copy of Lolita and a pair of slick red high heels. 
 
In 'Hello, Goodbye', Angela K. is a society columnist for Goodbye! Magazine, and gets to attend all of the season's most sensational Dernières: the most exclusive celebrity funerals. She prides herself on finally having joined the ranks of the Immortals - until a sad, badly-dressed old couple arrives to disrupt her world. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Faith and Hope Go Shopping/Hello, Goodbye (Storycuts)

In 'Festival at Rowdean', Melanie has spent an exciting year abroad nannying for a family with two children, so her return home seems something of an anticlimax. Everything now seems so dull in her home village of Rowdean. She is mortified when the village committee then insist she be involved in the organisation of a village festival. But could this be just the thing to bring her home town back to life for her? 
 
In 'A Very Special Painting Class', among her other part-time jobs, Lisa works as a model for a painting class. Sitting completely still for long periods of time can be uncomfortable, but the money helps her to keep her flat and bring up her daughter Janie. But as one of the students begins to notice Lisa's features, could an unlikely friendship form? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Summer Promise and Other Stories.

Festival at Rowdean/A Very Special Painting Class (Storycuts)

In 'Gastronomicon', Ernest's wife is a wonderful cook, aided by recipes from the ancient leather book - a family treasure - passed down to her by her mother-in-law. To celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, she undertakes to cook a very special meal - but what are the sounds of deep pounding and tolling bells that come from beyond the kitchen wall? 
 
In 'The Ugly Wife' some important questions are posed: What does it feel like to be the Ugly Sister? Will she spend her life looking for love in vain? Or will she finally find her happily-ever-after: a man who sees past appearances and who will love her for who she really is? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs &amp; Reels.

Gastronomicon/The Ugly Sister (Storycuts)

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