He is the undoubted King of the Ayrshire Mobile Disco scene, controlling and ruling the competition with an iron fist. From birthdays to barn dances, Franny is the man to call. He has even played 'My Boy Lollipop' at a funeral and got away with it. But the future is uncertain. A new partnership is coming and is threatening to destroy the big man's Empire ... Bobby Cassidy and Joey Miller have been best mates since primary school. Joey is an idealist; Bobby just wants to get laid and avoid following his brother Gary to the Falklands. A partnership in their new mobile disco venture seems like the best way for Bobby to do both at the same time. With compensation from an accident at work, Bobby's dad Harry invests in the fledgling business. His marriage to Ethel is coming apart at the seams and the disco has given him something to focus on. Tragic news from the other side of the world brings all three strands together in a way that no one could have predicted. The Last Days of Disco is a eulogy to the beauty and power of the 45rpm vinyl record and the small but significant part it played in a small town Ayrshire community in 1982. Witty, energetic and entirely authentic, it's also heartbreakingly honest, weaving tragedy together with comedy with uncanny and unsettling elegance.

    For Tom Badgerlock is actually FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard scion of the Farseer line, convicted user of Beast-magic, and assassin. A man who has risked much for his king and lost more…On a shelf in his den sits a triptych carved in memory stone of a man, a wolf and a fool. Once, these three were inseparable friends: Fitz, Nighteyes and the Fool. But one is long dead, and one long-missing.Then one Winterfest night a messenger arrives to seek out Fitz, but mysteriously disappears, leaving nothing but a blood-trail. What was the message? Who was the sender? And what has happened to the messenger?Suddenly Fitz's violent old life erupts into the peace of his new world, and nothing and no one is safe.

    

    http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/97...

    In the Annual story, Cassie faces one of her toughest challenges yet as she sets out to save the Suicide Girls from a dangerous killer.

    But Morris is also a chronic alcoholic, heading fast towards self-destruction. Morris is not hoping to meet Ms. Right and acquire the two kids that will straighten everything out. He already has all this and it hasn't kept him off the bottle. Ron Butlin's tale of one man's inner turmoil is haunting, harrowing, yet strangely uplifting; a masterpiece from a neglected Scottish writer.

    He thinks her photography is detective work, drawing attention to things that would otherwise pass unseen and maybe he's right...Starting work on her new project - photographing murder houses - she returns to the island where she grew up for the first time since she left for Glasgow when she was just eighteen. The Isle of Bute is embedded in her identity, the draughty house that overlooked the bay, the feeling of being nowhere, the memory of her childhood friend Shirley Craigie and the devastating familicide of her family by the father, John Craigie.Arriving at the Craigie house, Cath finds that it's occupied by financial analyst Alice Rahman. Her bid to escape the city lifestyle, the anxiety she felt in that world, led her to leave London and settle on the island. The strangeness of the situation brings them closer, leading them to reinvestigate the Craigie murder. Now, within the walls of the Craigie house, Cath can uncover the nefarious truths and curious nature of John Craigie: his hidden obsession with the work of Richard Dadd and the local myths of the fairy folk.The Good Neighbours is an enquiry into the unknowability of the past and our attempts to make events fit our need to interpret them; the fallibility of recollection; the power of myths in shaping human narratives. Nina Allan skilfully weaves the imagined and the real to create a magically haunting story of memory, obsession and the liminal spaces that our minds frequent to escape trauma.

    Kathleen Jamie, award winning poet, has an eye and an ease with the nature and landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic realities. In Findings she draws together these themes to describe travels like no other contemporary writer. Whether she is following the call of a peregrine in the hills above her home in Fife, sailing into a dark winter solstice on the Orkney islands, or pacing around the carcass of a whale on a rain-swept Hebridean beach, she creates a subtle and modern narrative, peculiarly alive to her connections and surroundings.

    Seventeen of them had not developed interstellar travel. Those were destroyed by the species that did reach the stars. That space-faring eighteenth decimated the human colony on the Semi-Autonomous World Troy. A Marine Force Recon platoon sent to investigate is wiped out almost to the last man. In reaction, the North American Union assembles the largest army seen since the major wars of the 20th Century. A Marine Corps Combat Force is sent to "kick in the door," backed up by a four-division Army corps to take the planet back. The initial landing is unopposed. It isn't until the fleet carrying the Army corps is approaching Troy that the enemy strikes, with devastating effect.

     Detective Sergeant Joe Galbraith starts what seems like one more depressing investigation of the untimely death of a poor unfortunate who was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As the investigation spreads across Scotland it reaches into a past that Joe has tried to forget, and takes him back to the Hebridean island of Harris, where he spent his childhood. Among the mountains and the stunning landscape of religiously conservative Harris, in the shadow of Ceapabhal, long buried events and a tragic story are slowly uncovered, and the investigation takes on an altogether more sinister aspect. In The Shadow Of The Hill skilfully captures the intricacies and malevolence of the underbelly of Highland and Island life, bringing tragedy and vengeance to the magical beauty of the Outer Hebrides.

    MARTINRead the first seven chapters of Joe Abercrombie’s fantastic new book!Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand.Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they can do more to help him become the man he needs to be than any court of nobles could.But even with loyal friends at his side, Yarvi’s path may end as it began – in twists, and traps and tragedy…

    They've been having some serious problems with the white stuff—not snow, but cocaine—and their highly-paid, isolated, somewhat stir-crazy employees have been overdosing at an alarming rate. Kate's job is to identify the dealer and staunch the flow before more people die. It's never that simple, of course.In Play with Fire, Kate and friends stumble across a naked, decaying corpse in the woods. Judged death by misadventure by the Troopers, Kate's sense of justice demands that she launch her own investigation, leading her to ask some very uncomfortable questions of a frontier faith community. Questions that might drive someone to kill…again.In Blood Will Tell, Kate is forced to involve herself in Native politics, attending the annual Federation convention in Anchorage and investigating the deaths of several board members. Opposition to a new development project seems to have been the link tying the victims together, but when Kate poses the question that all detective work begins with—cui bono?—she finds there are more suspects on the list than not.Also included: the two Kate Shugak short stories, "Wreck Rights" and "Cherchez la Femme."

    He's just an ordinary guy living an ordinary life...until alien invaders attack the Earth, and all of humanity's costumed champions go down fighting. By chance, Matt falls heir to their powers, but how can a fake hero save the world when the real ones have already failed? To find out, he begins a quest through a post-apocalyptic world where alien horrors and human supervillains battle for dominion.The Impostor is an exciting new series by veteran fantasy and horror writer Richard Lee Byers, the author of over thirty novels and a frequent contributor to the Forgotten Realms universe. This volume contains Matt's first four adventures: "Suiting Up," "The Enemy of My Enemy," "The Trade," and "Adaptation." Also included is the bonus story "Vets."

    When they each get a shot at wearing the empowering emerald artifact, they figure it's a dream come true! And it is! Power, fame, and ultimate wish fulfillment are at arm's reach! But so is the mute man-monster, Walter, and arm's reach is far too close when he's involved!