She's off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition - and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit to a London deli.Alas, the competition judge succumbs after tasting her perfect quiche, and Agatha is revealed as a cheat and potential poisoner. Definitely not the best start. So Agatha must turn amateur sleuth - she's absolutely got to track down the real killer!THE POTTED GARDENERAgatha goes digging where she shouldn't...Agatha is taken aback when she finds a new woman ensconced in the affections of her attractive bachelor neighbour, James Lacey. The beautiful Mary Fortune is superior in every way, especially when it comes to gardening - and with Carsely Garden Open Day looming, Agatha feels this deficiency acutely.So when Mary is discovered murdered, buried upside down in a pot, Agatha seizes the moment and immediately starts yanking up village secrets by their roots and digging the dirt on the hapless victim. But Agatha has an awkward secret too . . .THE VICIOUS VETAgatha lets sleeping vets lie..Retired PR boss Agatha Raisin is enjoying life in her pretty Cotswold village of Carsely. It even seems likely that the attractive new vet, Paul Bladen, has taken a shine to her. But before romance can blossom, Paul is killed in an accident with Lord Pendlebury's horse. Only the circumstances are rather suspicious.Agatha decides she must once more play amateur investigator. And this cloud has a silver lining - she can persuade her usually stand-offish neighbour, James Lacey, to become her partner in the quest. As usual, Agatha is quite prepared to rush in, heedless of the lurking menace to both James and herself.THE WALKERS OF DEMBLEYAn unexpected hike to the Other Side . . .After time away, Agatha Raisin returns to her beloved Cotswold village of Carsely - and to her handsome neighbour, James Lacey. True, James seems less than thrilled to see her, but Agatha is soon distracted by a sensational murder. The victim, found in a field, is young hiker Jessica Tartinck, who spent her life enraging landowners by insisting on her right to roam. Hope springs eternal in Agatha's breast as she lures the reluctant James into her investigation. There are so many leads to follow, for Jessica's fellow walkers - not to mention the landowners - all seem able to commit murder.

    Miserable at his day job, he decided to take a leap of faith. His path to success was all or nothing, victory or death.He quit his job and dropped out of the white-collar world with all its trappings and amenities. Unemployed, he had to give up his residence. With a sleeping bag and a sackful of clothes he headed to Northwest London's Gladstone Park, settling in among the homeless, transients, dog walkers and the occasional irritated park worker. His only solace, an A4 notepad and a pen.Like the author, the main character Colossus Sosloss also quits his job, becomes homeless and sleeps in the park. Colossus observes the other homeless who reside at the park. Many of them with treatable or controllable mental illness but, in the post-Margaret Thatcher England, such individuals are human refuse. Dumped into society to fend for themselves and spiral downward amongst the neatly-trimmed hedges and glistening, manicured lawn of the sprawling public space.The character's travails are reminiscent of a Lewis Carroll-type adventure with subtle Dickensian undertones. Which include a lost parrot and an unfortunate man named Squirrel. We follow Colossus on his journey to the edge of sanity, with humorous interjections and clever idioms. A hero's quest, that inevitably ends with subterfuge, realization and reflection.Today, no longer homeless, Craig Stone is probably one of the most promising young writers to grace the indie and self-publishing world. Though at 31, Stone is a surprisingly mature author who transcends the generations. His literary work is suitable for the very young and for those who have lived an interesting life.The Squirrel That Dreamt Of Madness is an imaginative tale that can only come from a brilliant, albeit delightfully demented, mind. Stone mixes humour with the cold, stark reality of life. Everything and everyone, is a metaphor for something either sinister or truthful. Gifted students may soon find this book on their required reading list for their advanced High School contemporary literature class.The author does not have a long laundry list of writers who inspired him, though he definitely channels some Steinbeckian qualities (the novel was written during the height of the Great Recession) and J.D. Salinger's, The Catcher in the Rye.Like Hemingway who retreated to the wild and lawless pre-Castro Cuba to pen his magnum opus The Old Man and the Sea, Stone chose to immerse himself in a colder and wetter climate to experience what his character had to endure. The old adage, you write what you know, still rings resonantly true. Stone certainly writes what he knows, and writes it exceptionally well." --http://enovelreviews.com/thesquirrelt...Interview with the BBC: http://bit.ly/BBCComedyCafeInformation on the Dundee Book Prize:http://www.dundeebookprize.com/http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/?p=51086You can find Craig Stone here:Twitter: https://twitter.com/robolollycopWebsite: www.thoughtscratchings.comA NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR...The simple truth is, I will get nowhere without your help. I need readers to read The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness, so if you are looking for a book to read, or wanting to try a new author, please try me.It would mean the world if you did.Thank You.Craig.

    A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.

    She never believed her future could be anything else until she met Kyle, himself damaged from the loss of his family. They must overcome incredible odds and travel the world to be together - culminating in the most devastating of betrayals.Fate brought them together. Can The Game keep them apart?

    . .The community along Oregon's Deschutes River is one of successful careers and perfect families. For years, up-and-comers Liz and Owen have admired their good friends and neighbors, Carole and David. They appear to have it all--security, happiness, and a beautiful young son, Charlie.Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible--except to Liz.It took one fleeting moment for her to change the lives of everyone she loves--a heartrending accident that can't be undone. Neither can the second-worst mistake of her life: concealing it. As two marriages crack and buckle in grief and fear, Liz retreats into her own dark place of guilt, escalating paranoia--and betrayals even she can't imagine. Because there's another good neighbor who has his own secrets, his own pain, and his own reasons for watching Liz's every move.And only he knows that the mystery of the missing boy on the Deschutes River is far from over.

     The tormented spirit of mysterious Alienor, a once beautiful young woman abandoned by her Crusader lover centuries ago, relentlessly follows him. In ways that he has never understood, Rafe is cursed by her powerful and obsessive love, which has endured across the ages, taunting him and visiting him in his dreams... Who is Alienor? What does she want? And what lengths will she go to seek her revenge? Yet Rafe is not the only one who is still suffering at the hands of Alienor’s wrath and when he agrees to take part in a séance whilst on holiday in Crete, he receives a message that changes his life forever. It leads him on a trail to the quiet Kent countryside and there, as if waiting for him, is Nell Gurney. Her resemblance to Alienor is uncanny and he is instinctively drawn to her. Initially oblivious to any growing danger, Nell and Rafe quickly become close, driven by a strange sensation that they already know each other. But someone else intrudes upon them in a horrifyingly intimate manner and tries to hint that identity is no longer a matter of personal choice... Beneath the cosy exterior of the cottage Nell shares with her father, there is a dark secret that has shaped the lives of the Gurney family for centuries. As the forgotten story of a scorned woman comes to life, Nell and Rafe are mirrors for a force that has the power to destroy them. When tragedy strikes, Rafe’s friend Stephen and a bewitching, chilling exploration into the practise of exorcism is their only hope... Praise for Elizabeth Harris ‘Enormously enjoyable … hard to put down. Elizabeth Harris writes with sensitivity and skill and a spine-chilling eye for the sinister’ - Barbara Erksine, author of Lady of Hay Elizabeth Harris was born in Cambridge and brought up in Kent, where she now lives. After graduation she hid a variety of jobs including driving a van, being a lifeguard and working in the Civil Service. She has travelled extensively in Europe and America, and lived for some years in the Far East. Elizabeth Harris was one of the finalists of the 1989 Ian St James Awards.

    And most do. But few of his conquests know that Lucifer is also His Majesty's most daring secret agent, at home in both London's Imperial grandeur and in its underworld of despicable vice. So when Britain's most prominent scientists begin turning up dead, there is only one man his country can turn to for help. Following a dinnertime assassination, Lucifer is dispatched to uncover the whereabouts of missing agent Jocelyn Poop. Along the way he will give art lessons, be attacked by a poisonous centipede, bed a few choice specimens, and travel to Italy on business and pleasure. Aided by his henchwoman Delilah; the beautiful, mysterious, and Dutch Miss Bella Pok; his boss, a dwarf who takes meetings in a lavatory; grizzled vulcanologist Emmanuel Quibble; and the impertinent, delicious, right-hand-boy Charlie Jackpot, Lucifer Box deduces and seduces his way from his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (somebody has to live there) to the ruined city of Pompeii, to infiltrate a highly dangerous secret society that may hold the fate of the world in its clawlike grip.

    Life is not going to plan for failed fashion designer Lizzie March, until she finds herself pregnant to super-hot bad boy Jake Wheeler.Convinced that he's The One, all she has to do is make him realise that she is The One for him!But is it possible she's been looking for love in all the wrong places? Maybe everything she has ever wanted is right under her very own stilettos.

    Generally, very little changes in the Briardale Valley, but this year things are different. His grandfather - known to everyone as the Gaffer - has died and John's new wife, Katherine, is accompanying him for the first time.Every year, the Gaffer would redraw the boundary lines of the village, with pen and paper but also through the remembrance of folk tales, family stories and timeless communal rituals which keep the sheep safe from the Devil. This year, though, the determination of some members of the community to defend those boundary lines has strengthened, and John and Katherine must decide where their loyalties lie, and whether they are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to join the tribe...Gripping, unsettling and beautifully written, Andrew Michael Hurley's new novel asks how much we owe to tradition, and how far we will go to belong.

    Deep down, they think they’re to blame. Summertime in Bleak Harbor means tourists, overpriced restaurants, and the Dragonfly Festival. One day before the much-awaited and equally chaotic celebration, Danny Peters, the youngest member of the family that founded the town five generations ago, disappears. When Danny’s mother, Carey, and stepfather, Pete, receive a photo of their brilliant, autistic, and socially withdrawn son tied to a chair, they fear the worst. But there’s also more to the story. Someone is sending them ominous texts and emails filled with information no one else should have. Could the secrets they’ve kept hidden—even from one another—have led to Danny’s abduction?As pressure from the kidnapper mounts, Carey and Pete must face their own ugly mistakes to find their son before he’s taken from them forever.

    Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself very much to himself - until he is brought into the light by a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady and forced to confront his own biggest regret.

    He's fallen from the upstairs veranda of an isolated farmhouse, and his condition is critical. At first, Finn's fall looks like a horrible accident; after all, he's prone to sleepwalking. Only his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it happened. And she isn't telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Tragedy isn't what the McNamara family expected when they moved to New Zealand. For Martha, it was an escape. For her artist husband Kit, it was a dream. For their small twin boys, it was an adventure. For sixteen-year-old Sacha, it was the start of a nightmare.They end up on the isolated east coast of the North Island, seemingly in the middle of a New Zealand tourism campaign. But their peaceful idyll is soon shattered as the choices Sacha makes lead the family down a path which threatens to destroy them all.Martha finds herself facing a series of impossible decisions, each with devastating consequences for her family.

    On the surface, she looks like a brave survivor of a plane crash. But she’s been lying to her family, her friends, and the whole world since rescue helicopters scooped her and her fellow survivor, Dave Hall, off a deserted island in the South Pacific. Missing for almost two years, the castaways are thrust into the spotlight after their rescue, becoming media darlings overnight. But they can’t tell the real story—so they lie.The public is fascinated by the castaways’ saga, but Lillian and Dave must return to their lives and their spouses. Genevieve Randall—a hard-nosed journalist and host of a news program—isn’t buying it. She suspects Lillian’s and Dave’s explanations about the other crash survivors aren’t true. And now, Genevieve’s determined to get the real story, no matter how many lives it destroys.In this intriguing tale of survival, secrets, and redemption, two everyday people thrown together by tragedy must finally face the truth…even if it tears them apart.

    She will be on her own, in a new place hopeful to meet new friends. On the night she moves in, she is taken off the street by two masked men. She is placed in a room which is little more than a cell. A pink cell. A room made for a doll. She is now part of their collection.

    With a cast of characters that ranges from hip-hop-loving fourteen-year-old Eoin "MC Sexecutioner” Flynn to basketball-playing midget Philip Kilfether, packed with questions and answers on everything from Ritalin, to M-theory, to bungee jumping, to the hidden meaning of the poetry of Robert Frost, Skippy Dies is a heartfelt, hilarious portrait of the pain, joy, and occasional beauty of adolescence, and a tragic depiction of a world always happy to sacrifice its weakest members. As the twenty-first century enters its teenage years, this is a breathtaking novel from a young writer who will come to define his generation.