Traveling is in my blood. Thankfully, I have billions to burn through. But there’s something about the Winter Moon Lodge. Building it has parts of me waking up and forcing me to want more from life. And my family expects more. Like a wife and kids. I lied to my meddling mother to get her and the crazy-ass dates she’s setting me up with off my back. But the joke’s on me. She’s coming to visit, and I have to produce this fiancée—fast. My new carpenter is a beautiful girl playing a man’s game. Cute little thing. She’s perfect. Never in a million years did I expect her to school me the way she has. She might be willing to pretend for a weekend, but I’m hoping she says yes when I reveal the truth. I don’t want three days. I want forever.

    Chubby is cute was her motto and cake with pints of cider her diet. Then came 'the' fateful night that saw her staring awkwardly at a ‘fat bird’ with her top on. When that 'fat bird' turned out to be her very own reflection Hannah ran (quite quickly) to the toilets to wail in self-pity and humiliation. Hannah knew she had to make a decision, so she decided to lace up a pair of trainers she happened to have in the cupboard and head for the hills…or at least to the nearest park…if she could ever make it. Chased by geese, the police and Jack Russel’s, No Run Intended is a small story about a big journey that follows Hannah’s running progress through good times, bad times and can’t be bothered times. Deeply honest, insightful and a little bit funny, it’s definitely not a how to but a what if kind of book that celebrates running in all its beautiful, ugly glory.

    Beginning on January 1, this book features 365 new holidays, each accompanied by a strange, dark and humorous short story explaining the day you woke up in and how to celebrate it. These 365 daily doses of delight, perversion, and nonsense include Hire Someone Attractive To Pretend To Love You Day, Hang on to Your Wide-Eyed Innocence Day, Sit in Abject Terror Day, and, of course, Cruelty Day.Far more than just a humor book, Happy Cruelty Day! is like a daily instructional manual written by a psychopath. On one page, the book has you joining a community crime watch group in an effort to make friends (it won't work). Flip the page, and you'll find the details of your attempt to rescue your husband from a POW camp (you'll fail). Flip it again, and Happy Cruelty Day! will have important insight into how best to befriend a runaway teen (offer her some soup).These holidays celebrate everything from that pivotal point in your life when everything changes, to the day you're not going to do anything but sit on the edge of your bed and get very drunk. When people realize they've fallen in love, or when they realize their love was just a lie. And of course, when love of whatever incarnation brings an index finger to clench tight around the trigger of a gun.Raw, ridiculous, and laugh-out-loud funny, this is a sharp-edged satire on the subtleties, shallowness, and stupidity of daily life.

    signed books

     Jeremy Clovenhoof has spent six years living the quiet life after losing his job as Lord of Hell and now he’s partying hard because it’s the school holidays. Whether it’s his increasingly complex girlfriend situation, his creative attempts at Christmas on a budget or an over-decorated tree that will take things very personally, Clovenhoof will make this a Christmas for everybody to remember. Join Clovenhoof as he continues his year-long journey to tackle the big issues in life.

    The social whirl may be dizzying but there are pitfalls aplenty and Millie knows that the whole world is just waiting for her to do something scandalous. She's just that sort of girl. Fortunately, there are people who need rescuing, days that need saving and dark and brooding barons that need taking down a peg or two, so life isn't utterly dreary. Can she do the impossible and come through unscathed? Or will disaster finally catch her up? Whatever happens, Millie is determined to do things on her terms and if that means tackling the impossible; well, she's just the kind of girl who likes a challenge! Author note... well, putting up a book where the first two pages missed editorial changes was a bit of a clunker, but I have remedied (my profound apologies to anybody who bought the one with the dodgy first pages). I am happy to send a - relatively - flawless copy to anybody who has already purchased. Please email me at kate.l.deans@gmail.com. Gosh, I'm a goose!

    A desperate plan. And a fight to bring a small boy home to safety . . .London, 1899--On a brisk fall day, a six-year-old boy and his nanny vanish without a trace during a trip to the London Tower. When the boy's father, Lord Rollings, is summoned to the Tower to receive ransom instructions, he immediately puts Sherlock and Lucy on the case. The clues are scant and the tension is high--every moment that passes could bring the boy closer to danger. When a second, separate ransom demand is made, the case becomes even more convoluted, and the Baker Street team must take quick and cunning action in order to find and stop the real kidnapper.The stakes escalate when one of the Baker Street team's own is put in mortal peril, and it becomes clear that whoever took the Rollings child will stop at nothing to keep him from being found. Can Holmes and his team rescue the boy and uncover the truth? Or will the kidnapper's desperate plot succeed? A fast-paced and witty Sherlock Holmes story with a labyrinth of compelling twists and turns and a surprise ending that will keep readers guessing. Narrated by Watson and Lucy James, Kidnapped at the Tower stays faithful to the spirit of the beloved original series, while offering a fresh new mystery for old and new fans alike.

    Fifteen years later, on a snowy Christmas Eve, he’s the man she needs to mend the sleigh for the Winsham village, Christmas Parade. She’s wishing for a bit of Christmas magic ... and to be back in Luke’s arms. *** Partridge, In a Pear Tree Madeleine Moore is wishing she’d stayed in London for Christmas. Instead, she’s moved to a dilapidated cottage on the outskirts of Winsham the day before Christmas Eve. When her cat, Partridge gets stuck in her neighbour, Daniel Knight’s pear tree, this is the final straw. Can Dan save Maddie’s Christmas ... as well as her beloved cat?

    The caller is a girl who says she has been kidnapped and will die if Aashna doesn't help her. Before Aashna can get details about the girl and her whereabouts, the phone gets cut off. Who was she and why did her voice sound eerily familiar? Will Aashna be able to help her?Maanvi's life has always been about making everyone around realize that she is worthy too. From her test grades to her body type, everyone always had a piece of advice to give or some judgement to pass. How does Maanvi get affected by these? Does she manage to prove her worth to the world?These and six other stories in this collection covering a range of genres including romance, mystery, horror, thriller and much more. Delve in for a delightful reading journey!

    But when old Smiler takes a seat beside him, sucking in pint after pint through his gingery whiskers, a whole new world of battles and bones opens up before him…H. E. Bates – a prolific English novelist and short story writer – wrote 'Castle in the Air' for The Evening News in 1957, but the story was never re-printed in any of his later collections. In fact, its existence was forgotten until 2013 when it was spotted accidentally during a rummage through a newspaper archive. On re-discovering this charming and humorous short story – which exemplifies H.E. Bates's great skill of drawing vivid characters and his ability to create an almost tangible sense of a place – Bates's descendants felt it had to be shared with a wider audience.Bloomsbury Reader is delighted to be re-publishing 'Castle in the Air' alongside the whole body of H. E. Bates's short fiction and novellas, and here we offer it as a free taste of Bates's irresistible writing.

    His career began one night in a pub in Chorlton when a comedian didn't arrive for his set and Jason, the 17-year-old glass collector stepped in to fill the gap. From that point on he's never looked back, until now that is...This is the story in his own words of everything that lead up to that fateful moment - a colourful tale of growing up with lots of family and not enough money, of getting by and sticking together. It is a story of his shameless extended clan of wayward uncles and singing nans and a gobby little knobhead at the heart of it all called Jason.Featuring rock-hard great granddads, doting grandparents, pub-crooning nanas, football-mad dads, pet-obsessed mums, more dodgy uncles than you can shake a stick at, failed exams, dead-end jobs, paper rounds, prostitutes, shocked priests, manslaughter, winning goals, sudden losses, replica shirts, chip-fat incidents, scary pubs, pet meat, fighting Gandhis, cancelled Christmases, Sir Oswald Mosley, flooded tents, call centres, circumcision, puppy love, friends for life, difficult girlfriends, gigs from hell, heart break and, finally, true love...With his laugh-out-loud tales of coming of age, Jason shows he's a generous storyteller and as natural an observer on the page as he is on stage.

    It contains stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:Comprising the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand, the magazine in which they were first published, this volume won even more popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes is at the height of his powers in many of his most famous cases, including "The Red-Headed League," "The Speckled Band," and "The Blue Carbuncle."The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:Eleven of the best and most popular tales of the immortal sleuth include "Silver Blaze," concerning the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time"; "The Greek Interpreter," starring Holmes' even more formidable brother, Mycroft; and "The Final Problem," the detective's notorious confrontation with arch-criminal Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.The Hound of the Baskervilles:Holmes and Watson are faced with their most terrifying case yet. The legend of the devil-beast that haunts the moors around the Baskerville families home warns the descendants of that ancient clan never to venture out in those dark hours when the power of evil is exalted. Now, the most recent Baskerville, Sir Charles, is dead and the footprints of a giant hound have been found near his body. Will the new heir meet the same fate?

    And his friend, Joe Bennett, does too. They both have small bladders but more often it's just to get a moment of quiet, a break from work, or because it's the only way they know how to politely end conversations.So they created a functional meditative guide to help people who suffer from social anxiety and deal with it in this very particular way. Although, it's a comedic book, the goal is to help these readers:1. Relax2. Recharge3. Rejoin the world outside of the bathroomIt's also fun entertainment for people simply hiding in the bathroom to avoid doing work.A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing But Using the Bathroom as an Escape will be waiting in the bathroom like a beacon for anxious readers looking to feel calm, confident, and less alone.

    This book is written by a stand-up comedian that takes you through tragedy after tragedy on its path to hilarity. Will it make you laugh? Eventually. Will it make you cry? Probably. But the hope is that it will also make you smile, dream, and reflect, while simultaneously inspiring you to never stop chasing your dreams (even if your very own family is constantly trying to derail them). Brandt tells his life story with candor, detailing the many pit stops, wrong turns, crazy connections, and lucky breaks he experienced along the way to his comedy career, all while trying to balance a toxic relationship with his jailbird dad. Brandt's storytelling will make you laugh (it better because that's his job!) and believe, as he does, that when it comes to defining family, blood isn't always thicker than water.

    The hugely popular Gareth Malone recounts the heart-warming stories and transformations behind the award-winning BBC2 series The Choir