A Half Forgotten Song is by turns haunting, heartbreaking and joyous.1937. In a village on the Dorset coast, fourteen-year-old Mitzy Hatcher has endured a wild and lonely upbringing, until the arrival of renowned artist Charles Aubrey-along with his exotic mistress and their daughters-changes everything. Over the next three summers, Mitzy sees a future she had never thought possible, and a powerful love is kindled in her. A love that grows from innocence to obsession; from childish infatuation to something far more complex. Years later, a young man in an art gallery looks at a hastily-drawn portrait and wonders at its intensity. The questions he asks lead him to a Dorset village and to the truth about those fevered summers in the 1930s.

    But for Meg—locked in a dead-end relationship and with a deadline looming for a book that she can't write—this thought fills her with dread. Stuck in a labyrinth of her own devising, Meg knows that there must be a way out.

    And in his business—called "information retrieval" by its practitioners—that gift is invaluable, because truth is the hottest thing on the market.Geiger's clients count on him to extract the truth from even the most reluctant subjects. Unlike most of his competitors, Geiger rarely sheds blood, but he does use a variety of techniques—some physical, many psychological—to push his subjects to a point where pain takes a backseat to fear. Because only then will they finally stop lying.One of Geiger's rules is that he never works with children. So when his partner, former journalist Harry Boddicker, unwittingly brings in a client who demands that Geiger interrogate a twelve-year-old boy, Geiger responds instinctively. He rescues the boy from his captor, removes him to the safety of his New York City loft, and promises to protect him from further harm. But if Geiger and Harry cannot quickly discover why the client is so desperate to learn the boy's secret, they themselves will become the victims of an utterly ruthless adversary.Mesmerizing and heart-in-your-throat compelling, The Inquisitor is a completely unique thriller that introduces both an unforgettable protagonist and a major new talent in Mark Allen Smith.

    Cold. A man with a dark past. What everyone seemed to miss about Jax was the splashes of light in his eyes. The random acts of kindness he performed when no one was watching. The way he made me smile and laugh.Jax helped unpack the baggage I’d been carrying around with me. He was patient with my pain and gentle with my scars. He was the stillness during my hurricane.Yet when both of our pasts came back to haunt our present days, we realized quickly that sometimes love stories didn’t end the way we’d hoped. Sometimes you were left with only the damage from the storm.*Book One in New Compass Series of Standalone Novels.Coming April 2nd, 2020.*

    A famous bestselling author who appears a modest everyman. A loving, devoted husband even though he could have any woman he desires. A generous friend and coworker. But Henry Hayden is a construction, a mask. His past is a secret, his methods more so. No one besides him and his wife know that she is the actual writer of the novels that made him famous.For most of Henry’s life, it hasn’t been a problem. But when his hidden-in-plain-sight mistress becomes pregnant and his carefully constructed facade is about to crumble, he tries to find a permanent solution, only to make a terrible mistake.Now not only are the police after Henry, but his past—which he has painstakingly kept hidden—threatens to catch up with him as well. Henry is an ingenious man and he works out an ingenious plan. He weaves lies, truths, and half-truths into a story that might help him survive. But bit by bit the noose still tightens.Smart, sardonic, and compulsively readable, here is the story of a man whose cunning allows him to evade the consequences of his every action, even when he’s standing on the edge of the abyss.

     A man who has given up on the world. A family who show him how to live.Forty-something Thomas is very happy to be on his own, far away from other people and their problems. But beneath his grumpy exterior lies a story and a sadness that is familiar to us all. And he's about to encounter a family who will change his view of the world... for good.

    Since then, you’ve dreamed of his return; railed against him for leaving you alone; grieved for your marriage; and, finally, vowed to move on.One morning, the phone rings. When you answer, a voice at the other end tells you your husband’s on a plane bound for home, and that you’ll see him tomorrow.You’ve imagined this reunion countless times. Of course you have. But nothing has prepared you for the reality. For you realize you don’t know this man. Because he isn’t your husband, he’s a complete stranger – and he’s coming home with you.Even worse, he seems to know about something very bad you once did, something no one else could possibly know about . . . Could they?

    As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.

    But the blade that sliced it out was warm with her dark blood...David Pettyfer is taking a shortcut over the dark rooftops of London’s brooding houses, when he literally stumbles across Heaven: a strange, beautiful, distraught girl who says that bad men have stolen her heart. Yet she’s still alive...And so begins David and Heaven’s wild, exciting and mysterious adventure—to find Heaven’s heart, and to discover the incredible truth about her origins. Part thriller, part love story and part fairy tale, this brilliantly original novel from a bestselling German author will take your breath away...

    A little ghost who always wanted to see the town by daylight creates chaos when he does, and finds himself unable to be a night ghost again.

    Just as seasoned detective Max Heller begins investigating, the Fright Man kills again…The investigation seems hopeless. Desperate refugees flood the streets, all of Heller’s resources are depleted, and his new boss is a ruthless SS officer. And like so many others, Heller and his wife, Karin, survive on meager rations while fearing for the lives of their sons at the front. But as tensions mount and enemy firebombs decimate the city, dangerous new clues come to light—and the determined Heller pursues a violent and twisting path to unmask a monster.

    I shall recount thirteen and a half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest," says the narrator of Walter Moers’s epic adventure. "What about the Minipirates? What about the Hobgoblins, the Spiderwitch, the Babbling Billows, the Troglotroll, the Mountain Maggot… Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair’s breadth, last-minute escapes." Welcome to the fantastic world of Zamonia, populated by all manner of extraordinary characters. It’s a land of imaginative lunacy and supreme adventure, wicked satire and epic fantasy, all mixed together, turned on its head, and lavishly illustrated by the author.

    When Richard and Paula meet in bustling, cosmopolitan Hamburg, everything feels possible. They fall in love, marry and are soon blessed with twins, a beautiful boy and girl. When Richard qualifies as a psychiatrist, life ahead looks bright. Their only sadness is that their son, Georg, was born deaf, although with his family to protect him they’re sure he’ll be okay.But happiness turns to horror when the Nazis seize power and begin forcing doctors to euthanise anyone the regime deems imperfect. Suddenly, Richard is falsifying medical records to save his patients—and hiding Georg, whose deafness now makes him a target for the authorities.With his family plunged into darkness and his son’s life in his hands, can Richard find the strength he needs to keep his family together and evade the world’s most merciless regime?

    It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine Rey thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie's birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach. It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they'd returned to the island - over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased. But the island's haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer. When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car. Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash. Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death. Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse. Trapped in the wake of a shocking family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children. How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself? Suddenly fragile on all fronts as a son, a husband, a brother and a father, Antoine Rey will learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way. By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.

    Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to the Ionian coast for a vacation. But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.