The children will smile on Christmas morning at all costs. Even if Kris has to die to try to make it happen.Someone has set a trap for Kris Kringle. The problem is, Kris is willing to go anywhere to get those gifts to the children.Including to his dark place.This time, even Kris is surprised by who helps him.Be careful, world. You don’t want to piss off Saint Nick.

    It's a time of year that brings bittersweet memories for this young man, reminders of all the things he's lost. But tonight he'll strike back against the bad luck that's slowly claimed his family. Tonight he's determined he'll kill the drug dealer, Mohr. Tonight, also, Karsten Groll knows that he will die himself.

    There's Pat, a twenty-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbor, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below are Irene and her appealing son Bertie, who is the victim of his mother’s desire for him to learn the saxophone and italian–all at the tender age of five.Love triangles, a lost painting, intriguing new friends, and an encounter with a famous Scottish crime writer are just a few of the ingredients that add to this delightful and witty portrait of Edinburgh society, which was first published as a serial in The Scotsman newspaper.

    Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet. Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.

    Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith’s life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith’s lost generation. This spellbinding novel introduced Egan’s remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.

    Avram Escovitz, a young Jew, arrives in Glasgow from Russia. He dreams of playing football until WWI intervenes and he begins work as a credit draper, peddling goods to Highlanders. A stranger in a strange land, Avram must set up a new business and capture the heart of a Highland lass. But how easy will it be to shake off his Jewish roots?

    Readers are already enquiring about the promised sequel to this page turner. "It was the hour of five on a winter's morning. The distant toll of a factory bell echoed across the valley striking wakefullness and dread wherever it was heard. For the army of child slaves, compelled to work amongst the ceaseless whirring of a million hissing wheels, another day had begun. Tiny footprints in the snow showed where some had hurried and others had fallen behind sobbing, aware that the lash of the whip awaited them...." Recently orphaned, Jack and Beth flee east across the Pennines to escape the horrors of a Bradford mill in the 1830’s. Gripping, heart-rending and uplifting by turn, this fast-moving novel carries the reader through the subsequent twelve years as they struggle to survive and find fulfilment. Played out against a background of Yorkshire stately homes, chance encounters, forbidden loves, gypsy entanglements, asylums and even the Arctic North, their fortunes wax and wane until the very last page. Interwoven throughout are the inspirational efforts of early reformers such as Richard Oastler whose statue in Bradford, embracing two mill children, marks his achievements to this day. Scarborough Evening News review of The Mill Children, 15 April 2009: Winter 1830. A bedraggled army of beaten and hungry children stumbles to work in a Bradford wool mill. One child falls dead and lies forgotten in the snow. It’s a dramatic start to Scarborough author Suzanne Marshall’s tale of two cousins, Jack and Beth, who flee the mill to escape a miserable fate. A chance encounter with the aristocratic Henry Cunningham offers a safe haven. But Henry is fighting his own demons. A guilty liaison in a boat-house pitches Jack and Beth into fresh adventures and soon their path crosses that of Ramona, a beautiful and self-sufficient gypsy skilled in country lore. A born survivor, she knows how to interpret the warning chatter of birds and how to poach without getting caught. But a terrible secret makes her vulnerable.... With the writer weaving her plot strands like threads in a bolt of cloth, local colour continually drives the action. Seamer Horse Fair and Raincliffe Woods are the settings for life-changing events. Huge whaling ships in Scarborough harbour take the story into new and turbulent waters, the canvas billowing as they put to sea. The suffering of mill children re-enters the story via gossip overheard in a York inn. It concerns “Factory King” Richard Oastler and his campaign to improve their lives in the face of hefty political opposition – this is historical fact. Meanwhile, the Bradford mill Jack and Beth left behind still claims its victims and waits for more. The Mill Children will please its intended readership. The author’s lyrical style suits her material admirably and gives it the ring of authenticity. It’s a fireside book, combining the harsh truths about mill brutality with the sweetening honey of romance.

    He hopes to find a safe refuge in the south-west near Durnovaria, where he believes his dead mother’s kinfolk might be found. Arriving in the area, Ambrosius finds a small, abandoned settlement where his company can take shelter for the night before moving on to the town of Vindocladia – just north of Durnovaria. But Vortigern has put the word out: a high blood price will be paid to anyone who captures Ambrosius; and there are many who would take up the challenge… This story was first written in March and April 2020 as a contribution to Authors Without Borders, set up by distinguished author Ben Kane, as a means of providing some free stories online in first ‘lockdown’ during the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was written in 25 daily instalments, but has now been assembled and re-edited into a complete narrative.

    But the women are also hiding a shameful secret…Present Day: When journalist Ally Niven escapes to the remote Scottish island of Battersay after a failed love affair, all she is looking for is a quiet life and a catering job for the summer. But from the outset someone is trying to scare her off and Ally soon discovers that the beautiful surroundings mask tensions among the people who are harbouring 'Birdwoman' - a feral young woman found on rocky Kulah. Ally is increasingly attracted to reclusive artist, John Balmain, who has also taken refuge on Battersay, but is elusive about his past. From John, Ally learns of a sinister prophecy which predicted the shipwreck and how Flora, the Flame-haired leader of the Kulah women, would wreak her revenge. Increasingly isolated and intimidated by bizarre attacks on her house and sightings of a lone woman in a blue headscarf that she cannot explain, Ally sets out to discover the truth behind the Kulah story and the secrets the broodingly handsome John is determined to keep from her; as the two stories converge in a shocking climax. This is MacLeod Trotter's second enthralling mystery.

    He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn't seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live. Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him - allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years. And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.

    Deep in this ominous city of shadows, the American agent conspires with a powerful German spymaster to subvert Hitler’s state. His personal goal: save the life of a loving friend. But threading his way through the menacing streets with a target on his back, Ryan suspects he may have to buy her release with his own death. Fulcrum of Malice is the final volume in the Corridor of Darkness trilogy.Praise for Corridor of Darkness:“…an intriguing early WWII spy yarn set in a well-researched, authentic Germany.” – Kirkus Reviews“…A grand adventure set in Germany’s darkest hours.” – Compulsion ReadsPraise for Beacon of Vengeance:“A resounding five stars…seamlessly melds his fictional characters with the events and real characters of the era.” – Awesome Indies Reviews Corridor of Darkness, A Novel of Nazi Germany has received the AIA Gold Seal of Excellence, the B.R.A.G. Medallion, and a bronze medal in the international 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

    Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city's great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown's punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter, Richard, and his idealistic neighbor, Jenny, - and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year's Eve.The mystery, as it reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power, will open up even the loneliest-seeming corners of the crowded city. And when the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives with be changed forever.City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock 'n' roll, about what people need from each other in order to live... and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.

    An ex-Marine, he talks often to the ghosts of his past - the friends he lost in the Pacific and the son who followed him into the US Army, and to his death in Vietnam.When Sheldon witnesses the murder of a woman in his apartment complex, he rescues her six-year-old son and decides to run. Pursued by both the Balkan gang responsible for the murder, and the Norwegian police, he has to rely on training from over half a century before to try and keep the boy safe. Against a strange and foreign landscape, this unlikely couple, who can't speak the same language, start to form a bond that may just save them both.An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero, Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man still trying to come to terms with the tragedies of his life. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret.

    Now, however, he has been seriously rattled by Barry Unsworth's Losing Nelson, a gripping study of the dark side of heroism and hero worship. In the basement of his large, anonymous North London house, Charles Cleasby obsessively reenacts the admiral's every military maneuver: "Usually when we fought these battles I had a feeling of fulfilment, they brought me closer to him..." Cleasby's admiration also extends upstairs--to his life's work, a biography of the great man. His only assistant in his heroic struggle is Miss Lily (real name, Lilian Butler), a hired secretary who carefully transcribes his painstaking pages. Cleasby wants nothing better than to rescue Nelson from the revisionist clutches of unpatriotic academic cynics. Alas, his passion soon reveals a sinister side, as he declares that he is in fact the admiral's twin: I will say what I think angels are. They can be dark or bright, but they all have the gift of spontaneity, of creating themselves anew. This is a pure form of energy, and Horatio was winged with it. All the same, angels are not complete, they need their counterparts, the dark needs the bright, the hidden needs the open, and vice versa. Sometimes they meet and recognize each other. Sometimes, as with Horatio and me, the pairing occurs over spaces of time or distance. He became a bright angel on February 14, 1797, during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. I became his dark twin on September 9, 1997, when I too broke the line. As the book builds to its inexorable climax--and Cleasby's only solace is his amanuensis--Losing Nelson confirms Unsworth as one of England's most elegant, understated novelists. His historical grasp of Nelson is outstanding. But his book really excels, and also profoundly disturbs, in its exploration of the tarnished angels of patriotism. --Jerry Brotton

    For the past two years, Evie has lived an invisible life in London. Her neighbours think she’s just moved in, her sister mistakes her for a live-in nanny, and even Evie’s manager at work can’t remember her name. But all that is about to change …this Christmas has brought a flurry of snow and unimaginable possibilities into town. Evie works in the stockroom of an old-fashioned, family-run, London fashion department store. Hardy’s is a beautiful, wood-panelled jewellery box of a building, but it’s in dire need of a makeover. One day Evie overhears that if the entire store’s takings don’t turn round by Dec 26th – 3 weeks’ time – the family who own it will be forced to sell to one of the big chains. Hardy’s is in need of a Christmas miracle. Determined to save her beloved store, Evie hatches a plan to secretly transform it into a magical place to shop again. But has the time come for her to be noticed too? When an accidental romantic encounter with handsome, enigmatic Joel gives her the chance of a whole new identity, she takes it.