His assignment: to detect any signs of latent aggression in this planet’s population.To his astonishment, he finds that his own latent extrasensory powers have suddenly blossomed, and he is invited to join the company of “gods” on this planet.And people place certain expectations on their gods….

    But Merry has a secret: the magic has stopped flowing from her fingers. Try as she might, she can’t summon up the sparkle that makes her stories shine. And as her deadline whooshes by, her personal life falls apart too. Alex tells her he wants something other than the future she’d always imagined for them and Merry finds herself single for the first time since – well, ever. Desperate to get her life back on track, Merry leaves London and escapes to the windswept Orkney Islands, locking herself away in a secluded clifftop cottage to try to heal her heart and rediscover her passion for writing. But can the beauty of the islands and the kindness of strangers help Merry to fool herself into believing in love again, if only long enough to finish her book? Or is it time for her to give up the career she’s always adored and find something new to set her soul alight??The brand new series from Holly Hepburn, author of A Year at the Star and Sixpence. Parts one to four in the new series are available to pre-order now: BROKEN HEARTS AT BRIGHTWATER BAY, SEA BREEZES AT BRIGHTWATER BAY, DANGEROUS TIDES AT BRIGHTWATER BAY and SUNSET OVER BRIGHTWATER BAY ~*~Praise for Holly Hepburn~*~ 'A fresh new voice, brings wit and warmth to this charming tale of two sisters' Rowan Coleman 'Warm, witty and laced with intriguing secrets! I want to pull up a bar stool, order a large G&T and soak up all the gossip at the Star and Sixpence!' Cathy Bramley 'You'll fall in love with this fantastic new series from  star of women's fiction, Holly Hepburn. Filled to the brim with captivating characters and fantastic storylines in a gorgeous setting ... simply wonderful. I want to read more!' Miranda Dickinson 'The Star and Sixpence sparkles with fun, romance, mystery, and a hunky blacksmith. It's a real delight' Julie Cohen 'Like the dream pub landlady who always knows exactly what you want, Holly Hepburn has created the most delightful welcome to what promises to be a brilliant series, in the first Star and Sixpence. The sisters are warm and intriguing, the neighbours are (mostly!) friendly and the gossip is utterly addictive. I was very sad when it was time for last orders, and am already looking forward to the next round. Especially if a certain blacksmith happens to be at the bar...' Kate Harrison 'Warm, witty and utterly charming, Snowdrops at the Star and Sixpence is the perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter's day.

    Afraid of being thrown into an isolation chamber, Michael goes home, but quickly falls violently ill. By the time he recovers and returns to work scary things are happening. Everyone who has come into contact with that patient is being systematically killed. On the run, he accidentally infects a woman living in the shadows of the underworld. She becomes ill as well, but survives. Then they begin feeling younger-and younger. Why would the government want to suppress something like this? After barely escaping federal gunmen, the two of them set out to discover what kind of infection they are harboring even though it might mean the end of their freedom.

    The story was rescued from an old floppy disc and first published in 2008, in a special, 10th anniversary edition of Crossroad Blues. To Atkins' surprise, that edition earned an Edgar Award nomination for the forgotten Nick Travers tale. The story shows Nick at his best: in New Orleans, at JoJo's Blues Bar, helping an old friend, challenging the powerful, and getting in way over his head.

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    Here, many famous names are mentioned and there is obviously a grave risk that families and friends are going to take offence... Uncle Oswald discovers the electrifying properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle and the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, a girl absolutely soaked in sex, and sets about seducing all the great men of the time for his own wicked, irreverent reasons.

    When she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, she defies her mother and grandparents and abandons her first love, Andrei.Before she leaves, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya, an artist still missing in action years after the war has ended. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin’s brutality. Kolya’s revelations and his tragic love story guide Sasha through drama school and cement her determination to live a thousand lives onstage. After graduation, she begins acting in Leningrad, where Andrei, now a Communist Party apparatchik, becomes a censor of her work. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha’s ambitions converge with Andrei’s duties, and Sasha must decide if her dreams are truly worth the necessary sacrifice and if, as her grandmother likes to say, all will indeed be well.

    Outsmarting her father, the earl takes Eugenia to live in his beautiful country estate, Lilac Court. But what does he really want from her? It seems there’s a mystery attached to an emerald necklace, which he wishes her to wear at a London ball. Could Eugenia be the daughter of a powerful duke, but born on the wrong side of the blanket? Her mother refused to tell her. As Brendan, Earl of Trentham, works to bring down a hated foe, he and his sister instruct Eugenia in the ways of the ton. She is beautiful and, despite the cloud over her birth, will be desired by many men. Why doesn’t that prospect make him happy? A Reader's Opinion "The Earl and the Highwayman's Daughter is indeed a Cinderella story with Eugenia as our young beauty and the Earl as her "prince." I was delighted to spend a few hours with the characters while they navigated their way through society's dos and don'ts, all in the name of hope and sweet romance." Books & Benches

    HE STOLE THEIR SUBMARINE.The accident changed everything… One moment, Lieutenant Jake Slate was going about his duties aboard the ballistic missile submarine, USS Colorado. The next second, he was sprawled on the deck plates in a spreading puddle of blood and hydraulic fluid. But it wasn’t the injury that ruined his life and doomed his military career. It was the rescue effort.Now he’s being thrown to the wolves to cover up the misdeeds of a superior officer, and Jake doesn’t care for the role of sacrificial lamb.Blinded by rage and unsure of his future, he finds himself at the center of a treacherous plot to hijack the Colorado and sell her nuclear warheads to a foreign power. Jake no longer knows who he can trust. He doesn’t know what the future holds. He really only knows one thing. He will have his revenge.Book 1 of the Rogue Submarine Series... Rogue Avenger (2005), Rogue Betrayer (2007), Rogue Crusader (2010), Rogue Defender (2013), Rogue Enforcer (2014), Rogue Fortress (2015), Rogue Goliath (2015), and Rogue Hunter (2016).This novel is part of the Rogue Submarine fiction series, launched in 2005 by John Monteith, a former military officer and naval warfare instructor. Beginning with Rogue Avenger, the books are titled in alphabetical order for ease of reference. Although the stories are best read in sequence, each installation is written for enjoyment as a standalone adventure.

    The Horus Heresy may have happened ten thousand years ago, but the dark shadows of its history can never be fully excised. Inquisitor Eisenhorn travels to the world of Pallik, where, it is rumoured, a rare and ancient artefact from those terrible times has been put on sale. Eisenhorn and his team are plunged into a deadly game of cross and double-cross in a brand new story by the master of action-adventure fiction.Eisenhorn is back! And in a tale that mixes Dan Abnett's classic character with details from his Horus Heresy work.

    From the author of A Bell For Adano and Hiroshima comes this final collections of stories.

    When Konrad von Marburg, a Church inquisitor, arrives on the scene, innocent and guilty alike find themselves subject to the inquisitor’s violent form of purification. Two knights of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, Andreas and Raphael, soon arrive in the village. Though each journeys on a separate path, they quickly band together to confront the inquisitor as he whips the townspeople into a righteous bloodlust.When her dead husband’s severed head appears on her doorstep, a local woman is charged with practicing heretical rituals, it is up to the knights to discover the truth behind the brutal murder before the torches are lit and the woman is burned at the stake. Their task proves daunting, though, as the townspeople have their own long-buried secrets and sins that they want to keep hidden—even if it means allowing the sacrifice of an innocent woman.With Sinner, Mark Teppo forges the first link in a chain that leads to the world-shattering events of the Mongoliad series.

    For his first command after escaping from France, Hornblower is given charge of the royal yacht - and he soon requires all his skill and instinct to prevent disaster!

    Thankfully not. Super Dave is dumpster fire of regret and disappointment for anyone who relies on him. Colonel Ekaterina Varatchevsky of the Russian GRU doesn't want to rely on him. A deep cover agent operating in the US as Karen Warat, a successful New York art dealer, Karin is gifted with superpowers courtesy of killing a Threshrend Daemonum which attacks her gallery and eats rather a large number of Manhattan's 1%. Now she doesn't have to rely on Dave any more. She has to target him. This is her story. Not told by Dave. Because you can't trust that guy.

    Gabriel Kane goes from a struggling architect to one of the most powerful men in the world; Armonía Solorsano -- a young Hispanic girl who grew up in a dilapidated suburban McMansion-turned-tenement -- invents one of the most important and influential pieces of technology in history; a non-profit organization goes from a charity to a decentralized domestic terrorist group; and the greatest democracy in the world finds itself falling into the ever-tightening grip of a dictator.As five people come together with the shared goal of changing the world, they discover that their approaches are fundamentally and irreconcilably at odds. Their partnership becomes a bitter political and high-tech rivalry from which only one of them can emerge.This novella by Christian Cantrell (about 16,000 words) portrays an intersection of politics and technology which is both extremely relevant, and frighteningly feasible.