Will Madeleine Hart discover the horrors hidden below, before it's too late?Bestselling writer Madeleine Hart has run away from her life in London and abusive ex Connor. Crumbling Lakeview Hall in the Armboth Valley, abandoned decades earlier, is the perfect Lakeland hideaway for Maddy to make a fresh start, finish her book and disappear from the world.But strange things start to happen. The house is too big and the fear that Connor has tracked her down soon becomes a terrifying reality. Enlisting the help of Seth, who runs the village pub to help solve the mystery of what's happening in the unloved mansion, she doesn't realise that the past and the present are about to collide in a fight to survive.

    Before you get snowed in, grab yourself a copy of this limited-edition collection. With heroes and heroines of all kinds, you'll be sure to find some that you just can't help but fall in love with. These romantic reads can be read as stand-alone stories. But, why would you want to do that? Read them all! Immerse yourself in this wintery ensemble from Romance Collections. This collection includes: Storm of Seduction (Gilpin County Search & Rescue 1.5) by Nicole Morgan Will Lori's plan be the thing that brings her and Kevin together again? The Gift by Stephanie Morris Sometimes love is the only gift you need Luca's Little Christmas Cracker by Caitlyn Lynch Santa's sexy helper is all Luca wants for Christmas! Finding Love by Krista Ames Sometimes the best things are found in awkward places... The Great Fruitcake Bake-off by Vicki Batman It's love and war in the baking world. Christmas Choices by Sharon Coady Which man can make this the best Christmas of her life? Hot Coffee by Donna R. Mercer Everyone Needs A Little Cream in Their... Nice Girl Naughty by Jan Springer Can Summer's bodyguard keep her safe from a serial killer? Touchdown Dance by Carma Haley Shoemaker Dance was my first love. I'm counting on you to be my last. Christmas Wishes by Livia Quinn Tis the Season for Second Chances Tied Up In Tinsel by Amber Skyze Things can go awry when a dream fantasy turns into a nightmare. Rent-a-Gentleman Two: Winter Sparks by Rebecca Fairfax A winter-spring relationship? No--more like winter sparks Stranger in the Snow by Jane Blythe Trust a stranger with her life or risk it in a blizzard. Resisting You by Suzanne Jenkins Kendall accepted a life without love until an unexpected visitor changed her mind. Mistletoe Fantasies, Book 1 in the Pleasure Your Fantasies Series by Stacy Eaton Dancing pays the bills, but it's ruining her Christmas Fantasy. A White Hot Christmas: Novella by Rene Webb Keeping warm has never been this hot! A Wolf's Claim (The Holiday Ball Book 1) by Marie Mason Will fate and some blue pixie dust be enough to get these two lovers together? Christmas Comes to Silver Falls (A BBW Holiday Romance) by Joann Baker & Patricia Mason When a long lost love rides into town, Christmas becomes even more complicated for Mayor Holly Bryant as she must choose between her responsibility as mayor or her heart. Winter Encounter by Karen Cino

    But the rhythm of her life is disrupted when attorney Mitchell Reece requests her help in locating a stolen document that could cost him not only the multimillion-dollar case he's defending but his career as well. Eager to get closer to this handsome, brilliant, and very private man, Taylor signs on . . . only to find that as she delves deeper and deeper into what goes on behind closed doors at Hubbard, White & Willis, she uncovers more than she wants to kno--including a plentitude of secrets damaging enough to smash careers and dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Yet who is capable of going to that extreme? With her life on the line, Taylor is about to learn the lethal answer. . . ."The characters are well drawn, the plot is fast paced, and the writing avoids totally the usual trappings of blockbusterdom. . . . An intelligently written thriller."--Booklist

    Long suffering under Christopher's unfaithful ways, Rosemary is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, becomes convinced that the wrong person was put to death. Along with financier Tony Olsen, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth about what happened that fateful evening. Could it have been the ne'er do well brother Peter Hausen, interested in his sister's trust fund having got through his own; the curatorial assistant Justine Olengard, used and betrayed by Christopher; the artist Belle who turned down his advances only to see her career suffer a setback; or someone else all together? No Rest for the Dead is a thrilling, page-turning accomplishment that only the very best thriller writers could achieve.

    Stuck in a hospital bed on his 40th birthday, he overhears a sinister conversation.Sensing an opportunity, Quint starts his own investigation, bypassing local law enforcement in the process. His inquiries lead him to the scene of a savage murder. And a second one, even more barbaric.Then things spiral out of control. Quint becomes a suspect in the murders and believes his father’s recent death might not be an accident.Quint tries to clear his name but realizes the real murderer is above the law. To find justice, he has to resort to extreme measures: following the sadistic killer out to sea.

    This collection includes thirteen lean and mean stories from the fingertips of Garnett Elliott, Glenn Gray, John Hornor Jacobs, Patricia Abbott, Thomas Pluck, Brad Green, Ron Earl Phillips, Kent Gowran, Amy Grech, Benoit Lelievre, Kieran Shea, David Cranmer, and Wayne D. Dundee and a boiled down look at hardboiled fiction in an introduction by Ron Scheer. Edited by David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker.

    Have you ever wondered how an attorney would feel if that same recently acquitted client kills a second time? Again, I have, and these very questions prompted me to write a dark mystery/thriller about just such an attorney…I call it DEFENDING EVIL.Travis Knight is an extraordinary Criminal Defense Attorney winning high profile cases in Atlanta. One of his recently acquitted clients kills again, which has Travis and his wife Julie, questioning what he does for a living. Travis is shaken to his core, but being a consummate lawyer, he is able to move past his feelings of guilt; Julie isn’t. In a bizarre twist, a mysterious vigilante begins executing Travis’ clients after he wins them an acquittal. This righteous vigilante decides that the clients Travis is helping to put back into society are guilty, and don't deserve to live--the vigilante delivers ultimate justice.The police only half-heartedly search for the vigilante-off the record, they are glad someone is cleaning-up after the hot-shot attorney.The vigilante's attention turns to the source, and sends Travis an ultimatum--stop defending guilty clients or he will be the next to be executed. Risking his life, and his marriage, Travis refuses to be intimidated, and continues to defend clients accused of murder. This story chronicles the labyrinth of high-speed twists and turns of a deadly cat-and-mouse game…a game that can end with only one winner.Buckle-up and enjoy the ride!Best Regards,Charles Shea - Author of DEFENDING EVIL

     Five years after the brutal slaying of her husband, software executive Jill Shannon is ready to take the next step in her life. But with her wedding to prosecuting attorney Conner Manning just eight weeks away, her future father-in-law’s political ambitions for her fiancé threaten all her hopes. Jill’s past holds dark secrets. Secrets she can’t afford to have exposed under the relentless lights of a political campaign. When Phoenix Detective David Shaw turns up at Jill’s door asking questions about a reporter's murder, he has no idea what a lethal Pandora’s Box he’s just opened. Was the womanizing reporter killed by a jealous husband, or was it related to his drug use? Or did it have something to do with the secret expose the reporter was working on? Jill Shannon looks like a dead-end lead but Shaw can’t shake the feeling the beautiful widow has secrets she’s not sharing. Jill is caught between the sins of her past and the shattered hopes for her future. Shaw finds himself drawn deeper into a twisted labyrinth of lies and danger. One thing is clear: some vows are made out loud in front of witnesses. But some vows are made in silence, and witnesses can’t be left alive.

    All feature her ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox.In A Bridge Too Far, we meet Charlie before she’s become a professional in the world of close protection. When she agrees to hang out with the local Dangerous Sports Club, she has no idea it will soon live up to its name.Postcards From Another Country has Charlie guarding the ultra-rich Dempsey family against attempted assassination – no matter where the danger lies.A finalist for the CWA Short Story Dagger, Served Cold puts another tough woman centre stage – the mysterious Layla, with betrayal in her past and murder in her heart.Off Duty finds Charlie taking time away from close protection after injury. She still finds trouble, even in an out-of-season health spa in the Catskill Mountains.And finally, Truth And Lies puts all Charlie’s skills and ingenuity to the test as she has to single-handedly extract a news team from a rapidly escalating war zone.Also included: Excerpt from KILLER INSTINCT: Charlie Fox book one, Meet Charlie Fox, Meet Zoë Sharp, info on the other books in the Charlie Fox series.

     Sam Prichard was a cop, and a good one, until the bullets took out the joint of his right hip. Now he's trying to learn to live without being a cop, and getting to know his neighbors, learning to walk again and even ride a motorcycle. Life is bearable, barely, but then he gets asked to find a missing child, and the lure of getting back into some kind of police work is too much for him to resist. When he teams up with computer whiz Indiana Perkins, he suddenly becomes one of the best investigators he's ever even known. Now, he's found the missing child, but it's thrown him right into the middle of something that may be a drug war--or could be a chance to stop the next 911! There's no way out for Sam, so he's in for the ride of his life, but when the girl he's becoming fond of is suddenly drawn into the line of fire with her own little daughter, Sam is ready to forget all the rules and do whatever is necessary to win the day.

    Warshawski, "the detective mystery fans have been waiting for" (Time), makes return appearances in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to "ties that bind."  Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living--by the skin of her teeth.In "Grace Notes," V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead.  The paper leads V.I. to her newfound Italian cousin Vico, who's looking for music composed by their great-grandmother.  What's the score?  Clearly it's something to kill for... "The Pietro Andromache" finds V.I.'s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel with motive and means to dispatch her professional rival and steal his priceless statue.  Lotty didn't do it--but does she know who did?  V.I. soon cuts to the art of the case--and it's not a pretty picture at all!Summoned by an old high school friend to a race "At the Old Swimming Hole," V.I. ends up swimming with the sharks--the FBI and a ruthless gambling kingpin--in a pool of blood.... And it's only "Skin Deep" when a relaxing facial transformation transforms a client into a stiff.  V.I.'s pal Sal needs help.  Her beautician sister Evangeline is prime suspect--and V.I. has only eighteen hours to crack the case before it's headline news..."  Three-Dot Po" proves there's nothing like a dog.  Especially a dog on the trail of her mistress's killer, with V.I. in tow...In "Strung Out," love means nothing and V.I.'s quick to learn the score as her old friend's tennis-champion daughter is under suspicion for strangling her father with a racket string.  And there's more, nine stories in all, in this masterful collection of short fiction starring V.I. Warshawski, "the most engaging woman in detective fiction since Dorothy Sayers's Harriet Vane" (Newsweek).

    Now, as he tries to pick up the pieces of his shattered career, he finds himself in the small town of Cleary, New York, looking for a new location for an upcoming film. But the town's inhabitants are less than excited. When his friend is murdered and the crime is covered up by the local police, John realizes just how far the town will go to keep its secrets hidden.

    She decides to move there with her family, much to her teenage-daughter's regret. One morning a wealthy old woman in her street is found murdered and soon Emma finds herself wrapped in a mystery uncovering the island's dark secrets that not only runs deep within the history of the island but also within her own family. From the author of the International Bestselling books, the Rebekka Franck-series comes a new Scandinavian Mystery destined to keep you up all night. This is the first book in the Emma Frost-series and is followed by Miss Polly had a dolly.

    Instead, the victim turns out to be a woman he'd had an affair with before breaking it off to save his marriage. But there's a bigger problem: Liam has no memory of where he was or what he did on the night of the murder.Panicked, Liam turns to his brother, Sean, a homicide detective. Sean has his back, but incriminating evidence keeps piling up. From fingerprints to DNA, everything points to Liam, who must race against time and his department to uncover the truth - even if that truth is his own guilt. Yet as he digs deeper, dark secrets come to light, and Liam begins to suspect the killer might actually be Sean ...When the smoke clears in this harrowing family drama, who will be left standing?

    The search for Ellen's errant husband leads Elvis into the seamier side of Hollywood. He soon learns that Mort Lang is a down-on-his-luck talent agent who associates with a schlocky movie producer, and the last place he was spotted was at a party thrown by a famous and very well-connected ex-Matador. But no one has seen him since - including his B-movie girlfriend. At the same time the police find Mort in his parked car with four gunshots in his chest - and no kid in sight - Ellen disappears. Now nothing is what it seems, and the heat is on. It's up to Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike to find the connection between sleazy Hollywood players and an ex-Matador. FREE FALL Read by James Daniels (Sandra Burr, Jill Sovis) Elvis Cole is just a detective who can't say no, especially to a girl in a terrible fix. And Jennifer Sheridan qualifies: Her fiance, Mark Thurman, is a decorated LA cop with an elite plainclothes unit, but Jennifer's sure he's in trouble - the kind of serious trouble that only Elvis Cole can help him out of. Five minutes after his new client leaves his office, Elvis and his partner, the enigmatic Joe Pike, are hip-deep in a deadly situation as they plummet into a world of South Central gangs, corrupt cops, and conspiracies of silence. And before the case is through, every cop in the LAPD will be gunning for a pair of escaped armed-and-dangerous killers - Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. LULLABY TOWN Read by James Daniels (Joyce Bean, Russell Byers) Hollywood's newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelson, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelson wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the airhead wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third biggest filmmaker in America. It's the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep - until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelson's wife in a small Conneticut town, she's nothing like what he expects. The lady has some unwanted - and very nasty - mob connections, which means Elvis could be opening the East Coast branch of his P.I. office . . .at the bottom of the Hudson River.