From murder in an Iron Age broch and a macabre tale of revenge among the furious clamour of an eighteenth century mill, to a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and a rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin, this collection uncovers the intimate - and deadly - connections between people and places.Prepare for a dangerous journey into the dark shadows of our nation's buildings - where passion, fury, desire and death collide.

    Scotland, 1831. With her wedding to fellow investigator Sebastian Gage only a day away, Kiera is counting down the hours. But just when matrimonial jitters threaten to consume her, Kiera receives a welcome distraction in the form of a mysterious gold necklace. The Celtic torc, thought missing for decades, was directly involved in a recent investigation. Now, Kiera feels compelled to uncover the truth behind its sudden reappearance. But with an overwhelming flock of wedding guests, a muddled cat, an unpaid favor, and a ferocious storm throwing things into disarray, it’s anyone’s guess whether Kiera and Gage will actually make it to the altar... Includes an exclusive preview of the next Lady Darby Mystery, As Death Draws Near.

    They spend their time telling stories to the unborn baby, trying to pass on the lessons they've learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons. But each must keep their storytelling a secret from the other, as they've agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window. As their tales build and grow along with their child, Liska and Ruth realise that the truth lives in their stories, and they cannot hide from one another. A Portable Shelter is a beautifully produced collection of elegant, haunting short stories from one of Britain's most exciting new talents. Each story is accompanied by an illustration by award-winning artist Liz Myhill. Produced with the assistance of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship.

    Her only time 'off' is two hours in Lancaster on a Tuesday afternoon - and even that doesn't always pan out to be the break she needs. Husband Duncan brings Larry, a rootless wanderer, to the farm to embark on a money making scheme they've dreamed up. Alice is hostile but Larry beguiles Sam with tales of travel in the outside world and, soon, Alice begins to fall for him, too. By turns blackly comic, heart-breaking and heart-warming, Truestory looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom. By turns happy and sad, ultimately it is a tale of hope.

    On her way to her cousin’s wedding in the Scottish highlands, she and her entourage are held up by a gang of ruffians. Frightened, her servants flee, and Tatiana soon finds herself alone in an inn with no servants, no funds, and no proof of her identity. Destitute, she accepts the offer from a sympathetic (but unbelieving) innkeeper to work for her room and board while she waits for an answer to the missive she’s sent to her cousin Prince Nikolai. With no other recourse, Tatiana scrubs floors and dirty linens, waiting for her prince to come…A proud lord once lost and now found…After a brutal, bloody battle with the French Navy left Lord Buchan limping and surly, abandoned by his betrothed because of his twisted leg, his lordship hides away at his manor house in the countryside. He leaves only once a week to eat at the local inn, drawn by the expert cooking of the innkeeper’s wife. One day, Buchan arrives to find that the innkeeper has a new servant, a beautiful scullery maid with a queenly air, and flashing green eyes that leave him breathless and increasingly aware of his lonely existence…Love may find them yet…The challenge of winning his way into Tatiana’s heavily protected heart stirs Buchan back to life…but can he and his twisted leg—and broken heart—win a proud princess whose only goal is to leave Scotland and return to the court where she’s the crowning jewel?

     American Xanthe Schneider finds herself catapulted into the world of British espionage, and is sent into the heart of Nazi Germany: Berlin. Her task? To find out whether Ralph Lancing-Price – a former government minister she had known briefly in London – is a patriot or traitor. And what of the code he talked about so abstrusely? Using her guise as an American correspondent, Xanthe sets out to find him. But not all is what it seems. Xanthe soon becomes drawn into a web of intrigue involving a project entitled "Enigma" - and she also unexpectedly falls in love. As the weeks go by, and Germany begins to mobilise its armies, Xanthe has to question who she can trust - and how she can survive? The Berlin Affair is a page-turning thriller, full of historical insight and dramatic reversals of fortune. A must read for fans of Robert Harris, David Downing and Alan Furst. Praise for David Boyle ‘Authentic and compelling... Boyle captures the paranoia and peril of the era.’ Roger Moorhouse, author of Berlin at War ‘The Berlin Affair is the first book in what I'm sure will prove to be a gripping series... For fans of Alan Furst and Robert Harris.’ - Richard Foreman, author of A Hero of our Time ‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail ‘A book that is engagingly sensitive’ Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma, Before Enigma, Operation Primrose,Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot, Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem, Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles, Towards the Setting Sun: The Race for America and The Age to Come.

    Though initially employed as a maid, Mary soon becomes the daughter the couple were never able to have. With Britain at war, unable to remain idle, Mary finds employment in the local steel works but when her fiancé Tom Downing is killed in action Mary is convinced it is retribution for their night of sin during Tom's Christmas leave. However, Mary grows to love Jack Holmes, a local miner. They marry and move into a humble terrace house with little but their love to keep them going. As the years pass Mary is determined to achieve success for herself and her family. She sets up her own dressmaking business and it seems as if she has finally found peace of mind. But the business starts to dominate her life until tragedy once more threatens to destroy all she most cherishes...

    He's fallen for Helen of Annandale and, in turn, fallen foul of his rival, Robert Bell: a man as violent as he is influential. In an ungovernable land where minor lairds vie to rule and blood feuds are settled by the sword, Fleming faces a battle to win Helen, and to stay alive.Entrusted as guard to the lovers' secret trysts, Langton is thrust into the middle of a dangerous triangle - and soon discovers Helen is not so chaste as she is fair. But Langton has his own secrets to keep - and other masters to serve. Someone has noticed his connections, and recruited him in their bid to control the hierarchy of the Border families; someone who would use lovers as pawns in the serious game of power and dynastic supremacy.Striking like a sword into the extraordinary history of the Borderlands, Greig's vital prose renders the Border Ballad Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lea as a breathless romance, a stirring adventure, and a memento mori. Gutsy, atmospheric and wry as ever, he shines a candle-light on the dark days of a lawless land, and the real woman behind the legend often called the Scottish Romeo & Juliet. Here it is brilliantly re-presented as the source of an equally famed, more complex drama.

    In The Bridegroom Wore Plaid three of the MacGregor brothers found true love, while the story of how their sister Lady Mary Frances meets her match in Matthew Daniels needs a novella all its own.Widowed Mary Frances MacGregor has vowed she’ll never succumb to manipulation by another handsome Englishman, but falls hard for lonely, outcast Matthew Daniels. Matthew not only has a scandal in his past, but is forbidden by conscience from explaining to Mary Frances why she ought to marry him anyway.

    This collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world - from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters.

    Only a few months into his new job, Constable Jim Daley is walking the beat. When he is called to investigate a break-in, he finds a young woman lying dead in her squalid flat. But how and why did she die? In a race against time, Daley is seconded to the CID to help catch a serial killer, under the guidance of his new friend DC Brian Scott. But the police are not the only ones looking for the killer . . . Jim Daley tackles his first serious crime on the mean streets of Glasgow, in an investigation that will change his life for ever. This is a stunning eBook only prequel to Denzil Meyrick’s critically acclaimed, best-selling DCI Jim Daley series.

    She sees the figure of an unknown man on the tower and his face at the window. It is Peter Quint, the master's dissolute valet, and he has come for little Miles. But Peter Quint is dead.Like the other tales collected here - 'Sir Edmund Orme', 'Owen Wingrave', and 'The Friends of the Friends' - 'The Turn of the Screw' is to all immediate appearances a ghost story. But are the appearances what they seem? Is what appears to the governess a ghost or a hallucination? Who else sees what she sees? The reader may wonder whether the children are victims of corruption from beyond the grave, or victims of the governess's `infernal imagination', which torments but also entrals her?'The Turn of the Screw' is probably the most famous, certainly the most eerily equivocal, of all ghostly tales. Is it a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the haunted house of Victorian culture, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease? Or is it simply, 'the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read'?

    Now, in one incomparable volume, four of Avon Romance's bestselling authors present stirring tales of hearts won and weddings to be, featuring a quartet of unforgettable heroines about to discover the rapture of love in a world as untamed as the men they will one day marry.from back coverDisplaying the bold and breathtaking sensuality that is her hallmark, bestselling author CHRISTINA DODD enthralls us with the tale of a willful Scottish beauty--kidnapped by an arrogant yet irresistible Englishman--who fights to keep from succumbing to her brazen captor's passionate, and persuasive, proposal.Experience the fiercely emotional power of STEPHANIE LAURENS who is at her passionate best with this story of a wealthy gentleman who finds his childhood nemesis has blossomed into a most desirable lass--and he's determined to do everything in his power to claim her as his own, before she is quite unsuitably wed.The delightful wit and warm humor of JULIA QUINN shine brightly in this winning romantic romp, in which a lovely English miss--feigning marriage to a dashing, beguiling Scotsman--discovers she has a very real desire for her make-believe groom.Another strikingly dramatic and deeply compelling tale by KAREN RANNEY. A legend decrees that the sexy Laird of Sinclair must marry a woman he has never met. But only sweet, passion-filled love will him to his true--and forbidden--bride.stories are:Under the Kilt (Fairchild Family #2.5) by Christina DoddRose in Bloom by Stephanie LaurensGretna Greene by Julia QuinnThe Glenlyon Bride by Karen Ranney

    With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place.