This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

    What she does not expect is to also inherit an Antique Shop which has not been opened in more than sixty years. She takes her friend, Peter Attwood, an archaeologist and historian to investigate the shop, but what they find is far more than a simple neglected retail store. They discover a coin minted at the time of the young King Edward V, but when they try to remove it from the shop, they step outside and into 1483, the year the coin was minted. Wanting to see the princes in the Tower and perhaps discover the truth of what happened to them, Peter persuades Rachel to dress in some of the historical clothing in the back room of the antique shop, and visit the Tower. There they watch the young King Edward V writing and when he leaves his scroll on a stone bench, Peter takes the opportunity to grab it. A journal written by one of the princes could be worth a fortune, but when they try to take it out of the shop, they find the same problem: it cannot be taken into the twenty first century. A scheme to hide the scroll in the fifteenth century and find it again in the twenty-first seems an easy option, until they are observed digging it up and accused of witchcraft.

    But he soon learns that rats in suits are even worse. What do you do when rats invade your barn? Kill them or negotiate? Mason finds out the hard way that force does not always work! An allegory of war and violence? A statement on the arms race? Neal Asher’s work takes Orwell’s Animal Farm into a grimly humorous future where evolution is outrunning humanity. You may never trust a rat again! “I’ve never read anything like MASON’S RATS before … it’s sharp, funny and highly inventive. There’s more fun in this one slim volume than in many a full-length novel!” – Stephen Gallagher

    OBSESSION. REVENGE. Years after she fell out with her best friend, Laura remains terrified of the past coming back to haunt her… Laura, the only child of doting parents, is at the centre of what seems a perfect family. Daughter of a well-known television personality, she spends her time between their idyllic Northumberland farmhouse and summers on the Amalfi coast. New girl, Evelyn, arrives at Laura’s prestigious boarding school desperate to escape her miserable home life. The two quickly become friends, inseparable, and Evelyn relishes the chance to become close to Laura’s family. But when Laura discovers her friend has betrayed her and her family she calls an immediate end to their friendship with devastating consequences. Decades later, Laura is forging a successful career as a journalist, happily married and keen to leave the past firmly behind her. Evelyn, however, filled with resentment and blighted by their estrangement, believes she paid a price that should have been shared… It’s time to settle the score.