But the bombing is only the beginning. In a voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, Incendiary is a stunning debut of one ordinary life blown apart by terror.

    1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

    She had since married the U.S. officer who retrieved her from Buchenwald but had remained an ""emotional virgin."" But now she loses her head as well as her frigidity over Alfred, posing as a Swiss architect; her New York psychiatrist reports him to the Israeli Intelligence, and together they run away--he to keep his rendezvous (his ennobling word for their affair) with death.... Would you believe it? Why would you, but maybe seeing's believing and this is going to be filmed. A second feature?

    But when Kate Herrick returns to her childhood home she uncovers a web of intrigue as tangled as the rambling roses in its garden. It is the summer of 1947. Kate, widowed in the War and comfortably settled in London, travels to Rose Cottage to retrieve some family papers for her grandmother. Curious as to the changes and the welcome she'll find, she is relieved when, at first glance, everything seems just as she remembers it. But she soon finds disturbing evidence of a break-in. The papers are missing. The village is alive with gossip. Did her elderly neighbors, suspected of being witches, really see nighttime prowlers and ghosts in the cottage garden? Kate's search for the truth brings her together with many childhood friends and neighbors, some suspicious of her return, but most eager to help. It also leads her down a trail of family bitterness, jealousy, and revenge - and into an exploration of her own past.

    Out with white gloves and flower arranging, in with managing mortgagesand do-it-yourself manicures! Behind this remarkable transformation is business-savvy Betsy Phillimore, with her own unique connection to London's esteemed Phillimore Academy for Young Ladies....Twenty-seven years ago, an infant turned up on the Academy's doorstep, with a note tacked to her blanket by an elegant golden brooch -- "Please take care of my baby. I want her to grow up to be a proper lady." Loved by Lady Frances Phillimore and her kindhearted staff, Betsy grew up aspiring to be an Academy girl. But when Franny and her husband, Lord Phillimore, advise Betsy to instead hone her considerable math skills at college, she brokenheartedly leaves behind the only family she's known.Now, on the sad occasion of Lady Frances's memorial service, Betsy comes back to find the school in disrepair, the enrollment down, and Lord P. desperate to save his legacy. Enter Betsy, the numbers genius, and her business plan -- to replace dusty protocol with the essentials girls need today: "cell phone etiquette, eating sushi properly, handling credit cards, choosing the perfect little black dress, negotiating a pre-nup, " and other lessons in independent living.But Betsy may have bitten off more than she can chew. Can she win over the school's snobby headmistress and its handsome but risk-averse treasurer? Returning to London also means facing her own unfinished business, as she crosses paths with her sexy girlhood crush...and blowing the dust off clues to a lifelong mystery: who were her parents, and why did they abandon her? If knowledge is power, Betsy is on the brink of truly becoming her own woman, and embracing the one thing she's wanted all along: a place to call home.A bittersweet journey of laughter and tears, "The Finishing Touches" will have you gleefully turning pages through dinner with elbows on the table -- bad manners, perhaps, but excusable for one utterly irresistible read.

    The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.

    This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community.

    Do you run away and hide, or start planning your revenge?THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND THE PERFECT READ FOR VALENTINE'S DAY . . . 'A deftly plotted, witty tale of revenge. It's a romcom with attitude' Mail on Sunday Best friend, soulmate, confidante . . . backstabber. Amy thought she knew everything there was to know about her best friend Melissa. Then again, Amy also thought she was on the verge of the wedding of her dreams to her long-distance fiancé.Until she pays a surprise trip home to London. Jack is out, but it's clear another woman has been making herself at home in their flat.There's something about her stuff that feels oddly familiar . . . and then it hits Amy. The Other Woman is Melissa.Amy has lost her home, her fiancé and her best friend in one disastrous weekend - but instead of falling apart, she's determined to get her own back.Piecing her life back together won't be half as fun as dismantling theirs, after all.'I've just finished this . . . it's FABALISS. I was SO GRIPPED' Marian Keyes'Barbed, twisty and full of deliciously dry wit, this is smart stuff to race through' Sunday Mirror'Brilliant, original, edgy and compulsively readable' Daily Mail

    Vine is the recipient of three Edgars and four Gold Dagger Awards.

    Armitage's protagonist is the feckless Barney, thirtysomething, divorced, and alienated from his autistic son. His only passion are his mates, "the old friends, the ones you were brought up with, who go further back than you remember, who've been there since the beginning. You didn't choose them--they're like family. Like blood." When Barney unearths what turns out to be a priceless relic from his childhood days--the "little green man" of the novel's title--he gets back in touch with his old gang: Winkie, Pompus, Stubbs and Tony Football. Desperate to "turn back the clock" and relive their childhood escapades, Barney proposes a game of truth or dare. Each member of the gang "dares" another. Failure to complete a dare leads to disqualification. The winner walks away with the priceless little green man. As the stakes get higher, friendships begin to dissolve as hairy women are seduced, sheep are slaughtered and excrement eaten. In the process the gang reveal some of their deepest secrets, from abuse to impotence, and as the game begins to get out of hand, Barney himself has to confront the responsibilities of adulthood. The problem is that the novel's brutally frank portrayal of both Barney and his gang is so convincing that it becomes difficult to feel any sympathy for anyone. Little Green Man is a tough, uncompromising debut novel, but many fans of Armitage may feel it lacks the originality of his highly acclaimed poetry. --Jerry Brotton

    Set in post-Revolutionary War days, Women of Catawba is an inspiring story of men and women whose faith, strength, and capacity to love are tested to the limit.

    K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece is a psychological thriller that centers on seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the names of the days of the week. Chesterton explores the meanings of their disguised identities in what is a fascinating mystery and, ultimately, a spellbinding allegory.As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, The real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. This wouldn't be interesting at all, though, if he didn't also show such passion for giving the devil his due. He animates the forces of chaos and anarchy with every ounce of imaginative verve and rhetorical force in his body.

    To Daniel Morgan, self-made millionaire and reluctant playboy, young Liza Hanford was that rarest of all creatures - an efficient, compassionate and discreet private secretary. So discreet in fact that he never knew that for eight heart-wringing years Liza had been in love with him.It was hardly the kind of proposal to set a girl cloud-walking, but to Liza it opened the door to a new life . . . and perhaps he just might learn to love her.To all appearances it was a true Cinderella story. But underneath the pleasant surface dark shadows of Daniel's past began to emerge. Suddenly this unspoken menace exploded and threatened not only Liza's marriage but her husband's life.

    'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .' As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they at first appear.There but for the was hailed as one of the best books of 2011 by Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt, Patrick Ness, Sebastian Barry, Boyd Tonkin, Erica Wagner and Nick Barley. 'Dazzlingly inventive' A.S. Byatt 'Whimsically devastating. Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian 'A real gem' Erica Wagner, The Times 'Eccentric, adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review 'If you liked Smith's earlier fiction, you will know that she enjoys setting up a situation before chucking in a literary Molotov cocktail then describing what happens' Sunday Express 'Wonderful, word-playful, compelling' Jeanette Winterson 'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph 'I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul' Evening Standard

    When Natalie's longtime boyfriend walks out on her just when she thinks he's going to propose, Tom offers her a different and wildly romantic proposition. He suggests that they spend twenty-six weekends together, indulging in twenty-six different activities from A to Z, and at the end of that time Tom's convinced they'll be madly in love. Natalie, however, is not so sure.As Natalie's touring the alphabet with Tom, her mother's going through her own romantic crisis—while Tom's unhappily married sister-in-law, Lucy, struggles with temptation. And over the course of six amazing months, three generations of passionate dreamers are going to discover that, no matter how clever they are, love—and life—is never as easy as A, B, C . . .