‘A highly ingenious, entertaining and unusual tale’ – Daily Herald

The luxurious Transcontinental Express, a locomotive journeying coast-to-coast across the United States, is the height of 1930s technology and sophistication. Alongside carriages for dining, drinking and dancing, there’s even a swimming pool car. And it’s there, just one day into the journey, that the corpse of a banker is found.

With a killer on the train, the passengers soon begin to turn on one another. It's up to the clever Dr Pons – with his sharp wit and knack for impossible puzzles – to get to the bottom of the case, even as every new piece of evidence seems to suggest more perplexing possibilities.

‘Ingenious . . . A satisfyingly complex solution to both crimes’ – Booklist

‘Extravagantly brainy, gloriously dated’ – Kirkus

Drawing deeply from her own life as well as from art and history, Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16^th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black”. The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers she plants in memory of a loved one.

Attuned to both the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, Black in Blues is a poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original work from one of our greatest thinkers.

‘Salman Rushdie is a genius’ A.M. Homes

Two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, experience private tragedy during national calamity. Revisiting the Bombay neighbourhood of Midnight’s Children, a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire. In an English university college, an undead academic asks a lonely student to avenge his former tormentor.

These five dazzling works of fiction move between the three countries that Salman Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life.

Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? How can we bid farewell to the places that we have made home? The Eleventh Hour ponders life and death, legacy and identity with the penetrating insight and boundless imagination that have made Salman Rushdie one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

‘More than 40 years after Midnight’s Children, there is still nobody who spins a yarn quite like Salman Rushdie’ Spectator

‘Rushdie has not just enlarged literature’s capacities, he has expanded the world’s imaginative possibilities’ The Times

Cambridge, USA 2018. Ana and Luis’s relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including mothers that both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been can fix what is.

Havana, Cuba 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People’s Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever.

Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce – except in Reno, Nevada.

At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s ‘divorce ranches’ Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks’ residency that is the state’s only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it’s as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, was prim and stifling. But it isn’t until Greer Lange arrives that Lois’s world truly cracks open . . .

Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met – and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. But how much can she really trust her mysterious new friend? And how far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?

Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, THE DIVORCÉES is a deliciously slow-burn, atmospheric page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire and freedom.

‘I straight up loved it. It’s so stylish, so elegant, each sentence a delectable little treat . . . and the nods towards darkness and things unravelling are so thrilling and chicly done’
Elizabeth Macneal, bestselling author of The Doll Factory

‘Excellent, deeply compelling’
Lauren Groff, bestselling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies

‘A delicious literary page-turner from a fierce new voice’
Rebecca Makkai, bestselling author of The Great Believers

‘I adored The Divorcées – such an atmospheric and layered story of female independence, solidarity and deception’
Julie Mae Cohen

‘A sultry fever dream of a novel . . . This book shimmers and startles on every page’
Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light

‘The women of The Divorcées captivated me . . . an unforgettable, lushly assured novel’
Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson

‘Stunning. Compelling, rich and with a dark undercurrent, I couldn’t put it down. An outstanding debut’
Marianne Cronin

‘Exquisite . . . Threaded with a tension that grips you. A sultry page turner. I highly recommend’
Julie Owen Moylan

‘Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have’ Guardian

‘Incisive, smart and witty, it will leave you looking and love and life anew’ i

Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide – from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Kara Walker to Bjork – but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression and perversity; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.

The collection is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development as a writer, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.

‘Maggie Nelson is one of the most unique voices in non-fiction: enquiring, political, lyrically dazzling, empathetic‘ Sinéad Gleeson

America is held captive by horror stories. They flicker on the screen of a darkened movie theater and are shared around the campfire. They blare out in tabloid true-crime headlines, and in the worried voices of local news anchors. They are consumed, virally, on the phones in each of our pockets. Like the victims in any slasher worth its salt, we can’t escape the thrall of scary stories.

In American Scary, noted cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes the reader to the startling origins of the horror genre in the United States, drawing a surprising through-line between the lingering influence of the European Gothic, the enslaved insurrection tales propagated by slaveholders, and the apocryphal chronicles of colonial settlers kidnapped by Native Americans, among many others.

These foundational narratives give rise to and are influenced by the body of work we more closely associate with horror: the weird fiction of HP Lovecraft, the lingering stories of Shirley Jackson, the unsettling films of Alfred Hitchcock, the up-all-night tales of Stephen King, and the gripping critiques of Jordan Peele. From “The Tell-Tale Heart” to M3gan, we begin to see why the horror genre is the perfect prism through which to view America’s past and present.

With the extraordinary historical breadth and dexterous weave of insight and style that has made him twice a finalist for the National Jewish Book, Dauber makes the haunting case that horror reveals the true depths of the American mind.

Featuring cameos from:
Shirley Jackson The Sixth Sense Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne Anne Radcliffe Charles Brockden Brown Los Espookys Washington Irving Nat Turner Night of the Living Dead H.P. Lovecraft Alien Mary Heaton Vorse Edith Wharton Norman Bates Lon Chaney Frankenstein Dracula H.G. Wells William Faulkner Dashiell Hammett Tananarive Due Twilight Zone The Handmaid’s Tale Ray Bradbury I Am Legend Elia Kazan Psycho Ralph Ellison The Blair Witch Project Stanley Kubrick Helter Skelter Jordan Peele The Walking Dead H.H. Holmes Harriet Beecher Stowe

It’s time to put the guns down, Detective Cross. Even if you knew the way out of this place, we would catch you.

A serial killer is taking out America’s finest legal minds, and Alex Cross is called to investigate their brutal murders.

But during a dangerous mission to track down the killer, his wife, Bree, and best friend, John Sampson, go missing.

To save the people he loves most, Cross has only three goals:

Number one: Find Bree and John.
Number two: Escape.
Number three: Survive.

If he fails, there will be no one left in the House of Cross.

___________________________________________

***** ‘Another non-stop action thriller‘
***** ‘A wonderful engrossing thriller’
***** ‘Excellent read as always’
***** ‘Keeps you on the edge of your seat‘
***** ‘Long live Alex Cross‘
***** ‘Can be read as a first standalone book but I promise if this is the first book you read in the series you’ll be reading them all!’

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PRAISE FOR THE ALEX CROSS SERIES

‘Patterson never, and I mean never, disappoints’ USA Today

‘Behind all the noise and the numbers, we shouldn’t forget that no one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent – which is what Jim has, in spades. The Alex Cross series proves it’ Lee Child

‘Alex Cross is a legend’ Harlan Coben

‘Alex Cross … only gets better and better’ Lisa Scottoline

‘I wrote, “Along Came a Spider is the best thriller I’ve come across in many a year. It deserves to be this season’s no. 1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name.” A household name, indeed’ Nelson DeMille

‘[Alex Cross] has become one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time, a character for the ages’ Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Alex Cross Must Die was a Sunday TImes bestseller November 2023

*Escape into the world of Molly the Maid in this delightfully festive novella*

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It’s the Christmas countdown at the Regency Grand Hotel, and Molly the maid is polishing up her holiday list.

*Deck halls

*Dust off decorations

*Buy Secret Santa gift

*Solve mystery?

A festive plot throws Molly off-kilter. Why does her beau, Juan Manuel, keep disappearing? And why are the hotel corridors filled with whispers?

Someone is keeping a secret. And, as Molly discovers, the answers to the mystery lie in a most unexpected gift?

Full of charm and feel-good festive cheer, The Mistletoe Mystery is the perfect stocking-filler this Christmas!

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Over a million readers have been swept away by Molly the Maid:

‘Captivating, emotional, powerful and wise. I absolutely loved it and think Nita is my new favourite author’ READER REVIEW ?????

‘A book full of such charm!’ READER REVIEW ?????

‘I didn’t think I could love a character any more than I loved Eleanor Oliphant but along comes Molly the Maid. God, I love her’ READER REVIEW ?????

‘Wow! I loved everything about this book’ READER REVIEW ?????

‘Lots of twists and turns and highly gripping’ READER REVIEW ?????

The Maid was a Sunday Times bestseller for w/c 08/05/2023