Fiction

Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean, miserable, bitter old man with no friends. One cold Christmas Eve, three ghosts take him on a scary journey to show him the error of his nasty ways. By visiting his past, present and future, Scrooge learns to love Christmas and the people all around him.With a light-hearted introduction by bestselling author Anthony Horowitz, creator of the highly successful Alex Rider novels, most recently Snakehead.

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.'Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927). Akutagawa's Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories is also available in Penguin Classics.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl, read by Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Mangan, and Tamsin Greig. You can think again if you thought you knew the stories of some of the most popular fairy tales. Here are six of the best known retold, with more than a twist or two, by the master of the comic and the blood-curdling.

Winner of the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the 2016 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel Winner of the 2016 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel Shortlisted for the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Best NovelShortlisted for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel A dark enchantment blights the land in the award-winning Uprooted - a enthralling, mythic fantasy by Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series.Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's dark magic. However, his help comes at a terrible price. One young village woman must serve him for ten years, leaving all they value behind. Agnieszka fears her dearest friend Kasia will be picked at the next choosing, for she's everything Agnieszka is not - beautiful, graceful and brave. Yet when the Dragon comes, it's not Kasia he takes.

Our fate is in their hands . . . The universe is a hostile place in John Scalzi's The End of All Things the sixth in The Old Man's War series.The Colonial Union's Defence Force was formed to save humanity when aggressive alien species targeted our worlds. Now Lieutenant Harry Wilson has an urgent new mission, as a hostile universe becomes ever more dangerous. He must investigate a sinister group, which lurks in the darkness of space playing different factions against one another. They'll target both humans and aliens, and their motives are unfathomable.The Defence Force itself is weakening as its soldiers fall - without recruits to replace them. Relations with Earth have broken down and it will send no more troops, even as human colonies become increasingly vulnerable to alien attack.Lieutenant Wilson and Colonial Union diplomats must race to keep the peace, seek reconciliation with an enraged Earth, and maintain humanity's unity at all costs. If they don't, it will mean oblivion, extinction and the end of all things.

The second title in Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library series, The Masked City is a wonderful read for all those who enjoyed Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair or Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London.Librarian-spy Irene is working undercover in an alternative London when her assistant Kai goes missing. She discovers he's been kidnapped by the fae faction and the repercussions could be fatal. Not just for Kai, but for whole worlds. Kai's dragon heritage means he has powerful allies, but also powerful enemies in the form of the fae. With this act of aggression, the fae are determined to trigger a war between their people - and the forces of order and chaos themselves. Irene's mission to save Kai and avert Armageddon will take her to a dark, alternate Venice where it's always Carnival. Here Irene will be forced to blackmail, fast talk, and fight. Or face death.The Masked City contains bonus extra content - secrets from the Library!

Ross Poldark is the first novel in Winston Graham's hugely popular Poldark series, which has become a television phenomenon starring Aidan Turner. Tired from a grim war in America, Ross Poldark returns to his land and his family. But the joyful homecoming he has anticipated turns sour, for his father is dead, his estate is derelict and the girl he loves is engaged to his cousin.But his sympathy for the destitute miners and farmers of the district leads him to rescue a half-starved urchin girl from a fairground brawl and take her home - an act which alters the whole course of his life . . .Ross Poldark is followed by Demelza, the second novel in this evocative series set in 18th century Cornwall.

When story-lover Anna takes over Longhampton's bookshop, it's her dream come true.And not just because it gets her away from her three rowdy stepchildren and their hyperactive Dalmatian...Unpacking boxes filled with childhood classics, Anna can't shake the feeling that maybe her own fairytaleending isn't all that she'd hoped for. But, as the stories of love, adventure, secret gardens, lost dogs, wicked witches and giant peaches breathe new life into the neglected shop, Anna and her customers get swept up in the magic too. Even Anna's best friend Michelle - who categorically doesn't believe in true love and handsome princes - isn't immune.But when secrets from Michelle's own childhood come back to haunt her, and disaster threatens Anna's home, will the wisdom and charm of the stories in the bookshop help the two friends - and those they love - find their own happy ever afters?'Lucy Dillon's voice is gentle and kind throughout...perceptive and well handled. A heart-warming piece of escapism for long winter nights.' - RedA perfect escapism for fans of Jojo Moyes and Katie Fforde.

The original vision of Grimms' tales in English for the first timeWhen Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, followed by a second volume in 1815, they had no idea that such stories as "e;Rapunzel,"e; "e;Hansel and Gretel,"e; and "e;Cinderella"e; would become the most celebrated in the world. Yet few people today are familiar with the majority of tales from the two early volumes, since in the next four decades the Grimms would publish six other editions, each extensively revised in content and style. For the very first time, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm makes available in English all 156 stories from the 1812 and 1815 editions. These narrative gems, newly translated and brought together in one beautiful book, are accompanied by sumptuous new illustrations from award-winning artist Andrea Dezso.From "e;The Frog King"e; to "e;The Golden Key,"e; wondrous worlds unfold-heroes and heroines are rewarded, weaker animals triumph over the strong, and simple bumpkins prove themselves not so simple after all. Esteemed fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes offers accessible translations that retain the spare description and engaging storytelling style of the originals. Indeed, this is what makes the tales from the 1812 and 1815 editions unique-they reflect diverse voices, rooted in oral traditions, that are absent from the Grimms' later, more embellished collections of tales. Zipes's introduction gives important historical context, and the book includes the Grimms' prefaces and notes.A delight to read, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm presents these peerless stories to a whole new generation of readers.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of About a Boy by Nick Hornby, read by Stephen Mangan. Nick Hornbys second bestselling novel is about sex, manliness and fatherhood. Will is thirty-six, comfortable and child-free. And hes discovered a brilliant new way of meeting women - through single-parent groups. Marcus is twelve and a little bit nerdish: hes got the kind of mother who made him listen to Joni Mitchell rather than Nirvana. Perhaps they can help each other out a little bit, and both can start to act their age.

Austerlitz is W. G. Sebald's haunting novel of post-war Europe.In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life, after a career as an architectural historian, Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin - finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years before. Austerlitz is W.G. Sebald's melancholic masterpiece.'Mesmeric, haunting and heartbreakingly tragic. Simply no other writer is writing or thinking on the same level as Sebald' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times'Greatness in literature is still possible' John Banville, Irish Times, Books of the Year'A work of obvious genius' Literary Review'A fusion of the mystical and the solid ... His art is a form of justice - there can be, I think, no higher aim' Evening Standard'Spellbindingly accomplished; a work of art' The Times Literary Supplement 'I have never read a book that provides such a powerful account of the devastation wrought by the dispersal of the Jews from Prague and their treatment by the Nazis' Observer'A great book by a great writer' Boyd Tonkin, IndependentW . G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allg u, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1996 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Campo Santo, Unrecounted, A Place in the Country. His selected poetry is published in a volume called Across the Land and the Water.

The first novel by the great American novelist, now the subject of a major new film, Genius, starring Jude Law, Colin Firth, Dominic West and Nicole Kidman. Eugene Gant, born in 1900 to hard-drinking stone-cutter Oliver and entrepreneurial Eliza, grows up in small-town America. Both lonely outsider and passionate chronicler of American life, Eugene experiences upheaval and family tragedy before coming to realise that he must leave his home behind if he is to forge his own path in the world. This is the dazzlingly rich first novel from one of the most brilliant and mercurial voices of early twentieth-century, who was a major influence on writers including Hunter S. Thompson, Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth and the Beats.This new edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian. Wolfe's second novel, Of Time and the River, continuing the story of Eugene Gant, is also now available in Penguin Classics.

Tolkien's acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tale, read by Derek Jacobi.Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle, who sets out to paint the perfect tree. But he senses that he will be snatched away from his work long before it is finished - if indeed it could ever be finished in this world. For it is in another and brighter place that Niggle finds his tree is finished, and learns that it is indeed a real tree, a true part of creation.Written in the early 1940s at the same time as The Lord of the Rings was taking shape, 'Leaf by Niggle' is a passionate adult fairy tale about a man who has 'a long journey to make', thought to be an allegory of Tolkien's own life.

Winner of the August Derleth award, Last Days is a chilling and terrifying novel from master of horror, Adam Nevill.The Temple of the Last Days. The brutal cult with a history of murder, sex and occult dealings destroyed itself during one night of ritualistic violence decades ago. Or so they thought . . . Kyle Freeman is an indie film-maker with no money and few options, so when he lands a commission to make a documentary about The Temple of the Last Days he jumps at the chance. Little does he know that his investigation into the cult's bloody history will lead him into the darkest places he's ever been. As they travel from the London and France to Arizona tracing the path of the cult, uncanny events, out-of-body experiences, ghastly artefacts and visits by the merciless 'old friends' plague Kyle and his one-man crew. They soon discover the power of the cult's terrible legacy, and that it may be too late for them to escape . . .

The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father.Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien's characters. 'Hapless Kullervo', as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruellest of fates.Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was 'the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own', and was 'a major matter in the legends of the First Age'; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Turin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo - published here for the first time with the author's drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien's invented world.

Have you ever been so angry that hitting things felt good? Ever felt numb to all emotions?The past few years have been like that for me. Traveling between fury and indifference with no stops in between. Some people hate me for it, while others are scared of me. But none of them can hurt me, because I don't care about anything or anyone. Except Tatum. I love her so much that I hate her. I hate that I can't let her go. We used to be friends, but I found out that I couldn't trust her or anyone else. So I hurt her. I pushed her away. But I still need her. She centers me. Engaging, challenging, bullying her - it's the last part of me that feels anything human. But then she left for a year and came back a different girl. Now, when I push, she pushes back.For everyone who loved Bully . . . This is Jared's story. Praise for Penelope Douglas'I was really craving a book that would make me stop everything I was supposed to be doing and devour every word... and that's exactly what Bully did!' - Smitten Book Blog'A unique twist on the bad boy meets good girl tale. I could not put it down!' - Aestas Book Blog'She did something seasoned writers haven't been able to do-take a hero who was a complete ass and make me fall in love with him' - Scandalicious Book Reviews

Madoc and Fallon. Two estranged teenagers playing games that push the boundaries between love and war . . . She's back.For the three years she's been away at boarding school, there was no word from her. Back when we lived in the same house, she used to cut me down during the day and then leave her door open for me at night.I was stupid then, but now I'm ready to beat her at her own game . . .I'm back.Three years and I can tell he still wants me, even if he acts like he's better than me.But I won't be scared away. Or pushed down. I'll call his bluff and fight back. That's what he wants, right? As long as I keep my guard up, he'll never know how much he affects me . . . Praise for the Fall Away Series'I read this book in one sitting. Rival was as gripping as it was sexy!' #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover'Full of feeling and intensity that will appeal to the reader seeking an emotional rush' IndieReader'I was really craving a book that would make me stop everything I was supposed to be doing and devour every word . . . and that's exactly what Bully did!' Smitten Book Blog'A unique twist on the bad boy meets good girl tale. I could not put it down!' Aestas Book Blog'She did something seasoned writers haven't been able to do - take a hero who was a complete ass and make me fall in love with him' Scandalicious Book Reviews

The universe is a dangerous place in John Scalzi's Old Man's War, the first in The Old Man's War series.At seventy-five years old, John Perry is after a fresh start - so, naturally, he joins the army. Earth's military machine can transform elderly recruits, restoring their lost youth. But in return, its Colonial Defence Force demands two years of hazardous service in space. This is how Perry finds himself in a new body, crafted from his original DNA. A genetically enhanced and upgraded new body, ready for battle.But upgrades alone won't keep Perry safe. He'll be fighting for his life on the front line as he defends humanity's colonies from hostile aliens. He'll pay the price for his choices, and he'll discover the universe is even more dangerous than he imagined.Continue the gripping space war series with The Ghost Brigades.

Following the smash-hit sci-fi comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second part in Douglas Adams' multi-media phenomenon and cult classic series. This edition includes exclusive bonus material from the Douglas Adams archives, and an introduction by Monty Python star, Terry Jones.If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe?Which is exactly what Arthur Dent and the crew of the Heart of Gold plan to do. There's just the small matter of escaping the Vogons, avoiding being taken to the most totally evil world in the Galaxy and teaching a space ship how to make a proper cup of tea.And did anyone actually make a reservation?Follow Arthur Dent's galactic (mis)adventures in the rest of the trilogy with five parts: Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless.

Winner of the August Derleth award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative fantasy thriller, and the first of China Mieville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag.The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Now a stranger has come, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. Soon the city is gripped by an alien terror - and the fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike. The urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground as battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings. And a reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape.

Following on from The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist is the second epic novel in the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton.A seemingly unstoppable force has entered our universe, and we are confronted by our most primal fear. Those who have succumbed to its horror have acquired godlike powers. Yet their actions are far from divine as they advance from planet to planet, leaving slaughter and mayhem in their wake. The Confederation Navy is dangerously overstretched, as whole worlds fracture and collapse. And a dark messiah prepares to invoke his own version of the final night. In such desperate times, a powerful new weapon could cause yet more terror, but Dr Alkad Mzu is determined to retrieve the Alchemist - and complete her thirty-year-old mission to slay a star. However, others have their own ideas on how to use this ultimate doomsday device.The Neutronium Alchemist is followed by The Naked God.

The stunning debut fantasy novel from author Peter V. Brett.The Painted Man, book one of the Demon Cycle, is a captivating and thrilling fantasy adventure, pulling the reader into a world of demons, darkness and heroes.Voted one of the top ten fantasy novels of 2008 by amazon.co.uk. Sometimes there is very good reason to be afraid of the dark... Eleven-year-old Arlen lives with his parents on their small farmstead, half a day's ride from the isolated hamlet of Tibbet's Brook. As dusk falls upon Arlen's world, a strange mist rises from the ground; a mist that promises a violent death to any foolish enough to brave the coming darkness, for hungry corelings - demons that cannot be harmed by mortal weapons - materialize from the vapours to feed on the living. As the sun sets, people have no choice but to take shelter behind magical wards and pray that their protection holds until the creatures dissolve with the first signs of dawn. When Arlen's life is shattered by the demon plague, he is forced to see that it is fear, rather than the demons, which truly cripples humanity. Believing that there is more to his world than to live in constant fear, he must risk leaving the safety of his wards to discover a different path. In the small town of Cutter's Hollow, Leesha's perfect future is destroyed by betrayal and a simple lie. Publicly shamed, she is reduced to gathering herbs and tending an old woman more fearsome than the corelings. Yet in her disgrace, she becomes the guardian of dangerous ancient knowledge. Orphaned and crippled in a demon attack, young Rojer takes solace in mastering the musical arts of a Jongleur, only to learn that his unique talent gives him unexpected power over the night. Together, these three young people will offer humanity a last, fleeting chance of survival.

The whole of the magnificent Riftwar Cycle by bestselling author Raymond E. Feist, master of magic and adventure, now available in ebookFor nearly a year peace reigned in the enchanted kingdom of Rillanon. But new challenges awaited Arutha, the Prince of Krondor, when Jimmy the Hand the youngest thief in the Guild of Mockers came upon a sinister Nighthawk poised to assassinate him.What evil power raises the dead and makes corpses do battle with the living at the behest of the Guild of Death? And what high magic can defeat it? Meanwhile, a life-or-death quest must be undertaken to find an antidote to a poison that fells a beautiful princess on her wedding dayaSilverthorn is the second book in the Riftwar Saga. The trilogy concludes with book three, A Darkness at Sethanon.

THESE NEWCOMERS ARE DIFFERENT. THEY WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING.For fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.'By far my favourite book of of the year' Guardian'One of only two novels I've ever loved whose main characters are not human' Barbara KingsolverOne cold night, two newcomers emerge onto the streets of 1899 New York, and it is never the same again.But these two are more than strangers to this land, they are strangers to this world. From the depths of folkloric history come Chava the golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi and Ahmad, a djinni, born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped in an old copper flask released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.Two companions who were never meant to be released, and never meant to meet. And when they do, their opposing natures will be sealed by a special bond, but one that is threatened by watching eyes, roaming owners and a misunderstanding world.A glittering gem of a novel, as spell-binding as it is compelling, The Golem and The Djinni asks us what we're made of and how we can break free.

'The Namesake' is the story of a boy brought up Indian in America.'When her grandmother learned of Ashima's pregnancy, she was particularly thrilled at the prospect of naming the family's first sahib. And so Ashima and Ashoke have agreed to put off the decision of what to name the baby until a letter comes...'For now, the label on his hospital cot reads simply BABY BOY GANGULI. But as time passes and still no letter arrives from India, American bureaucracy takes over and demands that 'baby boy Ganguli' be given a name. In a panic, his father decides to nickname him 'Gogol' - after his favourite writer.Brought up as an Indian in suburban America, Gogol Ganguli soon finds himself itching to cast off his awkward name, just as he longs to leave behind the inherited values of his Bengali parents. And so he sets off on his own path through life, a path strewn with conflicting loyalties, love and loss...Spanning three decades and crossing continents, Jhumpa Lahiri's much-anticipated first novel is a triumph of humane story-telling. Elegant, subtle and moving, 'The Namesake' is for everyone who loved the clarity, sympathy and grace of Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning debut story collection, 'Interpreter of Maladies'.

A fabulous Eddings standalone fantasy, set in an entirely new magical world.Burglar, armed robber and sometime murderer, our hero Althalus is commissioned to steal a book from the House at the End of the World by a mysterious cloaked stranger named Ghend.At the House at the End of the World, he finds a talking cat... in the same room as the book Ghend described. What he can't find once he's in the house is the door by which he entered. Only 2467 years and an ice age later does Althalus re-emerge with the cat, Emmy. He's read the book written by the god Deiwos, whose evil brother Daeva is trying to unmake the world. Emmy is in fact their sister and she's setting out to save the world with Althalus to help her.No easy task. First there is a quest to unearth the magical knife that will enable Emmy to assemble her band of essential helpers: Eliar (young soldier), Andine (leader of a small country), Bheid (black-robed priest), Gher (ten-year old orphan), Leitha (telepath/witch).Battles follow against Gelta the Queen of Night and the armies of Daeva involving many devious manoeuvres in and out of the House where Doors can be opened to any place at any time. Daeva has his Doors, too. When Daeva can't win through battle, he tries revolution. When Dweia (Emmy) can't win any other way, Althalus will persuade her to lie, cheat and steal - reciprocating the lessons in truth, justice and morality Emmy has been giving him for some while.The existence of the world hangs in the balance and love cannot be guaranteed to triumph in this glorious epic fantasy.

Lawrence Durrell was one of the best-selling, most celebrated English novelists of the late 20th century. The Alexandria Quartet is unquestionably his most admired work, at heart a sensuous and brilliant evocation of wartime Alexandria. In this world of corrupt glamour, L. G. Darley attempts to reconcile himself to the end of his affair with the dark, passionate Justine Hosnani - setting alight a beguiling exploration of sexual and political intrigue that the author himself described as 'an investigation of modern love'.

Nightwood is not only a classic of modernist literature, but was also acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Barnes told a friend that Nightwood was written with her own blood 'while it was still running.' That flowing wound was the breakup of an eight-year relationship with the love of her life.Now recognised as a twentieth-century classic, the influence of Djuna Barnes's novel has been, and continues to be, exceptional.

Award-winning P.D. James, one of the masters of British crime fiction, plots this atmospheric and disturbing novel in the year 2021. Children of Men is a brilliant mystery possessing all of the qualities which distinguish P.D. James as a novelist. Under the despotic rule of Xan Lyppiatt, the Warden of England, the old are despairing and the young cruel. Theo Faren, a cousin of the Warden, lives a solitary life in this ominous atmosphere. That is, until a chance encounter with a young woman leads him into contact with a group of dissenters. Suddenly his life is changed irrevocably, as he faces agonising choices which could affect the future of mankind. PD James is the world's pre-eminent crime writer, most famous for her Adam Dalgliesh mysteries and for her bestselling titles Death Comes to Pemberley and The Murder Room. Children of Men was adapted into a hit film in 2006, directed by Alfonso Cuarn the film starred Clive Owen, Michael Caine and Julianne Moore.

Naomi Novik's stunning series of novels follow the adventures of Cpt Laurence and his dragon Temeraire as they travel from the shores of Britain to China and Africa.Laurence and Temeraire made a daring journey across vast and inhospitable continents to bring home a rare Turkish dragon from the treacherous Ottoman Empire.Kazilik dragons are firebreathers, and Britain is in greater need of protection than ever, for while Laurence and Temeraire were away, an epidemic struck British shores and is killing off her greatest defence - her dragon air force is slowly dying.The dreadful truth must be kept from Napoleon at all costs. Allied with the white Chinese dragon, Lien, he would not hesitate to take advantage of Britain's weakness and launch a devastating invasion.Hope lies with the only remaining healthy dragon - Temeraire cannot stay at home, but must once again venture into the unknown to help his friends and seek out a cure in darkest Africa.