Books published by Hodder & Stoughton

Number One bestselling author Mike Gayle returns with this wickedly observed novel about modern relationships: does Mr Irresponsible have what it takes to become Mr Commitment?Duffy is engaged. He accepted Mel's proposal. But the trips to IKEA, dinner parties for couples and talk of babies are giving him itchy feet and now he's not sure if he can say goodbye to his extended adolescence and face up to that final walk down the aisle.How does he know if she's The One? Can he cope with responsibility? Does he have what it takes to become Mr Commitment? Because if he doesn't, he may just find that he's lost Mel - forever...

A brilliant romantic comedy exploring beach basics for the broken-hearted from number one bestselling author Mike Gayle.Their holiday brochure said 18-30 . . . But they've just turned 35.After ten years together Charlie Mansell has been dumped by his live-in girlfriend, Sarah. All he wants to do is wallow in misery, but mates Andy and Tom have a better idea: a week of sun, sea and souvlaki in Malia, party capital of the Greek islands.But Charlie and his mates aren't eighteen any more. Or even under thirty. And it shows.It isn't the cheap beer, the late nights or even the fast-food that's the problem. It's girls. And life. And most of all . . . each other. WISH YOU WERE HERE is a heart-warming, funny and wise tale about love and friendship and how seven days in the sun can change your life forever.

From the No. 1 bestselling author of MY LEGENDARY GIRLFRIEND and MR COMMITMENT comes a this wickedly observed, and poignant novel about love and nostalgia.Unlike most people Matt Beckford is actually looking forward to turning thirty. After struggling through most of his twenties, he thinks his career, finances and love life are finally sorted. But when he splits up with his girlfriend, he realises that life has different plans for him and Matt temporarily moves back home to his parents.Within hours, his mum and dad are driving him up the wall just like the old days. Feeling nostalgic and desperate for sanity, he decides to get in touch with his old school mates. So, one by one, he tracks down the rest of the magnificent seven - Gershwin, Pete, Bev, Katrina, Elliot and Ginny, his former on-off girlfriend. Back together after a decade apart. But things will never be the same again for any of them because when you're turning thirty nothing's as simple as it used to be.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Compelling, surprising and entertaining' HeatSince the death of his fianc e Aimee, Ross Wakeman has been unable to fill the hole she has left in his life. Seeking to end his pain, he becomes a ghost hunter, despite never having seen a ghost. However, when his job leads him to the town of Comtosook, it becomes apparent that Ross isn't the only one haunted by the past. When he meets the mysterious Lia, who brings him to life for the first time in years, redemption seems around the corner. But the discoveries that await him are beyond anything he could dream of - in this world or the next.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Picoult has been incredibly successful in dissecting the pain that family members go through when faced with sensitive and emotional issues . . . a touching read' Daily ExpressFifteen years ago, Daniel Stone's drinking and stealing sent him into a spiral of self-destructiveness which threatened to consume him entirely. Today, life has given him a second chance, and he's reinvented himself as a respected artist, loving husband, and doting father to teenage daughter Trixie, to whom he's never revealed his past.But when Trixie falls victim to an act of unspeakable violence at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Jason, Daniel's old self resurfaces, stronger than ever. How far can you go to avenge the ones you love?

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'A gut-wrenching tale of mother love . . . contains enough blind alleys and red herrings to keep even the most astute readers on their toes' Daily ExpressAs a career-driven Assistant District Attorney, Nina Frost's life is dedicated to balancing being a mother to five-year old son Nathaniel and seeking justice to keep those who commit the most unthinkable of all crimes behind bars.But this delicate balance is upset when Nina and husband Caleb find out that Nathaniel has fallen victim to the same crime she strives to fight.Broken and angry, Nina is determined to seek justice for her son. But as her desire for vengeance drives her to the brink, the lines between justice and crime threaten to blur forever. . .From the internationally bestselling author comes a complex and masterful tale of motherly love.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Gripping - you'll be riveted by this multi-layered tale of small-town intrigue.' GlamourTall and handsome, Jack St. Bride has everything going for him, until a string of lies resulting from a student's crush leaves his reputation in tatters and forces him to leave his hometown. Arriving in the town of Salem Falls, he is ready to seize the chance of a new life, until the malicious interest of a group of bored teenage girls drag him back into the same situation he was forced to flee from. Jack knows he's innocent. But in a small town, even the best-hidden secrets have a way of coming to light. . .

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Picoult takes a red-hot topic and turns it into a gripping and thought-provoking novel' Sunday ExpressAndrew Hopkins lovingly raised his daughter Delia by himself, allowing her to believe they lost Delia's mother in a car accident twenty-seven years ago. But as Delia is preparing herself for the next chapter in her life, a policeman knocks on the door and reveals a terrible secret: that Andrew kidnapped his four-year-old daughter and led Delia's mother to believe she was dead.Andrew is behind bars, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he is guilty. But does that mean that what he did wasn't right?'She is the master of her craft . . . and humanity is what Picoult does best' Sunday Telegraph

THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR'It is impossible not to be held spellbound by the way she forces us to think, hard, about right and wrong.' Washington PostKatie Fisher is Amish. For eighteen years, she has grown up in a community set apart from the modern world by lifestyle and belief. It is a community fiercely protective of its way of life. To turn your back on it is to lose everything - your church, your home, and your family.So in the middle of the night when the baby comes, Katie does the only thing she knows how to do in times of stress: she prays.Exhausted, she falls asleep. When she wakes, the child is gone. Her prayer has been answered.But faith alone cannot help when the baby's body is found.

'Never one to shy away from moral and ethical dilemmas . . . Picoult gives her readers all the virtuosic plotting, cliffhangers and twists they've come to expect'Jane had always lived in somebody's shadow. Escaping a childhood of abuse by marrying oceanographer Oliver Jones, she finds herself taking second place to his increasingly successful career. However, when her daughter Rebecca is similarly treated, Jane's dramatic stand takes them all by surprise. Jane and Rebecca set out to drive across America to the sanctuary of the New England apple orchard where Jane's brother Joley works. Oliver, used to tracking male humpback whales across vast oceans, now has the task of tracking his wife across a continent. To do so he must learn to see the world - and even himself - through her eyes...

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'True to form, Jodi Picoult keeps you guessing to the end . . . an edge-of-your-seat thriller' Sunday ExpressWith one terrible, senseless act, Shay Bourne transformed the lives of the Nealon family forever, leaving June Nealon widowed and alone to care for her daughter Claire. Now, as he sits on death row, Shay has one final request. He wishes to donate his heart to Claire and save the young girl's life. To June, accepting such an offer means allowing Shay to stay with them forever. But refusing means risking the life of the only person she has left.'Involving and page-turning' Daily Express

In the summer of 1909, seventeen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact. Even Nell, despite her good sense, begins to fall for him. What is his secret?This captivating novel gives voice to Rupert Brooke himself in a tale of mutual fascination and inner turmoil, set at a time of great social unrest. Revealing a man far more complex and radical than legend suggests, it powerfully conveys the allure - and curse - of charisma.

Would a proper adult ignore the spilt milk under the fridge for weeks? Would a proper adult take three years to post a solitary Christmas card? Would a proper adult have decades-old underwear in active service? Mike Gayle is nowhere near being a proper adult -- even though his tenth wedding anniversary is looming; his second child is due any moment; and in less than twenty-four hours he is going to be officially closer to forty than he is to thirty. Appalled by this lack of maturity, Mike draws up a To-Do list containing every single item he's been meaning to do but just keeps putting off...He's got a lot of stuff that needs doing. But unlike previous To-Do lists, he promises himself that this one will actually get DONE. And along the way, Mike will learn stuff about life (323), love (999), friends (1004) and family (9) and finally work out what it means to be a grown up (846).

Daniel's internationally bestselling memoir of living with Asperger's Syndrome and Savant Syndrome, Born on a Blue Day established him as one of the most original talents in contemporary non-fiction.Now, in his new book, Embracing the Wide Sky, he combines meticulous scientific research with detailed descriptions of how his mind works to demonstrate the immense potential within us all. He explains how our natural intuitions can help us to learn a foreign language, why his memories are like symphonies, and what numbers and giraffes have in common. We also discover why there is more to intelligence than IQ, how our brains turn light to sight, and why too much information can make you stupid.He illustrates his arguments with examples as diverse as the private languages of twins, the compositions of poets with autism, and the breakthroughs, and breakdowns, of some of history s greatest minds.Embracing the Wide Sky is a unique and brilliantly imaginative portrait of how we think, learn, remember and create, brimming with personal insights and anecdotes, and explanations of the most up-to-date, mind-bending discoveries from fields ranging from neuroscience to psychology and linguistics.This is a profound and provocative book that will transform our understanding and respect for every kind of mind.

FIDEL AND CHE is the story of the remarkable and revolutionary friendship between two of the most iconic figures in 20th century history - Fidel Castro and Ernesto (Che) Guevara.Not yet thirty, Fidel Castro and Ernesto (Che) Guevara met in 1955 while both in exile in Mexico City. Guevara, the Argentine doctor plagued by asthma, had reached the end of the travels he began by motorcycle several years before. Fidel Castro, peasant's son, scholar and rebel, had just fled Cuba, fearing for his life. Over the next twelve years, until Guevara's death in 1967, their journey together would take them from the safe houses of Mexico's political underground, to war in the Cuban mountains and ultimately into the heart of the Cold War. Drawing on extensive research, including declassified material and interviews with key figures in Havana, Moscow and Washington, Simon Reid-Henry uncovers, for the first time, the full story behind the central relationship of the Cuban revolution: their shared revolutionary ambitions, their conflicting personalities, the wilfulness that bound them together and the pressures that would tear them apart. FIDEL AND CHE is set against the tide of revolution that swept across the world during the middle of the twentieth century. It is the story of two men who shared a common dream; who became friends, comrades and brothers-in-arms; and who, finally, would make an epic choice between their friendship and their beliefs.

If only you knew then what you know now . . . Imagine if you could go back ten years and meet your younger self would you recognise her? And what advice would you give? Wear sunscreen! Back away from those PVC trousers? DON T give that idiot your phone number? Lemon juice won t bleach your hair it just attracts wasps . . . He's the one - don't let him go! For Charlotte Merryweather, there s no need to imagine. She s about to find out for real. With surprising consequences . . . Alexandra Potter s deliciously funny and enchanting romantic comedy looks at life, love and what might happen if you could turn back time.

DEAVER. DANGEROUSLY GOOD.A spring night in a small town in Wisconsin. A call to police emergency from a distant lake house is cut short. Is it a phone glitch or something more sinister? Off-duty deputy Brynn McKenzie leaves her family's dinner table to find out......And stumbles onto the scene of a heinous murder. Before she can call for backup she finds herself the next potential victim. Deprived of her phone, weapon and car, Brynn flees, along with the only survivor of the crime.These unlikely allies can survive only by escaping into the dense, deserted woods, on a desperate trek to safety. And ultimately to a life or death choice. Flight. Or fight?'Confirms his status as one of the finest crime writers in the world . . . grabs the reader by the throat from the beginning. Superb.' Independent on Sunday

Clarissa was born into wealth and privilege, as a child, shooting and hunting were the norm and pigeons were flown in from Cairo for supper. Her mother was an Australian heiress, her father was a brilliant surgeon to the Royal family. But he was also a tyrannical and violent drunk who used to beat her and force her to eat carrots with slugs still clinging to them. Clarissa was determined and clever, though, and her ambition led her to a career in the law. At the age of 21, she was the youngest ever woman to be called to the Bar.Disaster struck when her adored mother died suddenly. It was to lead to a mind-numbing decade of wild over-indulgence. Rich from her inheritance, in the end Clarissa partied away her entire fortune. It was a long, hard road to recovery along which Clarissa finally faced her demons and turned to the one thing that had always brought her joy - cooking. Now at last she has found success, sobriety and peace.With the stark honesty and the brilliant wit we love her for, Clarissa recounts the tale of a life lived to extremes. A vivid and funny story, it is as moving as it is a cracking good read.

A heartwarming novel by the much-loved Rosamunde Pilcher.Born in Colombo, Judith Dunbar spends her teenage years at boarding school, while her beloved mother and younger sister live abroad with her father.When her new friend Loveday Carey-Lewis invites Judith home for the weekend to Nancherrow, the Carey-Lewises' beautiful estate on the Cornish coast, it is love at first sight.She falls in love too with the generous Carey-Lewises themselves. With their generosity and kindness, Judith grows from naive girl to confident young woman, basking in the warm affection of a surrogate family whose flame burns brightly. But it is a flame soon to be extinguished in the gathering storm of war. And Judith herself has far to travel before at last . . . coming home.

Wentworth, Ohio: a small friendly town where the Carver children bicker over sweets in the E-Z shop and writer Johnny Marinville is the only resident who minds his own business.On Poplar Street, apart from the impending storm, it's just a normal summer's day - with Frisbees flying, lawn mowers humming and barbeques grilling. As the paperboy makes his round, he is unaware of the chrome red van idling up the hill . . .Soon the residents will be caught up in a game of wills as the regulators arrive in force to face a child whose powers of expression are just awakening.

Amongst the Dark Ones there is one they call The Betrayer, one who is doomed to hand his own kind over to a demon lord... for eternity. But now a small boy s been kidnapped, and it s up to Nell Harris a Charmer no, literally, that s her job to rescue him. Problem is, she can t help but find The Betrayer a teeny, tiny bit attractive... is it possible he is not as soul-less as he seems, or has her penchant for bad-boys just gone into overdrive?

Jenny grew up in a house where no-one was safe. Born one of five children in the East End, her childhood was spent in squalor and terror. Her father's violent beatings, humiliations, and sexual abuse were part of daily life; her mother - also his sexual victim and savagely beaten - was no source of help.Deprived of love and all comforts, the children would turn to each other for support and to the only adult they could trust, Auntie.This is the story of how Jenny, her sister Kim and brother Laurence, not only survived but ultimately transcended the unimaginable degradations heaped on them. With the power of love, cunning, the blackest of black humour and an indestructible self-belief, Jenny eventually broke free of her past.

Just after sunset, as darkness grips the imagination, is the time when you feel the unexpected creep into the every day. As familiar journeys take a different turn, ordinary objects assume extraordinary powers.A blind intruder visits a dying man - and saves his life, with a kiss. A woman receives a phone call from her husband. Her late husband. In the emotional aftermath of her baby's sudden death, Emily starts running. And running. Her curiosity leads her right into the hands of a murderer . . . and soon her legs are her only hope for survival.Enter a world of masterful suspense, dark comedy and thrilling twists which will keep you riveted from the first page.Enter the world of No. 1 bestseller Stephen King.

When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood. He had no memory of what had happened. Twenty years on, Rob Ryan - the child who came back - is a detective in the Dublin police force. He's changed his name. No one knows about his past. Then a little girl's body is found at the site of the old tragedy and Rob is drawn back into the mystery. Knowing that he would be thrown off the case if his past were revealed, Rob takes a fateful decision to keep quiet but hope that he might also solve the twenty-year-old mystery of the woods.

The Cosmic Ordering Service is the new self-help phenomenon. It is recognised as the book that turned TV presenter Noel Edmonds' life around. Bestselling author Barbel Mohr teaches you how to fulfil all your wishes just by placing an order with the universe. She has used the Cosmic Ordering Service to gain her dream job, the ideal man, money, health even a castle to live in! Mohr has taught hundreds and thousands of others how to listen to your inner voice, place your order, sit back, and let marvellous things happen.

A Little Light on the Spiritual Laws sets out clearly and simply 36 Spiritual Laws which govern life on Earth. Vividly illustrated with stories and metaphors, it shows how to achieve prosperity, success, gratitude and purification. If you do not understand the rules of the game you cannot play in the top league. In the same way you cannot be happy, healthy and successful until you understand the Laws of Life. This book offers a definitive, accessible guide to mastering life and when practised at the highest level, it contains the keys to heaven.

Dr Anya Crichton, a pathologist and forensic physician, finds that work is sparse for the only female freelancer in the field. Between paying child support, a mortgage and struggling to get her business off the ground, Anya can't yet afford to fight her ex-husband for custody of their three-year-old son, Ben. When Anya is asked to look into the seemingly innocent suicide of a teenager, Anya notices similarities between the girl's death and several other cases she is working on with her friend and colleague, Detective Sergeant Kate Farrer. All the victims went missing for a period of time, only to be found dead of apparent suicide in most unusual circumstances. As Anya delves deeper, the pathological findings point to the frightening possibility that the deaths are not only linked, but part of a sinister plot. Nothing can prepare her for the terrifying truth...

Detective Charlie Parker returns with a complex new case - not to be missed for fans of Michael Connelly and Jeffery Deaver.The Black Angel is not an object. The Black Angel is not a myth. The Black Angel lives.A young woman goes missing from the streets of New York. Those who have taken her believe that nobody cares about her, and that no one will come looking for her. They are wrong. She is 'blood' to the killer Louis, the man who stands at the right hand of private detective Charlie Parker, and Louis will tear apart anyone who stands in the way of his attempts to find her. But as Louis's violent search progresses, Parker comes to realize that the disappearance is part of an older mystery, one that is linked to an ornate church of bones in Eastern Europe, to the slaughter at a French monastery in 1944, and to the quest for a mythical prize that has been sought for centuries by evil men: the Black Angel.Yet the Black Angel is more than a myth. It is conscious. It dreams. It is alive.And men are not the only creatures that seek it . . .

Charlie Parker returns with a thrilling case - perfect for fans of Michael Connelly and Jeffery Deaver.Did Grace Peltier commit suicide? When a mass grave in northern Maine reveals the final resting place of a religious community that disappeared almost forty years earlier, private detective Charlie Parker, hired to investigate the circumstances of her death, realises that their deaths and the violent passing of Grace Peltier are part of the same mystery, one that has its roots in her family history and in the origins of the shadowy organisation known as the Fellowship. Aided by the genial killers Angel and Louis, Parker must descend into the depths of a honeycomb world populated by dark angels and lost souls, a world where the ghosts of the dead wait for justice and the unwary are prey for the worst kind of creatures.The killing kind. . .

Can Lincoln Rhyme catch a diabolical killer in a world of truth and lies? 'Deaver is the master puzzler.' - Sunday TelegraphA killer flees the scene of a homicide at a prestigious Manhattan music school and locks himself in a classroom. Within minutes, the police have him surrounded. A scream rings out, followed by a gunshot. The police break down the door. The room is empty.Perplexed, the police bring in Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs to investigate. For the ambitious Sachs, solving the case could earn her a promotion. For the quadriplegic Rhyme, it means relying on his prot g to ferret out a master illusionist. Dubbed The Conjurer, this fiendish killer baits them with murders that become more and more diabolical with every crime.As the fatalities rise and the minutes tick down, the pair must move beyond the smoke and mirrors to prevent a terrifying act of vengeance that could become the greatest vanishing act of all.