Books published by Hodder & Stoughton

*****Part of the bestselling John Shakespeare series of Tudor spy thrillers from Rory Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award*****'[Clements] does for Elizabeth's reign what CJ Sansom does for Henry VIII's' Sunday Times**********The Elizabethan navy has a secret weapon: an optical instrument so powerful it gives England unassailable superiority at sea. Spain will stop at nothing to steal it and seize the two men who understand its secrets - its operative William Ivory, known as the 'Queen's Eye', and its inventor, the maverick magician Dr Dee.With a second Armada threatened, intelligencer John Shakespeare is sent north to escort Dr Dee to safety. But his mission is far from straightforward. Dee's host, the Earl of Derby, cousin to Elizabeth, is dying in agony, apparently poisoned. Who wants him dead and why? What lies behind the lynching of the recusant priest Father Matthew Lamb? And what exactly is the connection between these events and the mysterious and beautiful Lady Eliska? While Shakespeare attempts to untangle a plot that points to treachery at the very highest reaches of government, he also faces serious accusations far closer to home. With so much at stake, must he choose between family and his duty to Queen and country?Moving from the Catholic heartlands of Lancashire to a vagabond camp in the heart of England, and from the deck of Admiral Frobisher's flagship off the Brittany coast to the secret meetings of Elizabeth's closest associates, Traitor is award-winning writer Rory Clements' most intriguing and compelling novel to date.

*****Part of the bestselling John Shakespeare series of Tudor spy thrillers from Rory Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award*****'[Clements] does for Elizabeth's reign what CJ Sansom does for Henry VIII's' Sunday Times**********1592. England and Spain are at war, yet there is peril at home, too. The death of her trusted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has left Queen Elizabeth vulnerable. Conspiracies multiply.The quiet life of John Shakespeare is shattered by a summons from Robert Cecil, the cold but deadly young statesman who dominated the last years of the Queen's long reign, insisting Shakespeare re-enter government service. His mission: to find vital papers, now in the possession of the Earl of Essex.Essex is the brightest star in the firmament, a man of ambition. He woos the Queen, thirty-three years his senior, as if she were a girl his age. She is flattered by him - despite her loathing for his mother, the beautiful, dangerous Lettice Knollys who presides over her own glittering court - a dazzling array of the mad, bad, dangerous and disaffected. When John Shakespeare infiltrates this dissolute world he discovers not only that the Queen herself is in danger - but that he and his family is also a target. With only his loyal footsoldier Boltfoot Cooper at his side, Shakespeare must face implacable forces who believe themselves above the law: men and women who kill without compunction. And in a world of shifting allegiances, just how far he can trust Robert Cecil, his devious new master?

The latest in Gyles Brandreth's acclaimed series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle. Paris, 1883. Oscar Wilde, aged twenty-seven, has come to the city of decadence to discover its charms, to rekindle his friendship with the divine Sarah Bernhardt and to collaborate with France's most celebrated actor-manager, Edmond La Grange. Oscar discovers dark secrets lying at the heart of the La Grange company, and is confronted by murders both foul and bizarre. To solve the crimes, to unravel the mystery, Oscar risks his life -- and his reputation -- embarking on a dangerous adventure that takes him from bohemian night clubs to an asylum for the insane, from a duel in the Buttes de Chaumont to the gates of Reading Gaol.

'I see murder in this unhappy hand...' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of 'Murder' in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen 'victims' begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag...With growing horror, Wilde and his confidantes Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle, realise that one of their guests that evening must be the murderer. In a race against time, Wilde will need all his powers of deduction and knowledge of human behaviour before he himself -- the thirteenth name on the list -- becomes the killer's next victim.

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark, stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime -- but it is Wilde's unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings. The Oscar Wilde Murders is a gripping detective story of corruption and intrigue, of Wilde's growing success, of the breakdown of his marriage, and of his fatal friendship with Aidan Fraser, Inspector at Scotland Yard...Set against the exotic background of fin-de-siecle London, Paris, Oxford and Edinburgh, Gyles Brandreth recreates Oscar Wilde's trademark sardonic wit with huge flair, intertwining all the intrigue of the classic English murder mystery with a compelling portrait of one of the greatest characters of the Victorian age.

Iron House is the remarkable story of two orphaned brothers separated by violence at a tender age. When a boy is savagely killed in their brutal orphanage, one brother runs and takes the blame with him, eventually finding his way to New York and into the heart of organized crime.Two decades later - a seasoned killer - he returns to North Carolina with a sentence on his head, the mob in hot pursuit and his long-lost brother in trouble of a different kind. With vast sums in play, political fortunes at risk and bodies piling up, the brothers reunite to solve the mystery of their shared past in a tour de force narrative of loss, courage and the aftermath of violence.A dark, atmospheric thriller with a plot that will keep you guessing until the last moment.

Cherry Denman has spent her life trailing husband Charlie round some of the world's most remote outposts and can ask for the lavatory in eleven languages. While some aspects of living abroad will always puzzle her - saunas, tofu and circumcision, to name just three - she wouldn't have missed it for anything. Lessons learnt range from the practical (possessions belong either in the suitcase or the skip: storage is for wimps), to the truly useful (how to avoid the drinks party bore) and the truly bizarre (the episode with the goat . . .). Charming and witty, these hilarious tales of global misunderstsanding are illustrated with over seventy original line drawings.

The year is 1453. For more than a thousand years the mighty walls of Constantinople have protected the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the furthest outpost of Christianity. But now endless ranks of Turkish warriors cover the plains before them, their massive cannons trained on the ramparts. It is the most fearsome force the world has ever seen. No European army will help: the last crusaders were cut to pieces by the Turks on the plains of Kosovo. Constantinople is on its own. And treachery is in the air. Three people will struggle to determine the fate of an empire: the young Turkish Sultan, returned from exile and desperate to prove his greatness; a stubborn Byzantine princess, sworn to protect her city; and a mercenary captain with a personal score to settle. But of them, it is the hardened soldier Giovanni Longo who will face the worst choice: just as he prepares to make his final stand, he finds he has something to live for after all.From the intrigues within the Emperor's household to the Sultan's harem and the savage fights on the battlements, Siege is a full-blooded historical adventure novel in the tradition of Warrior of Rome, Pilgrim or Crusade.

This tense, gripping novel set in 19C St Petersburg amid desperate revolutionaries bent on the overthrow of the Tsar 'confirms Andrew William's place in the front ranks of English thriller writers' (Daily Mail). Shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters and the Walter Scott Awards, To Kill a Tsar will appeal to readers of John le Carre, Robert Harris and Alan Furst.St Petersburg, 1879. A shot rings out in Palace Square. Cossack guards tackle the would-be assassin to the ground. In the m l e no one notices a striking dark haired young woman in a heavy coat slip away from the scene. Russia is alive with revolutionaries. While Tsar Alexander II remains a virtual prisoner in his own palaces, his ruthless secret police will stop at nothing to unmask those who plot his assassination and the overthrow of the Imperial regime. For Dr Frederick Hadfield, whose medical practice is dependent on the Anglo-Russian gentry, these are dangerous times. Drawn into a desperate cat-and-mouse game of undercover assignations, plot and counter-plot, he risks all in a perilous double life.From glittering ballrooms to the cruel cells of the House of Preliminary Detention, from the grandeur of the British Embassy to the underground presses of the young revolutionaries, To Kill a Tsar is a gripping thriller set in a world of brutal contrasts in which treachery is everywhere and nothing is what it seems.

Spring, 1941. The armies of the Reich are masters of Europe. Britain stands alone, dependent on her battered navy for survival, while Hitler s submarines his grey wolves - prey on the Atlantic convoys that are the country s only lifeline. Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay is amongst just a handful of men picked up when his ship is torpedoed. Unable to free himself from the memories of that night at sea, he becomes an interrogator with naval intelligence, questioning captured U-Boat crews. He is convinced the Germans have broken British naval codes, but he s a lone voice, a damaged outsider, and his superiors begin to wonder - can he really be trusted when so much is at stake? As the Blitz reduces Britain's cities to rubble and losses at sea mount, Lindsay becomes increasingly isolated and desperate. No one will believe him, not even his lover, Mary Henderson, who works at the very heart of the intelligence establishment. Lindsay decides to risk all in one last throw of the dice, setting a trap for his prize captive - and nemisis - U-Boat Commander J rgen Mohr, the man who sent his ship to its doom...

Thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon has to face things no boy his age should face. In the year since his twin sister's abduction his world has fallen apart: his father has disappeared and his fragile mother is spiralling into ever deeper despair.Johnny keeps strong. Armed with a map, a bike and a flashlight, he stalks the bad men of Raven County. The police might have given up on Alyssa; he never will. Someone, somewhere, knows something they're not telling.Only one person looks out for Johnny. Detective Clyde Hunt shares his obsession with the case. But when Johnny witnesses a hit-and-run and insists the victim was killed because he'd found Alyssa, even Hunt thinks he's lost it.And then another young girl goes missing . . .

Jackson Workman Pickens - 'Work' to his friends - an unambitious lawyer in a small Southern town, has some serious baggage. His mother died a year ago from a 'fall' down the family's colonial staircase and his father, Ezra, has been missing ever since. Work is left to deal with his psychologically damaged sister, his father's legal caseload and his own rocky marriage. Power and greed bring many enemies, especially for a man as cruel as Ezra Pickens, so when his body turns up pretty much everyone in town is a suspect - but only one man is charged with the murder. With time, his wife and public opinion against him, Work embarks on his toughest case yet: proving his own innocence. His investigation will uncover a web of intrigue he could never have imagined - and he soon realises that no one is above suspicion - even those he loves most.

*****Part of the bestselling John Shakespeare series of Tudor spy thrillers from Rory Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award*****'Does for Elizabeth's reign what CJ Sansom does for Henry VIII's' Sunday TimesEngland is close to war. Within days the axe could fall on the neck of Mary Queen of Scots, and Spain is already gathering a battle fleet to avenge her. Tensions in Elizabeth I's government are at breaking point. At the eye of the storm is John Shakespeare, chief intelligencer in the secret service of Sir Francis Walsingham. When an intercept reveals a plot to assassinate England's 'sea dragon', Francis Drake, Shakespeare is ordered to protect him. With Drake on land fitting out his ships, he is frighteningly vulnerable. If he dies, England will be open to invasion. In a London rife with rumour, Shakespeare must decide which leads to follow, which to ignore. When a high-born young woman is found mutilated and murdered at an illicit printing house, it is political gunpowder - and he has no option but to investigate.But why is Shakespeare shadowed at every turn by the brutal Richard Topcliffe, the blood-drenched priest-hunter who claims intimacy with Queen Elizabeth herself? What is Topcliffe's interest in a housemaid, whose baby has been stolen? And where do two fugitive Jesuit priests fit into the puzzle, one happy to die for God, the other to kill for Him? From the splendour and intrigue of the royal court, to the sleek warships of Her Majesty's Navy and the teeming brothels of Southwark, Shakespeare soon learns that nothing is as it seems . . .

The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and The NCD is once more in jeopardy. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain; The last witnesses to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood. But all is not what it seems. How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War themepark of Sommeworld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments? But there's more. What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common?

It looks like he died from injuries sustained during a fall...' Bestselling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. ' It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with. And on top of everything else, the JellyMan is coming to town...

he second book in Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde's phenomenally successful Thursday Next series. 'Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde' - HeraldThursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard? Is that possible? Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan.But whose? and why?

The fourth book in the ingenious Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde.'Don't ask, just read it. Fforde is a true original' - Sunday Express on Lost in a Good BookThursday Next, Head of JurisFiction and ex-SpecOps agent, returns to her native Swindon accompanied by a child of two, a pair of dodos and Hamlet, who is on a fact-finding mission in the real world. Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard. It's not going to be easy. Thursday's former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination. With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? Why is it imperative for the Swindon Mallets to win the World Croquet League final? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare?

The third book in the phenomenal Thursday Next series from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.'Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ... With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'.

In the wake of D-Day, the war brings two very different Germans to Wales. Captain Rotheram, a German Jewish refugee working for British Intelligence, arrives in the Black Mountains to interview a notorious captive Rudolf Hess. Further north, Karsten Simmering, a dutiful soldier struggling to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour, is incarcerated in a new POW camp on the outskirts of a remote Snowdonian village. There he encounters Esther Williams, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a fiercely nationalist sheep-farmer, who dreams of a life beyond the narrow confines of her valley. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.Peter Ho Davies s thought-provoking and profoundly moving first novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately our fellow man. Vividly rooted in history and landscape, The Welsh Girl reminds us anew of the pervasive presence of the past, and the startling intimacy of the foreign.

The countdown begins at noon . . . A school bus stops at a car crash on an isolated road. The two teachers and their deaf students are immediately captured by three escaped convicts. Stark against the prairie stands an ancient slaughterhouse that still reeks of decades of spilled blood. It is here that the killers will bring their hostages.It is here that they will kill one innocent girl an hour, on the hour, until their demands are met

How can Lincoln Rhyme catch a killer who leaves no trace?'The pace is terrific, the suspense inexorable, and there is an excellent climax . . . If you want thrills, Deaver is your man.' - GuardianSixteen-year-old Geneva Settle is running from death. She may only be a bright high school student researching a paper on one of her ancestors, but someone sees her as a threat. Someone who will stop at nothing to prevent her from digging up the past. Someone on a mission to kill.Lincoln Rhyme and his partner Amelia Sachs are called to the case. They may have tracked down some of the world's most brilliant criminals, but this particular hunt is posing more questions than answers. Where will their prey strike next? What is the historic secret he's so desperate to protect? And how can anyone catch a killer who leaves no trace?To find the answers, Sachs is going to have to search a crime scene that's over 140 years old and attempt to uncover a secret that that may strike at the very heart of the United States constitution...

I can make good bad and bad badder, and most fun of all, really bad seem good.' Jeffrey Deaver. And that is exactly what he does in this superb collection. In 'Beautiful', former supermodel Kari's stalker has followed her through retirement to her new small town home. The police can do nothing. The only thing that will end the nightmare is the stalker's death or her own. In the Edgar-nominated 'Triangle', Pete finds a true crime book - and uses the lessons contained therein to kill Mo's lover. The award-winning 'without Jonathan' introduces us to Marissa, about to go on the first date of her life since she married Jonathan, with a man she met through the personals. As she wonders whether she will ever truly fall in love again, the man she is about to meet is killing a housewife in another part of town... And in the brand-new 'The Christmas Present', we see a side of Lincoln Rhyme we've never met before.

The seventh novel in the bestselling Lincoln Rhyme series sees Rhyme attempt to catch his cleverest opponent yet...How long does it take to die?TICKHis victims would say forever ...TOCKAt each meticulously planned scene, the killer leaves his victims to die slowly, a clock counting down their last minutes on earth.He calls himself the Watchmaker. And it's only a matter of time before he strikes again.But he didn't count on Lincoln Rhyme. Physically, he may face unimaginable challenges, but mentally, he has no limits. With Amelia Sachs as his eyes and ears - and heart - Rhyme is on the Watchmaker's trail within seconds.However, he's not the only one gifted with a calculating intelligence, and this time, his wits must be sharper than ever if he's to catch a killer cold as the moon.Time is ticking for Lincoln Rhyme...'Probably the best book he's written . . . Enough of Deaver's trademark twists to satisfy his most diehard fans . . . A great read' - Observer'[The plot] is like opening up a Russian doll, and it's typical of Deaver's polished, clever entertainment' - Sunday Telegraph

Paul Schumann is a mobster hitman known equally for his brilliant tactics and for taking only righteous jobs. When a hit goes wrong and Schumann is nabbed, he s offered a stark choice. He can travel to Berlin and kill the man behind Hitler s rearmament scheme, and walk free forever. Or be sent to the electric chair. The instant Paul sets foot in Berlin, his mission goes awry. For 48 hours, as the city prepares for the coming Olympics, Schumann stalks Reinhardt Ernst while a dogged criminal police officer and the entire Third Reich apparatus search frantically for the American. Danger and betrayal lurk everywhere. It s a cat-and-mouse chase, with Schumann both cat and mouse, and a man who thinks he has nothing to lose Packed with fascinating period detail and featuring a cast of perfectly realised characters, GARDEN OF BEASTS delivers breathtaking action, a wrenching look at Nazi-era Berlin, and Jeffery Deaver s most stunning series of surprises yet.

It is a fact generally acknowledged, dear reader, that a man is not a man without a dog . . . I have always been a pushover when it comes to dogs something my own dogs worked out a long time ago. Who else can be relied on to be that excited about seeing you first thing, day in day out? Mary, Tina and Arthur are the four-footed members of the Clunes family scrapping, sleeping, leaping, wagging and licking. But there s too much of the scrapping, and the hierarchy is a complicated structure that has been bent and broken. Martin Clunes set off on a worldwide adventure to film ITV s A Man and His Dogs and sought to discover where dogs come from and how they evolved into our companions and the working dogs of today. Along the way he also learned about the social structure of a wolf pack, survival skills of dingoes in Australia and wild dogs in Africa, among other things. In the wild, social rules are obeyed or fur flies, but nature has been pretty vicious in Martin s own back yard as well. The battle to stop the fighting between Tina and Mary has included ventures into therapy, training classes, dog psychiatry, diet and tough love. Through the adventures of this delightful, closely-knit family, with their horses and chickens and dogs, we learn about the soft-hearted actor who is Martin Clunes. Fond, funny and endearing, this book will enchant and fascinate in equal measure.

The fifth book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Ingenious - I'll watch Jasper Fforde nervously' Terry Pratchett on The Eyre AffairFourteen years after she pegged out at 1988 SuperHoop, Thursday Next is grappling with a recalcitrant new apprentice, the death of Sherlock Holmes and the inexplicable departure of comedy from the once-hilarious Thomas Hardy novels.Her idle sixteen-year-old would rather sleep all day than save the world from imminent destruction, the government has a dangerously high stupidity surplues, and the Stiltonista Cheese Mafia are causing trouble for Thursday in her hometown of Swindon. Then things begin to get bad. As Reality Book Shows look set to transplant Reality TV Shows and Goliath invent a trans-fictional tourist coach, Thursday must once again have her wits about her as she travels to the very limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to rescue the reading experience from almost certain destruction . . .

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2001The second novel from the critically-acclaimed author of GHOSTWRITTEN and CLOUD ATLAS.As Eiji Miyake's twentieth birthday nears, he arrives in Tokyo with a mission - to locate the father he has never met. So begins a search that takes him into the seething city's underworld, its lost property offices and video arcades, and on a journey that zigzags from reality to the realm of dreams. But until Eiji has fallen in love and exorcised his childhood demons, the belonging he craves will remain, tantalizingly, just beyond his grasp.

Give me the boy and I will show you the man the saying goes. In this warm, tender, wonderfully evocative and often hilarious memoir one of the best-loved men in Britain, Alan Titchmarsh, brilliantly recalls his childhood in 1950s Yorkshire. Growing up in the beautiful landscape that surrounds Ilkley in Wharfedale inspired Alan s early passion for nature. In a time of post-war austerity, hard work and making do was not just the lot of the grown-ups; for the young Alan it was also the simplest pleasures that were the best whether it was climbing trees, fishing in streams, or riding wooden carts fitted with old pram wheels. With the sharpest eye for detail and vivid recall, he brings to life the various family members, school friends and foes teachers and local characters who became the powerful early influences of Alan s life. A joy from beginning to end, this is a classic childhood memoir.

'Greatly enjoyable' GUARDIAN'It is always exhilarating to read a book which says what so many of us think' SPECTATOR'Timely and lively' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'Let us be very clear about this from the start: John Humphrys is a Good Thing' EVENING STANDARD* * * * * *From Today programme presenter and national treasure John Humphrys, the bestselling cry in book form for better English and an expos of the political uses and abuses of language.From empty cliche to meaningless jargon, dangling participle to sentences without verbs, the English language is reeling. It is under attack from all sides. Politicians dupe us with deliberately evasive language. Bosses worry about impacting the bottom line while they think out of the box. Academics talk obscure mumbo jumbo. Journalists and broadcasters, who should know better, lazily collaborate. In his bestselling Lost for Words, Today presenter and national treasure John Humphrys wittily and powerfully exposes the depths to which our beautiful language has sunk and offers many examples of the most common atrocities. He also dispenses some sensible guidance on how to use simple, clear and honest language. Above all, he shows us how to be on the alert for the widespread abuse - especially by politicians - and the power of the English language.

Jamie Ballantyne and Artemis King were never meant to fall in love. The feud between their families has run for three generations. But whatever Jamie s head might tell him, his heart will always belong to Artemis. After fifty years, perhaps it s time for the Kings and the Ballantynes to bury the hatchet. Then Jamie and Artemis start to uncover their shared past. What they find will rock the foundations of both their families, as a web of deceit and intrigue is ruinously exposed . . .This is the richest and most captivating novel yet from a natural-born storyteller.