In the summer of 1816 paparazzi trained their telescopes on Byron & the Shelleys across Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley babysat & wrote Frankenstein. Byron dieted & penned The Prisoner of Chillon. His doctor, Polidori, was dreaming up The Vampyre. Together they put Switzerland on the map. From Rousseau to Nabokov, le Carre to Conan Doyle, Hemingway to Hesse to Highsmith, Switzerland has always provided a refuge for writers as an escape from world wars, oppression, tuberculosis... or marriage. For Swiss writers from the country was like a gilded prison. The Romantics, the utopians & other spiritual seekers viewed Switzerland as a land of milk & honey, as nature`s paradise. In the twentieth century, spying in neutral Switzerland spawned the finest espionage & crime fiction. Part detective work, part treasure chest, The Gilded Chalet takes you on a grand tour of the birthplace of our best-loved stories, revealing how Switzerland became the landscape of our imagination. ...

London 1965, & Vince Treadwell investigates the seemingly unrelated murders of a playboy aristocrat from Belgravia & a young black nurse from the wrong side of town. It takes the detective to the illegal drinking dens of Notting Hill run by the self-styled Black Power leader, Michael X; the nightclubs of Soho owned by the legendary gangster, Billy Hill; & the exclusive gaming tables of the Montcler Club in Berkeley Square, where the blue bloods & power players of England gamble thousands on the turn of a card. But as Vince Treadwell digs deeper he finds himself not only embroiled with a beautiful society girl, Isabel Saxmore-Blaine, but a world of espionage & corruption where the underworld mixes easily with the aristocracy, & no one is innocent. Praise for Kiss Me Quick: A thrilling read. (Buzz Magazine). Dark & involved. (Daily Express). Unmissable. (Best). This unusual & atmospheric crime novel suggests that Danny Miller is a writer to watch. (Good Book Guide)... .one of those books that literally grabs you from page one. (The Week). ...

What if Heat magazine had been around in Georgian England? Many of us think of the ill-behaved celebrity & the tabloid splash as inventions of the modern world, but the antics of Premiership footballers & C-list soap stars are as nothing when set alongside the peccadilloes & hell-raising of 18th-century celebs. The first flowering of the great age of newspapers & caricature gave us boozy Prime Ministers & party leaders who settled their political differences with duels in Hyde Park (when they weren`t gambling, or writing essays about farting); peers of the realm who sat the unburied corpses of their cherished mistresses at their dinner tables; entertainers who rode horses standing upright in the saddle, while wearing a mask of bees; & celebrity courtesans who ate 1, 000-guinea banknotes stuffed into sandwiches, simply to make a point. Before it was dashed from their lips by the Victorian party-poopers, our Georgian forebears drank deep from the cup of life. The Gin Lane Gazette is a compendium of illustrated `best bits` from a fictional newspaper of the latter 1700s. It contains some of the most sensational headlines & true stories of the period. Presided over by inky-fingered hack Mr. Nathaniel Crowquill, the editor & proprietor, its premises are located in Hogarth`s chaotic Gin Lane. Mr Crowquill has devoted fifty years to sniffing out scandal & intrigue. His drunken acolyte, Mr. Jakes, supplies merciless caricatures & engravings for every page. Sports reports, obituaries, fashion news, courtesans of the month, book reviews, & advertisements for bizarre
- & often alarming
- goods, services & entertainments also feature in a riotous melange of metropolitan mayhem.

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Tim Wilson & Fran Warde have teamed up to create this comprehensive reference work & inspirational collection of recipes. For each type of meat, the book recommends the best breeds, advises which cuts suit which style of cooking & tells you what to ask your butcher in order to buy the best quality. There are more than 100 recipes arranged according to season, from Sticky citrus-marinated pork chops in April through Moroccan chicken with preserved lemons in July to Slow-baked herb-crusted leg of mutton in December. Through monthly farm diaries, the book also reveals what life is really like on a thriving British farm. Packed with specially commissioned photographs taken on the farm as well as in the kitchen by renowned photographer Kristin Perers, this is a uniquely beautiful & useful book. ...

From the same Swedish editorial team & publisher as Stieg Larsson`s Millennium Trilogy comes a sensational new crime writing talent. Ingrid Olsson returns home from a Stockholm hospital to discover a man in her kitchen. She`s never seen the intruder before. But he`s no threat
- he`s dead. Criminal Investigator Conny Sjoberg takes the call, abandoning his wife Asa & their five children for the night. His team identify the body as that of a middle-aged family man. But why was he there? & who bludgeoned him to death? Lacking suspect & motive, Sjoberg`s team struggle until they link the case to another
- apparently random
- killing. & discover they face a serial killer on a terrible vendetta... The Gingerbread House is the first title in The Hammarby Series, novels following Detective Inspector Conny Sjoberg & his murder investigation team
- a gripping feast for all fans of Jo Nesbo, Camilla Lackberg & Henning Mankell. ” Carin Gerhardsen writes so vividly, like she is painting with words, gripping your heart & soul in an ever-tightening tourniquet”. (Peter James).” Gerhardsen brings a timely perspective to the serial killer genre, as her characters are engulfed by the worst possible consequences of their childhood cruelties. The pages turn themselves, right up the final startling twist”. (John Verdon). Carin Gerhardsen was born in 1962 in Katrineholm, Sweden. Originally a mathematician, she enjoyed a successful career as an IT consultant before turning her hand to writing crime fiction. Carin now lives in Stockholm with her husband & their two children. She is currently working on the seventh title in the series.



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Phizzwhizzing new cover look & branding for the World`s NUMBER ONE Storyteller! The Giraffe & the Pelly & Me is a classic Roald Dahl story. Billy`s biggest wish is to turn a weird old wooden house into a wonderful sweet shop. But then he finds a giraffe, a pelly & a monkey living inside
- they`re the Ladderless Window Cleaners! Who needs ladders when you`ve got a giraffe? They become best friends & when they meet the richest man in all Engl&, there`s a chance Billy`s scrumptious-galumptious dream just might come true... Listen to THE GIRAFFE & THE PELLY & ME & other Roald Dahl audiobooks read by some very famous voices, including Kate Winslet, David Walliams & Steven Fry
- plus there are added squelchy soundeffects from Pinewood Studios! Look out for new Roald Dahl apps in the App store & Google Play
- including the disgusting TWIT OR MISS! & HOUSE OF TWITS inspired by the revolting Twits.


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Adaption is everything, something Frau Lohmark is well aware of as the biology teacher at the Charles Darwin High School in a country backwater of the former East Germany. A strict devotee of Darwin`s evolution principle, Lohmark views education as survival of the fittest: classifying her pupils as biological specimens & scorning her colleagues for indulging in `favourites`. However, as people move West in search of work & opportunities, the school`s future is in jeopardy & the Lohmark is forced to face her most fundamental lesson: she must adapt or she cannot survive. ...

It was the kind of August day that hinted at monsoons, & the year was 1774, though not for very much longer. Sixteen-year-old Nix Song is a time-traveller. She, her father & their crew of time refugees travel the world aboard The Temptation, a glorious pirate ship stuffed with treasures both typical & mythical. Old maps allow Nix & her father to navigate not just to distant lands, but distant times
- although a map will only take you somewhere once. & Nix`s father is only interested in one time, & one place: Honolulu 1868. A time before Nix was born, & her mother was alive. Something that puts Nix`s existence rather dangerously in question.. . Nix has grown used to her father`s obsession, but only because she`s convinced it can`t work. But then a map falls into her father`s lap that changes everything. & when Nix refuses to help, her father threatens to maroon Kashmir, her only friend (and perhaps, only love) in a time where Nix will never be able to find him. & if Nix has learned one thing, it`s that losing the person you love is a torment that no one can withst&. Nix must work out what she wants, who she is, & where she really belongs before time runs out on her forever.
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Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Aushwitz. Jakob Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakob fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany & Russia. They intend to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl`s unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor. Though spared from the concentration camp, the orphaned German Jew finds herself lost in a country hostile to her people. When Jakob discovers her, guilt & fatherly compassion prompt him to take her in. For three years, the young man & little girl form a bond over the secrets they must hide from his Catholic family. But she can`t stay with him forever. Jakob sends Gretl to South Africa, where German war orphans are promised bright futures with adoptive Protestant families-so long as Gretl`s Jewish roots, Catholic education, & connections to communist Poland are never discovered. Separated by continents, politics, religion, language, & years, Jakob & Gretl will likely never see each other again. But the events they have both survived & their belief that the human spirit can triumph over the ravages of war have formed a bond of love that no circumstances can overcome. ...

A World War II love story set against the romance & danger of occupied Venice. Cenzo is a world-weary fisherman, determined to sit out the rest of the war. He`s happy to stay out of the way of the SS, quietly going about his business of fishing in the lagoons of northern Italy. Then one night, instead of pulling in his usual haul, Cenzo fishes a young woman out of the canal. Guilia is an Italian Jew who has managed to escape capture & is determined to find her family. This meeting results in them both taking an entirely unexpected journey, & Cenzo suddenly finds himself thrown headlong into the world of international wartime politics, where everyone has their own agenda & nowhere is safe... ...