`THE LIDO is a joyous & uplifting debut
- a testament to kindness & friendship & all those values society must hold dear` SARAH
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Nadia & Susanne have just met. They look uncannily alike, practically doppelgangers, but one is filthy rich, with a husband & a lover, & the other dirt poor & single. When Nadia eventually asks Susanne to spend the weekend with her husband how can she refuse the outrageous fee on offer? Nadia wants to spend a few days with her lover & convinces Susanne that the subterfuge will work. Nadia & her husband barely speak to each other, sleep in separate bedrooms, & he will be working in the office most of the weekend. So Susanne changes her hairstyle & clothes &, one Friday afternoon, drives Nadia`s wine-red Alfa to her beautiful suburban villa with its indoor pool, glass doors opening on to the sloping lawn. What appears to be a harmless game becomes a deadly web of lies. ...

Set during & just after the First World War, The Lie is an enthralling, heart-wrenching novel of love, memory & devastating loss by one of the UK's most acclaimed storytellers. Cornwall, 1920, early spring. A young man stands on a headl&, looking out to sea. He is back from the war, homeless & without family. Behind him lie the mud, barbed-wire entanglements & terror of the trenches. Behind him is also the most intense relationship of his life. Daniel has survived, but the horror & passion of the past seem more real than the quiet fields around him. He is about to step into the unknown. But will he ever be able to escape the terrible, unforeseen consequences of a lie? ...

Nominated for the Folio Prize & shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historial Fiction Set during & just after the First World War, The Lie is an enthralling, heart-wrenching novel of love, memory & devastating loss by one of the UK`s most acclaimed storytellers. Cornwall, 1920, early spring. A young man stands on a headl&, looking out to sea. He is back from the war, homeless & without family. Behind him lie the mud, barbed-wire entanglements & terror of the trenches. Behind him is also the most intense relationship of his life. Daniel has survived, but the horror & passion of the past seem more real than the quiet fields around him. He is about to step into the unknown. But will he ever be able to escape the terrible, unforeseen consequences of a lie? ...

` Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny` India Knight` As satisfying a novel as I have read in years` Sarah Perry` Absolutely magnificent` Marian Keyes Quentin & Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can`t afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can`t afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize & move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant & adulterous, Quentin can`t understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated & humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded. Mud, mice & quarrels are one thing
- but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse & violence which will rise up to threaten them. Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor & a sheep farmer`s wife; & when Lottie`s innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed for ever. A suspenseful black comedy, this is a rich, compassionate & enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside, & the potentially lethal interplay between money & marriage.
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Takes the reader on an explosive journey across millenia. Continents glide thousands of miles like contestants in Strictly Come Dancing, Scotland swelters on the Equator & Snowdonia boasts a volcanic ring of fire with mountains taller than Everest. (Daily Express). Like most of us, Ian Vince used to think of the British countryside as average, unexciting
- as dramatic as a nice cup of tea. Then, over the course of a single car journey, the features of our green & pleasant land reawakened a fascination with geology that he had long forgotten, & he began to delve beneath the surface (metaphorically, that is). From the ancient rocks of north-west Scotland to St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, The Lie of the Land takes us on a journey through a fantastically exotic Britain of red desert sands, shattering continental collisions & tides of volcanic lava. Ian Vince shows us how Britain came to look the way it does; & with warmth & wit transports us back through billions of years to a land that time forgot. Anyone who has ever picked up a pebble at the seaside or a rock on a moorland path will find invaluable Ian Vince's geological guide...you will understand the area round your British holiday cottage far more deeply than before. (Giles Foden (author of The Last King of Scotl&, &, Conde Nast Traveller).
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Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2015. The Lie Tree is a wonderfully evocative & atmospheric novel by Frances Hardinge, award-winning author of Cuckoo Song & Fly By Night. Faith`s father has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, & as she is searching through his belongings for clues she discovers a strange tree. The tree only grows healthy & bears fruit if you whisper a lie to it. The fruit of the tree, when eaten, will deliver a hidden truth to the person who consumes it. The bigger the lie, the more people who believe it, the bigger the truth that is uncovered. The girl realizes that she is good at lying & that the tree might hold the key to her father`s murder, so she begins to spread untruths far & wide across her small island community. But as her tales spiral out of control, she discovers that where lies seduce, truths shatter.. . ...

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2015, The Lie Tree is a dark & powerful novel from universally acclaimed author, Frances Hardinge, & illustrated by Children`s Laureate, Chris Riddell It was not enough. All knowledge- any knowledge
- called to Faith, & there was a delicious, poisonous pleasure in stealing it unseen. Faith has a thirst for science & secrets that the rigid confines of her class cannot supress. & so it is that she discovers her disgraced father`s journals, filled with the scribbled notes & theories of a man driven close to madness. Tales of a strange tree which, when told a lie, will uncover a truth: the greater the lie, the greater the truth revealed to the liar. Faith`s search for the tree leads her into great danger
- for where lies seduce, truths shatter.. . The Lie Tree: Illustrated Edition is packed full of gorgeous black & white illustrations by triple Kate Greenaway Medal winning-illustrator, Chris Riddell, author of the Goth Girl & Ottoline series. ` Brilliant, dark, thrilling, utterly original` Patrick Ness ` The Lie Tree is a wonder.I can`t think of anyone who would not love this story` Matt Haig `I loved this book so much` Lucy Mangan ` Complex & intelligent: a lustrous, delicious romp.` Philip Womack, The Telegraph

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Trust in our politicians is at an all-time low. We`re in a ”post-truth” era, where feelings trump facts, & where brazen rhetoric beats honesty. But do politicians lie more than they used to? & do we even want them to tell the truth? In a history full of wit & political acumen, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen dissects the gripping stories of the biggest political lies of the last half century, from the Profumo affair to Blair`s WMDs to Boris Johnson`s GBP350 million for the NHS. Covering lesser known whoppers, infamous lies from foreign shores (”I did not have sexual relations with that woman”), & some of the resolute untruths from Donald Trump`s explosive presidential campaign, this is the quintessential guide to dishonesty from our leaders
- & the often pernicious relationship between parliament & the media. But this book is also so much more. It explains how in the space of a lifetime we have gone from the implicit assumption that our rulers have our best interests at heart, to assuming the worst even when
- in the majority of cases
- politicians are actually doing their best.


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Do politicians lie more than they used to? & do we even want them to tell the truth? From the Profumo affair to Blair`s WMDs to Boris Johnson`s GBP350 million for the NHS. Covering lesser known whoppers, infamous lies from foreign shores (”I did not have sexual relations with that woman”), & some of the resolute untruths from Donald Trump`s explosive presidential campaign, this is the quintessential guide to dishonesty from our leaders. In a history full of wit & political acumen, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen dissects the stories of the biggest political lies of the last half century. ...