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Margaret Dickinson's Pauper's Gold is the heartfelt story of triumph over adversity, in the cotton mills of Derbyshire.Hannah Francis has been forced to leave her beloved mother and the life she knows in the silk mill town of Macclesfield and is set to become an apprentice at a cotton mill in the Derbyshire dales. It is a cruel blow for such a young girl, but her three travelling companions are even younger than she is, and Hannah is determined to keep their spirits up and remain in good cheer. Once she is settled in the mill, Hannah discovers that the hours of work are long, and the daily routine is dangerous, arduous and harsh, but her bright singing and capacity for joy lighten the load for everyone. Hannah soon becomes a favourite with the other mill workers. Friendships are forged and an innocent love starts to blossom. But can such a fragile love survive cruel reality? It is not long before she attracts the eye of Edmund Critchlow, the man who owns them all, body and soul - the man from whom no pretty mill girl is safe. Times are hard in the cotton industry as civil war rages across America affecting even the mill owner and the lives of all his workers . . .

Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Oracle is a modern thriller inspired by an ancient prophecy.1973. Professor Periklis Harvatis, working alone and late into the night on an important archaeological dig, unearths a magnificent golden vase upon which the enigmatic images of a long-lost second Odyssey are engraved, showing the mystery of Ulysses' final voyage. But in the very same chamber, the Professor sees something so frightening that less than seven hours later he dies . . . but not before he has ensured the safety of the vase. Ten years later, a series of gruesome deaths connected to the rape and murder during the student protests in Athens of a Greek woman, on the same night as Professor Harvatis's discovery, is perplexing the authorities. Each atrocity is accompanied by a dire quotation from the ancient sources, exposing an ingeniously cruel mind.Who is behind these murders? How are these two events connected? And what is the significance of the age-old prophecy of the Odyssey?

Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Tower is a modern thriller solving an ancient mystery. AD 70. A ferocious, mysterious force hidden in a solitary tower annihilated a squad of Roman soldiers advancing through the Sahara desert. There was a single survivor: the Etruscan diviner Avile Vipinas, who later described the horror of the creature in the tower and suggested how it could be destroyed.Nearly 2,000 years later, to find the tower and solve its unutterable mystery, three men venture into the heart of the Sahara: an archaeologist following the traces of his father, a colonel from the Foreign Legion thirsting for revenge, and a priest who puts his faith to the ultimate test. Just what is the dark being that slumbers in the tower?

Sworn Brother by Tim Severin is the thrilling second volume in the Viking trilogy - an epic adventure in a world full of Norse mythology and bloodthirsty battles.London, 1019: a few months have passed since Thorgils has escaped the clutches of the Irish Church only to find himself at the centre of a capricious love affair with Aelfgifu, wife of Knut the Great, ruler of England, and one of the most powerful men of the Viking empire. A passionate relationship between two unlikely lovers begins to unfold, which forebodes uncontrollable consequences... When Thorgils is finally on the run again, he meets Grettir, an outlaw who is feared by most for his volatile and brooding behaviour. The two men become travel companions and sworn brothers - which binds them together beyond death, but at the gates of Byzantium Thorgils' loyalty is put to the ultimate test . . .

King's Man by Tim Severin is the thrilling third volume in the captivating Viking trilogy - an epic adventure in a world full of Norse mythology and bloodthirsty battles.Constantinople, 1035: Thorgils has become a member of the Varangian lifeguard and witnesses the glories of the richest city on earth but also the murderous ways of the imperial family. Under the leadership of warrior chief Harald Sigurdsson he is set up as the unwitting bait in a deadly ambush to destroy Arab pirates harassing the Byzantine shipping lanes in the Mediterranean. When Harald eventually ascends the throne of Norway, his liegeman Thorgils is despatched on a secret mission to Duke William of Normandy with a plan to coordinate the twin invasions of England. On 20 September 1066 Harald's fleet of three hundred ships sails up the Ouse, confident of success, but a prophetic dream warns Thorgils that Duke William has duped his allies and the Norsemen are heading for disaster at Stamford Bridge. Thorgils embarks upon a race against time to reach and warn his liege lord before the battle begins. But will Odinn's devout follower really be able to anticipate what fate has decreed and save the heritage of his Viking ancestors?

In Scission, Tim Winton's first collection of short stories, the world he paints is often harsh and disturbing, inhabited by isolated, unforgiving characters. It is a world at once familiar, filled with the trappings of home and family, and yet also strangely twisted; a world where casual brutality and unexpected death are never far from the surface. Evident in a young girl's violent temper once the eggs she has so jealously guarded finally hatch, or in the careless indifference of the woman stepping over a soldier's spreadeagled body, Tim Winton's world is a place where dysfunction and disorder constantly threaten the equilibrium. But there is compassion and beauty there too - whether it's in the brush of a father's hand against his young son's cheek, or the neighbours who wait patiently to celebrate the arrival of a new baby.'Tim Winton is the real thing: a writer who can photograph a thought and pluck out the beat of a soul on a washing line.' - Scotland on Sunday

From the lauded, bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles, in Odd Girl Out, Elizabeth Jane Howard reveals with devastating accuracy a marriage put in a most destructive situation.Anna and Edmund Cornhill have a happy marriage and a lovely home. They are content, complete, absorbed in their private idyll.Arabella, who comes to stay one lazy summer, is rich, rootless and amoral - and, as they find out, beautiful and loving.With her elegant prose the author traces the web of love and desire that entangles these three; but it is Arabella who finally loses out.

Odinn's Child by Tim Severin is the stunning first volume in the captivating Viking trilogy - an epic historical adventure in a world full of Norse mythology and bloodthirsty battles.Our story begins in the year 1001 and the toddler, Thorgils Leiffson, son of Leif the Lucky and Thorgunna, arrives on the shores of Brattahlid in Greenland to be brought up in the foster care of a young woman - Gudrid. Thorgils is a rootless character of quicksilver intelligence and adaptability. He has inherited his mother's ability of second sight and his destiny lies beyond the imagination of those around him. Virtually orphaned, he is raised by various mentors, who teach him the ancient ways and warn him of the invasion of the 'White Christ' into the land of the 'Old Gods'. Thorgils is guided by a restless quest for adventure and the wanderlust of his favoured god, Odinn. His fortunes take him into many dangerous situations as well as to the brink of death by execution, in battle, disease and shipwreck . . .

Tim Winton delivers a truly spine-tingling thriller with In the Winter Dark.When a man dreams things from the past, you'd think he'd be able to rearrange them in new sequences to please himself. But no. In my dreams, it all happens as it happened, and I see it and be it again and again and the confusion never wears off. People drift to the valley called the Sink out of loneliness, hardship or an affinity with the land. It is an isolated place, with a swamp and an old white bridge and the forest encroaching from all sides. The solitude is tangible. But when a mysterious creature is suddenly on the loose, killing livestock and preying on everyone's deepest fears, four inhabitants find themselves unexpectedly in one another's company - with chilling results. 'Tim Winton's raw and vibrant language makes the senses jump . . . concentrated, passionate, invigorating writing' Independent on Sunday 'A major work by anyone's standards . . . mysterious, painful and beautiful' Washington Post

From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles comes Elizabeth Jane Howard's Falling.Harry Kent is a sensitive man in late middle age, a reader and a thinker, without means perhaps but not without charm.Daisy has recovered from her unhappy past by learning to be self-sufficient, and viewing trust as a weakness. But there is still a part of her that yearns to be cared for once more.It is this part that Henry sees, and with dedicated and calculated patience he works at her defences. So despite all attempts to resist his attentions, Daisy finds herself falling under Henry's spell . . .

For Eveleen Hardcastle life gets no better than growing up on Pear Tree Farm in the Lincolnshire countryside. Her family works hard for the Dunsmore estate and Eveleen finds it impossible to resist the charms of their employer's son, Stephen Dunsmore. But Jimmy, ever quick to antagonize, ensures that his sister's clandestine trysts do not remain so for long.Mary Hardcastle reacts to the news of her daughter's affair with a shocking ferocity, which seems to be borm more of bitterness than maternal protectiveness. But what is it that fuels Mary's resentment towards her daughter? Unable to ignore her own feelings, Eveleen continues to meet Stephen in secret. But deception has a cruel price to pay when her beloved father is found dead from a heart attack. And worse yet, Stephen, far from providing Eveleen with the comfort she craves, deserts her in her hour of need and callously evicts the Hardcastles from the farm.Suddenly homeless, Eveleen is left to take the family reins and she fights to make a new life for her family in Nottinghamshire. And then she makes a stunning discovery about her mother's past which changes all their lives for ever . . .Tangled Threads is a gripping romantic saga from Margaret Dickinson, followed by the sequel Twisted Strands.

Following the disastrous floods of 1953, Ella Hilton is compelled to live at Brumbys' Farm with her grandmother, Esther, and is soon acutely aware of the mysterious surrounding her family's past.As Ella grows up and falls in love herself, the story of three generations of women - Esther, Kate and Ella - comes full circle and history seems destined to repeat itself in tragedy.In Reap the Harvest, Margaret Dickinson brings the 1950s vividly to life in a story of secrets and love, buried under years of pride and misunderstanding.

Alexander: Child of a Dream is Valerio Massimo Manfredi's magnificent story of one of history's greatest characters and his quest to conquer the civilized world.Who could have been born to conquer the world other than a god?Mesmeric beauty, consuming desires, an insatiable hunger. Then premature death. This is the story of a boy, born to a great king - Philip of Macedon - and his sensuous queen, Olympias. It tells of the stern discipline of Philip and the wild passions of Olympias, and how, together, they formed Alexander, a young man of immense, unfathomable potential, capable of subjugating the known world to his power, and thought of by his contemporaries as a god.Alexander's swift ascent to manhood, as a protege of Aristotle and close friend of Ptolemy and Hephiaeston, and the start of his great adventure to conquer the civilized world is recounted in this awe-inspiring novel.This is a wonderful evocation of the far-off and fascinating civilization of ancient Greece, revealed in vibrant tones and scholarly detail.

Meg Kirkland fears her impudent tongue has caused her father's dismissal from his job and forced her whole family from their home on Middleditch Farm. Worse still, her father abandons them outside the workhouse, leaving Meg to care for her devastated mother, Sarah, and little brother as tragedy continues to haunt the family. Isaac Pendleton, Master of the workhouse, rules the lives of all those within its walls but when Sarah becomes his latest mistress, Meg is disgusted. Her loyal friend, Jake, born and bred in the workhouse, has a maturity and understanding beyond his years. Yet it is Meg's fiery independence that encourages Jake to leave the workhouse and seek employment on Middleditch Farm. His future is assured, but who will take care of Meg? The pretty, vivacious girl, once so innocent, becomes a calculating and manipulative young woman who will stop at nothing to get her own way even if it means betraying those she has loved.Without Sin is Margaret Dickinson's spirited historical saga of a passionate young woman who learns to fight for her own survival in a cruel world. It is followed by Wish Me Luck, a heartfelt wartime romance.

It is 1914, and Eveleen Hardcastle, now in in her early thirties, has married Richard. As the First World War breaks out, Eveleen, a sophisticated young woman, is left to manage the factory while Richard goes off to fight for his country. Eveleen's mother Mary has found happiness at last in her marriage to Josh. Her young granddaughter, Bridie, still lives at home, and is beautiful, but has a spirited, strong will which her grandmother finds hard to control. Bridie is secretly besotted with her godfather, Andrew, whom she is convinced she will marry when she is older. While the war plays out, Bridie becomes a nurse, looking after wounded soldiers billeted in the local Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire stately homes and there finds a vocation that is both rewarding and gives her a maturity beyond her years . . .The follow-up to Tangled Threads, Margaret Dickinson's Twisted Strands follows the dramatic highs and lows of the Hardcastle family as they endure the upheaval caused by war.

The first in her much-loved Fleethaven Trilogy, Margaret Dickinson's Plough the Furrow begins the story of Esther, and her determination and dedication to the Lincolnshire farm land.Lincolnshire, 1910. Shunned by her own family, desperate for work and a place to stay, Esther Everatt walks through the night to Sam Brumby's farm, seeking the chance to earn her keep. Reluctantly, the old man takes her on.Able to work alongside any man, Esther soon earns Sam's grudging respect and affection, and at last feels she has found a home she can call her own. But her peace and security are cruelly shattered when old Sam dies: as a woman, she has no right to inherit the lease on the farm.Believing that her passion lies solely with the land and a place of her own, Esther prepares to risk everything to secure her future - seeking marriage with a local farmhand. But as war arrives to dash the hopes of a generation, Esther begins to discover that it is only the truest of love that can survive the passing of the seasons . . .

Wish Me Luck is a tale of love and heartache in the Second World War. Sequel to Without Sin, Wish Me Luck will delight Margaret Dickinson's legions of fans.Fleur Bosley didn't believe in love at first sight, at least not until she bumped into Robbie Rodwell on a railway station in the blackout of wartime Britain. Posted to a newly-built Lincolnshire airfield, Robbie as a wireless operator on bombers and Fleur as a R/T operator in the watch office, their only escape is to the little cottage in the nearby village where Fleur is billeted with another WAAF, Ruth. The two girls become good friends, but Ruth, already hurt by the loss of one of the pilots, does not approve of wartime romances. And Ruth is not the only one to disapprove. When Fleur's mother hears Robbie's name she becomes hysterical and bans him from her home. The young couple are determined to grab their happiness where they can, but is it a kind Fate or a cruel one that has brought them together when secrets from the past threaten their future? Away from their families, there is fun and laughter, the aircrews determined to make the most of every day, every minute, but whenever they fly off into the night on a bombing raid, Fleur must keep watch until the early hours praying that Robbie's plane comes back . . .

Valerio Massimo Manfredi's Tyrant starts in Sicily 412 BC: the infinite duel between a man and a superpower begins. The man is Dionysius, who has just made himself Tyrant of Syracuse. The superpower Carthage, mercantile megalopolis and mistress of the seas.Over the next eight years, Dionysius' brutal military conquests will strike down countless enemies and many friends to make Syracuse the most powerful Greek city west of mainland Greece. He builds the largest army of antiquity and invents horrific war machines to use against the Carthaginians, who he will fight in five wars.But who was Dionysius? Historians have condemned him as one of the most ruthless, egocentric despots. But he was also patron of the arts, a dramatist, poet and tender lover.

Always Unreliable is the collected first three volumes of Clive James's eloquently witty autobiographies, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June.In Unreliable Memoirs we meet the young Clive James - dressed in shorts and growing up in post-war Sydney. With Falling Towards England, we find Clive living in a Swiss Cottage B&B, where he practises the Twist, anticipates poetical masterpieces he's yet to compose, and worries about his wardrobe. Finally, May Week Was In June sees Clive at Cambridge University, where he enthusiastically involves himself in college life (generally female lives) until May Week - not only in June but also a fortnight long - when he gets married.The rest, of course, is history . . .

Opal Sunset gathers together fifty years of Clive James's poetry, and will undoubtedly enhance his reputation as one of the most versatile and accomplished of contemporary writers. Indeed - as with Other Passports, The Book of My Enemy and Angels Over Elsinore before it - Opal Sunset proves Clive James to be as well suited to the intense demands of the poetic form as he is to prose. Readers new to his verse will not be surprised to find him a master of the comic set-piece and surreal excursion, while those who are familiar with his previous collections will already be aware of his fluency and apparently effortless style, his technical skill and thematic scope. Ultimately, however, the highest recommendation one can give is that Clive James is, in these poems, unmistakably himself - an assured and dazzling wordsmith.

Effervescent, energetic and eclectic, this is one of the late Twentieth Century's finest minds (and bellies) on show. Even As We Speak is a compelling collection of essays in which Clive James focusses on Australian poetry; on television today; on the rise and fall of various icons; on the question of the culpability of the ordinary German in the holocaust; and there is a compellingly provocative and much-talked about piece on the death of Diana.

Seventeen-year-old Ever is the sole survivor of a car crash that killed her entire family. Living with her aunt in Southern California, she's plagued by the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her, and haunted by the ghost of her little sister. She tries to tune everyone out, shunning her old lifestyle as the pretty, popular cheerleader, but somehow she can't hide from Damen, the new guy at school. Stunningly handsome, clever and not a little bit intimidating, there's something about him that doesn't quite add up. Ever realises he's hiding something, but nothing could prepare her for the truth - especially when the truth involves past lives, murderous enemies, everlasting love and the secret of eternal youth . . .

Lillian would say she's no trouble, content to let the days go by, minding her own business and bothering no one. She'd rather not recall the past and, at 72, doesn't see much point in thinking too much about the future. But when her closed existence is suddenly shattered by a random act of violence committed by a young girl, Lillian is catapulted abruptly out of her exile. Robbed of everything she owns, she embarks on a journey to find the thief -- but soon finds that what began as a search for stolen belongings has in fact become about the rediscovery of a stolen life.

The fifth in the hit Italian crime series, Excursion to Tindari is another darkly comic detective story featuring Inspector Montalbano.Maybe a phrase, a line, a hint somewhere would reveal a reason, any reason, for the elderly couple's disappearance . . . A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigata police headquarters. But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's brutal 'New Mafia', which leads him down a path more evil and more far-reaching than any he has been down before.Excursion to Tindari is followed by the sixth novel in the Inspector Montalbano series, The Scent of the Night.

The Scent of the Night is the sixth comic detective novel in the Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri.Montalbano learned how hard it was to put on a wetsuit while in a dinghy speeding over a sea that wasn't exactly calm. Mimi, at the helm, looked tense and worried. "e;Getting seasick?"e; the inspector asked him at one point. "e;No. Just sick of myself."e; "e;Why?"e; "e;Because every now and then I realize what a stupid shit I am to go along with some of your brilliant ideas."e; When an angry octogenarian holds a terrified and lovelorn secretary at gunpoint, Inspector Montalbano is reluctantly drawn into the case. The secretary's boss, a financial advisor, has vanished along with several billion lire entrusted to him by the good citizens of Vigata. Also missing is the advisor's young colleague, whose uncle just happens to be building a house on the site of Inspector Montalbano's very favourite olive tree . . . Ably abetted by his loyal and eccentric team, Montalbano, the food-loving, commitment-phobic inspector, returns for another delicious investigation served up in vintage Camilleri style.The Scent of the Night is followed by the seventh book in the series, Rounding the Mark.

The Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri is the fourth in the bestselling Inspector Montalbano series.The commissioner kept looking at him with an expression that combined contempt and commiseration, apparently discerning unmistakable signs of senile dementia in the inspector. "e;I'm going to speak very frankly, Montalbano. I don't have a very high opinion of you."e; "e;Nor I of you,"e; the inspector replied bluntly. Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder . . .The Voice of the Violin is followed by the fifth novel in this compelling mystery series, Excursion to Tindari.

The Terracotta Dog, the second book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, opens with a mysterious tete-a-tete with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers dead fifty years and still embracing are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him, heedless of personal danger, on a journey through the island's past and into a family's dark heart amid the horrors of World War II. Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Salvo Montalbano has garnered millions of fans worldwide with his sardonic, engaging take on Sicilian small-town life and his genius for deciphering the most enigmatic of crimes.The Terracotta Dog is followed by the third title in this satirical and humorous series, The Snack Thief.

Never has Inspector Montalbano's character - a unique blend of humor, cynicism, compassion, earthiness, and love of good food - been more compelling than in Andrea Camilleri's third Montalbano novel, The Snack Thief. When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Inspector Montalbano suspects a link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished house cleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other school children's mid-morning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life - as well as Montalbano's - is endangered when the inspector exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue.The Snack Thief is followed by the fourth Inspector Montalbano novel, The Voice of the Violin.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2000 'Fans of Kate Atkinson and Andrea Ashworth will love this. Read it and weep.' Mirror This brilliant first novel is set in the Maltese community of Tiger Bay in Cardiff where the author grew up. Dolores, the narrator tells the story of her childhood - her father, Frankie, a compulsive gambler who, due to a misunderstanding at the moment of her birth (he is convinced that his wife will finally give birth to a boy after a multitude of daughters) loses everything to his rival Joe Medora, head of the Maltese Mafia. Frankie's gambling leads to the fire which disfigures Dolores. There is a terrifyingly vivid scene as Dolores remembers watching her hand being burnt in the fire that destroys their home and the moment when Joe claims one of Frankie's daughters as his own. The author evokes the world of Dolores and her family with brilliant power and sensitivity. The novel flits between past and present as Dolores reflects on her childhood and the lives that her father created for himself and his children.

Ever wondered why bad musicians always win the Eurovision Song Contest, or how incompetent politicians get elected?You need some Quirkology in your life.While other scientists beaver away on obvious problems, Richard Wiseman has been busy uncovering the secret ingredients of charisma, exploring how our personalities are shaped by when we are born and examining why people usually miss the obvious signs of their partner's infidelity. Using scientific methods to investigate offbeat topics that interest the general public as well as the scientific community, Quirkology brings a new understanding to the backwaters of the human mind and takes us to places where mainstream scientists fear to tread. Comparable to Freakonomics, but British, far more populist, and a lot funnier.Findings include:How does your surname influence your life?What does the way you walk reveal about your personality?Why should women have men write their personal ads?What is the funniest joke in the world?