Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ' Jess & Jason', she calls them. Their life
- as she sees it
- is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

...

An orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, & an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights & battles. A woman reading in a Shoreditch bar catches the eye of a young ma ...

When Shane Dunphy starts work at Little Scamps cr?che, he has no idea what he has let himself in for. He had not worked in an early years setting for many years & on arriving for his first day he found that two members of staff, Susan & Tush, are at the end of their tether & on the verge of resigning. The children themselves are completely out of control. At the centre of this chaos Shane finds Tammy, a pretty, doll-like five-year-old who is a mystery to everyone: she does not talk, or even smile, yet shows signs of remarkable intelligence. Through the course of the year, Shane attempts to bring order to this motley group & we learn the stories of some of the other children in the cr?che: Milandra, an angry, violent four year old, the daughter of a Nigerian father & Irish mother; Rufus, a gypsy child who is direly neglected; Julie, a tiny, painfully shy little girl with Down's Syndrome. How is Shane ever to find a way to communicate with & ultimately befriend such diverse & challenging personalities? Then one afternoon, Gus, the class tear away, receives the gift of a blue crayon
- a crayon he claims is magic. & Shane begins to wonder if this magic could be the answer to all his problems. Shane Dunphy's moving portrait of a year at Little Scamps is a testament to the redemptive power of love & nurturing, of finding oneself through the care of others, as well as finding the secret of a girl who couldn't smile.
...

It has been a long time since young September bid farewell to Fairyl&, & she is excited to see it again; but upon her return she is shocked to find that her friends have been losing their shadows, & therefore their magic, to the kingdom of Fairyl&-Below... ...

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists are murdered & Salander's fingerprints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable behaviour makes her the official suspect, but no-one can find her. Salander may be an expert at staying ...

An international bestseller with over two million copies sold, this is a story of an artist's desire for beauty & the ultimate corruption of innocence. 17th Century Holl&. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer in the town of Delft, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry & the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world & his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension & deception in the ordered household &, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond. Tracy Chevalier's extraordinary historical novel on the corruption of innocence & the price of genius is a contemporary classic perfect for fans of Sarah Dunant & Philippa Gregory. ...

In these stories, the author renders the bizarre normal & the absurd hilarious, from the eerily real, almost holographic evocations of historical figures, to overtelevised game-show hosts & late-night comedians. In the title story, punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism. ...

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder
- & that the killer is a member of his own family. He employs journalist Mikael Blomkvist & the tattooed, truculent
...

A scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. ...

Discredited journalist Mikel Blompkvist is hired to investigate a unresolved family disappearance. Aided by the mysterious computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, the two soon discover a brutal trail of murder, deception & dark secrets leading right up to the present day. ...