It started with a letter... Carol is married to a man she doesn't love & mother to a daughter she doesn't underst&. Crippled with guilt she can't shake the feeling that she has wasted her life. So she puts pen to paper & writes a Letter to the Universe. Albert is a widowed postman approaching retirement age & living with his cat Gloria for company. Slowly being pushed out at his place of work he is forced down to the section of the post office where they sort undeliverable mail. When a series of letters turns up with a smiley face drawn in place of an address he cannot help reading them. ...

Promises Beth thought marrying gentleman farmer Edgar Collins would rescue her from a life of endless servitude but her future would be bleaker than she could ever imagine.. . Pain When the legitimacy of her twin babies is questioned the tiny infants are sent far away. James is adopted by Edgar's uncle the very wealthy Lord Redfern master of Redfern Abbey. But Daisy is sent to a cold-hearted childless couple who raise her to be a maid rather than a daughter. Passion When Daisy at sixteen finally escapes her hard life with her adoptive brother Boyd they arrive at the Abbey to seek work. Little does Daisy know that her flesh & blood is the next in line to be lord of the Abbey. There is a strange connection between Daisy & James something they can neither explain nor ignore. But will the truth be discovered in time? ...

It's a world where crime is almost respectable
- until passion ignites a disaster. Things start going wrong the day Johnny Conroy
...

Its a world where crime is almost respectable
- until passion ignites a disaster. Things start going wrong the day Johnny Conroy
...

Hope never dies! The dramatic new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of NOBODY'S GIRL. After losing everything in the Blitz Hilda Stone & her 14-year-old daughter Ellen are desperate for a miracle. But their world is shattered when a telegram informs them that Doug
- their beloved husband & father
- has been lost at sea. In the depths of despair Hilda is one day approached by a strange woman with a message
- & both she & Ellen are astounded when the prediction becomes a reality. Years later the teenaged Ellen makes a shocking mistake
- but is rescued by the man who later becomes her husband & the family finally find peace. But their joy is cut short when Ellen's baby daughter is killed in a tragic accident. Blaming herself for the accident Ellen remembers the woman's prediction all those years ago & searches desperately for proof of an afterlife. Her search becomes an obsession & she reaches rock bottom
- until she is given a sign. But will it provide the answers Ellen so desperately seeks?




...

In 523 BC the Persian emperor Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle of Amun at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in the middle of the Great Sand Sea his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm & destroyed. Fifty thousand men were lost. Two & a half thousand years later a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo & an eminent British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara. At first the incidents appear unconnected. Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police is suspicious however. & so too is the archaeologist's daughter Tara Mullray. As each seeks to uncover the truth they find themselves thrown together in a desperate race for survival
- one that forces them to confront not only present-day adversaries but also ghosts from their own pasts. From a mysterious fragment of ancient hieroglyphic text to rumours of a fabulous lost tomb in the Theban Hills from the shimmering waters of the Nile to the dusty backstreets of Cairo Khalifa & Mullray are drawn ever deeper into a labyrinth of violence intrigue & betrayal. It is a path that will eventually lead them into the forbidding barren heart of the western desert & the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. At once an adrenaline-packed thriller & a wonderfully evocative archaeological adventure The Lost Army Of Cambyses" marks the debut of a great new storyteller."
...

Isabel Dalhousie philosopher & amateur solver of other people's problems meets an old foe Minty Auchterlonie at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty now the head of a small investment bank is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved & is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment. Minty is not the only high-flier in Isabel's life; her niece Cat has just become engaged to a tightrope-walking stuntman. Isabel fears his next job
- & the engagement
- could end in disaster. Meanwhile her own boyfriend Jamie has marriage in mind too.. .

...

THE LOST ART OF KEEPING SECRETS was selected for the Richard & Judy Book club when it was published in paperback. Set in the 1950s in an England still recovering from the Second World War it is the enchanting story of Penelope Wallace & her eccentric family at the start of the rock'n'roll era. Penelope longs to be grown-up & to fall in love; but various rather inconvenient things keep getting in her way. Like her mother a stunning but petulant beauty widowed at a tragically early age her younger brother Inigo currently incapable of concentrating on anything that isn't Elvis Presley a vast but crumbling ancestral home a severe shortage of cash & her best friend Charlotte's sardonic cousin Harry... ...

Jon Ronson has been on patrol with Americas real-life superheroes & to a UFO convention in the Nevada desert with Robbie Williams. Hes interviewed a robot & asked her if she has a soul. Hes travelled to the Alaskan theme town of North Pole (where every day is Christmas Day) to investigate a high school mass-murder plot. Hes met a man who tried to split the atom in his kitchen & another whos preparing to welcome the aliens to earth. Jon Ronson is fascinated by madness strange behaviour & the human mind & he has spent his life exploring mysterious events & meeting extraordinary people. Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian & GQ) are the best of his adventures. Frequently hilarious sometimes disturbing always entertaining these compelling stories of the chaos that lies on the fringe of our daily lives will have you wondering just what were capable of. ...

UPDATED EDITION INCLUDING TWO EXTRA STORIES Jon Ronson has been on patrol with Americas real-life superheroes & to a UFO convention in the Nevada desert with Robbie Williams. Hes met a man who tried to split the atom in his kitchen & asked a conscious robot if shes got a soul. Fascinated by madness strange behaviour & the human mind Jon has spent his life exploring mysterious events & meeting extraordinary people. Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian & GQ) are the best of his adventures. Frequently hilarious sometimes disturbing always entertaining these fascinating stories of the chaos that lies on the fringe of our daily lives will have you wondering just what were capable of. ...