An old farm a deserted landscape a dark secret from times past with fatal consequences for the present. In the tranquil northern seaside town of Scarborough a student is found cruelly murdered. For months the investigators are in the dark until they are faced with a copy-cat crime. The investigation continues apace yet they are still struggling to establish a connection between the two victims. Ambitious detective Valerie Almond clings to the all too obvious: a rift within the family of the second victim. But there is far more to the case than first appears & Valerie is led towards a dark secret inextricably linked to the evacuation of children to Scarborough during World War II. Horrified at her last-minute discovery Valerie realises that she may be too late for action... ...

The Other Country was Carol Ann Duffys third collection & as with her later books takes its readers on journeys that seem initially similar -- but soon prove anything but. This book leads our imagination to places our minds could not have suspected were there or would not have dared to go alone. Some of its voices are disarmingly direct while others blur the lines between fantasy & reality confession & self-delusion forcing us to re-examine everything we thought we knew about some of our most basic human drives & emotions. Deeply intelligent unflinchingly honest with a deftness of touch & tone & openness all the more moving for its lack of sentimentality The Other Country is as remarkable a collection today as it was on its first publication. You cant classify Carol Ann Duffy as a love poet or a comic poet or a political poet because she is all these things but so much more.. . She gets straight to the emotions Daisy Goodwin Sunday Times Urgent & packed with future classics The Other Country is a book that proclaims that poetry is alive. Be in there early Peter Forbes Guardian ...

The brilliant standalone thriller from The Sunday Times & New York Times bestseller Lisa Gardner. IF YOU CAN'T TRUST YOUR FAMILY... When Melanie wakes up in hospital all she knows is that she can't remember any of the first nine years of her life & no-one is there waiting for her. For Dr Stokes
- who treated Melanie that night
- & his wife their decision to adopt the abandoned child comes as a blessing following their desperate struggle to deal with the brutal murder of their four-year-old daughter Meagan. But when after twenty years of happy family life Melanie suddenly finds her past under investigation by a reporter & an FBI agent everything she thought she knew about her new life is questioned. & when horrific messages & gifts start arriving Melanie is forced to face the terrifying reality that her family may be the last people she should trust...THEN WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

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Chrissie in the twenty-three years shed been together with Richie had always believed that he loved her. He loved their three daughters & their house in Highgate & their happy lively existence. But if she really was the love of his life why had he never given her the one thing that would have made her life perfect? Then suddenly Richie is no longer there & without him Chrissies carefully constructed life is in jeopardy. The one big fact she had always tried to keep from her daughters threatens to overwhelm them all. For Richie had still been married to his first wife the one with a son that he had abandoned in Newcastle. & now with Richie gone & the practicalities of wills & money to be sorted out it is finally time for the two families to face each other... ...

This is the intriguing & moving autobiography of Jacqueline Smith; the story of an extraordinary life. From the beginning in a family run like an army regiment fate made sure that Jacqueline despite her quite normal hopes & dreams would undergo dramas & events to horrify & traumatise the strongest of characters. Jacqueline leads the reader from the hacking to death in Kenya of her native best friend & her whole family to her tempestuous first marriage to a social psychopath who came with the package of the mother in law from hell & his ultimate destruction of their family unit. She hadnt ever wanted to run a pub but we see that happen during her first marriage & not only get her acclaimed by Egon Ronay but would lead to settling her fate for the future. She spent years struggling to bring up her sons one very like his father & then met the man who would indeed change her life forever. Ron & Jacqueline moved to Northern Cyprus where she became the first female Chef & owner of a French Restaurant famous & acclaimed to be excellent enough for the Michelin Guide. The book takes you through the two devastating illnesses that threatened Jacquelines life & on to her subsequent meeting with a Hotelier who would have an amazing impact on her already full life. The Other Grocers Daughter is well-written with a lively style that will appeal to female readers & a style comparable to Catherine Cookson. Reliving all the old memories good & bad was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had. I realised that to other people my life had never been normal & it made sense to try to put it all into perspective
- the book did that for me " says Jacqueline behind her motivation to tell her story."
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Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize & Costa Novel of the Year this international bestseller has become a reading group classic. We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story & we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless you need to know something so we will just say this: It is extremely funny but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there but the book doesn't. & it's what happens afterwards that is most important. Once you have read it you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds. ...

First published in 1944 during the darkest days of the war Lord Wavells great anthology of English poetry
- enhanced by his own
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The Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company began to operate motor buses in the Birmingham & Black Country area in 1912 radiating their services out as far as Leicester. By the 1920s they were building their own buses & SOS was born standing for Shires Own Speci cation named after Midland Reds Chief Engineer. The advantage of this was that the company could design exactly what it wanted without having to compromise by adopting a vehicle from an outside manufacturer. These new single deckers inspired by American designs were responsible for the closure of many tramways. An important by-product of this decision to manufacture their own buses was that the company could manufacture for other BET Group operators such as the Northern General group Potteries Motor Traction & Trent Motor Traction. For these & others the company built many SOS buses the eets being seen all over England & Wales. David Harvey tells the story of the SOS buses of which five have survived into preservation. ...

Pamela Jackson nee Mitford is perhaps the least well known of the illustrious Mitford sisters & yet her story is just as captivating & more revealing. Despite shunning the bright city lights that her sisters so desperately craved she was very much involved in the activities of her extraordinary family picking up the many pieces when things went disastrously wrong
- which they so often did. Joining her sisters on many adventures including their meeting with Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany Pamela quietly observed the bizarre funny & often tragic events that took place around her. Through her eyes we are given a view of the Mitfords never seen before. Loyal to the core she possessed the constancy & kindness that underpinned the wilder exploits of the Mitford family. Indeed innocence along with courage & kindness was one of her remarkable qualities. But it was the innocence of a woman who had lived & suffered loved & lost & overcome adversity. Journalist Diana Alexander who was Pamelas friend for many years here reveals the unknown Mitford or as her lifelong admirer John Betjeman described her Gentle Pamela.
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Saras mother told her that she shouldnt marry Conrad
- that the twenty-five-year age gap between them would tell in the end. The
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