Described recently by Empire" magazine as Britains best ever blues singer John Martyn was one of rock musics last real mavericks. Despite long-term addiction to alcohol & drugs which contributed to his death in January 2009 he produced a string of matchless albums. Loved by fans & critics loathed by ex-managers he survived the music business he despised for forty years. With contributions by Martyn many of his lovers & over twenty musicians who knew him well this book documents his upbringing in Glasgow & rise through the Scottish & London folk scene of the 1960s his many highs & lows & his friendships with the great lost souls of British rock music
- Nick Drake & Paul Kossoff."
...

Forbidden love & family secrets In World War Two Liverpool in the heartrending new saga from the author of Goodnight Sweetheart. Rosie has grown up in the heart of Liverpools Italian community treated as one of their own. With a father away at sea & a mother more interested in other men than her only daughter the bighearted Grenellis are the closest thing Rosie has to a proper family. But when war breaks out & Italy becomes the Allies adversary everything changes. The community is torn in two: friends become enemies neighbours become traitors & Rosie is left uncertain of just who she can trust. As war intensifies & Liverpool is subjected to relentless bombings things become more perilous. When a devastating attack leaves her mother dead Rosie is sent to live with her aunt in Edge Hill. Her father is feared missing at sea & her aunt lets slip a family secret which has unimaginable consequences... Fleeing her cruel aunt Rosie becomes a Land Girl & falls in love
- with someone utterly forbidden. As bombs drop & families are ripped apart by conflict at home & abroad can they find happiness or will war stand in their way?
...

Dave Aston is a dead man walking. He was a member of the elite British SAS. He'd ridden an adrenalin wave invincible. Black Ops in Iraq & Afghanistan. Until that final mission into bandit country. Unauthorised with no back up. That was when his luck ran out.. . Now he's returned home to an alien civilian life of bad dreams & bad people. Everything is lost: his marriage his home & his self-respect. Down & out with a broken body & a damaged soul on the cold mean streets of his homel&. There he discovers that the astonishing circle of deceit is complete. But is he just too far down to fight back against a new evil force at work in his own back yard? Can he possibly find the strength & courage to avenge his friends & save himself? ...

From the author of Sunday Times bestsellers One Child & Ghost Girl comes a heartbreaking story of one teachers determination to turn a chaotic group of damaged children into a family. They were all just somebody elses kids" -- four problem children placed in Torey Haydens class because nobody knew what else to do with them. They were a motley group of kids in great pain: a small boy who echoed other peoples words & repeated weather forecast; a beautiful seven-year-old girl brain damaged by savage parental beatings; an angry ten-year-old who had watched his stepmother murder his father; a shy twelve-year-old who had been cast out of Catholic school when she became pregnant. But they shared one thing in common: a remarkable teacher who would never stop caring -- & who would share with them the love & understanding they had never known to help them become a family." ...

Angeline is brilliant! She knows way more than a child of her age ought to. When she is moved up a class at school she finds that her intelligence doesn't equip her entirely for dealing with the pressures of being with the older group. Soon she is finding refuge with a teacher & her tropical fish & another unlikely student. With Louis Sachar's hallmark twist-&-turns of plot & lovely humour this delightful novel is thought-provoking & brilliant. ...

Quiet Halley & popular Scarlett have been friends for years balancing each other perfectly
- until the summer of their 16th birthdays.
...

Penguin Audiobooks presents a brand new recording of Someone Like You" Roald Dahls first collection of his world famous dark & sinister adult stories brought to life by an all-star cast including Julian Rhind-Tutt Stephen Mangan Tamsin Greig Derek Jacobi Richard Griffiths Willl Self Jessica Hynes Juliet Stevenson Adrian Scarborough & Richard E. Grant. A wife serves a dish that baffles the police; a harmless bet suddenly becomes anything but; a curious machine reveals a horrifying truth about plants; & a man lies awake waiting to be bitten by the venomous snake asleep on his stomach. Through vendettas & desperate quests bitter memories & sordid fantasies Roald Dahls stories portray the strange & unexpected sending a shiver down the spine. Stories include: " Taste" " Lamb to the Slaughter" " Man from the South" " The Soldier" " My Lady Love" " My Dove" " Dip in the Pool" " Galloping Foxley" " Skin" " Poison" " The Wish" " Neck" " The Sound Machine" " Nunc Dimittis" " The Great Automatic Grammatizator" & " Clauds Dog". It is also published in paperback ebook & as digital audiobooks." ...

From the No. 1 international bestseller Cathy Kelly a novel of love & longing wishes & yearning. They all just want one thing in life
-
...

An enthralling novel about families friends & finding love from the ever-popular bestselling Sheila O' Flanagan. Romy Kilkenny loves her life in Australia
- she has her dream job an active lifestyle & best friend Keith who understands her better than anyone. Best of all she couldn't be further from her family. But when her family needs her back in Ireland at short notice Romy's world is turned upside down & she is thrust back into the lives of her mother & half-siblings again. Romy has never fitted in with her family & now with Keith too far away to give comfort she feels like more of an outsider than ever. She also worries that the accidental half-kiss with Keith at the airport may have lost her the greatest friend she ever had. Will she ever find someone special?
...

The harrowing true story of the young boy who captured the heart of the nation when he testified in court to find justice against those responsible for his brothers death. Terry ONeill was just ten years old when he stood up in court to testify against his brutal foster parents accused of the manslaughter of his twelve-year-old brother Dennis. Terry & his brother had been taken into care & moved through many foster homes until they came to live on the Shropshire farm owned by Reginald & Esther Gough in 1945. There they were to suffer brutal beatings & little care or love
- they survived as best they could looking out for each other until the terrible morning when Terry couldnt wake Dennis. In a time when the country was united by war & struggle the case shocked the nation & made headlines around the world. Terry a small figure in the courtroom captured the hearts of mothers & families everywhere & the public outcry against the foster services led to the instigation of the first provisions to protect other vulnerable children from neglect & cruelty.
...