In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past that he's become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin. Meanwhile, his sister, Audrun, alone in her modern bungalow within sight of the Mas Lunel, dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life.Into this closed Cévenol world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London. Now in his sixties, Anthony hopes to remake his life in France, and he begins looking at properties in the region. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion.Two worlds and two cultures collide. Ancient boundaries are crossed, taboos are broken, a violent crime is committed. And all the time the Cévennes hills remain, as cruel and seductive as ever, unforgettably captured in this powerful and unsettling novel, which reveals yet another dimension to Rose Tremain's extraordinary imagination.

November in the West Country, and evening is closing in as Detective Inspector Jack Caffery arrives to interview the victim of a stolen car. But this is no ordinary theft. The man who's stolen the car was wearing a Santa Claus mask. And, on the back seat, packing away the shopping, was an eleven year-old girl. And she's still missing.Sergeant Flea Marley has heard about the car-jacker, and is waiting for Caffery when he leaves the police station later that night. He's done it before, she tells Caffery. Twice. Same guy. Same mask. Only previously he's let the girls go. Now he hasn't.A day later the car is found. Inside, there's a letter. 'It's started', the letter states, 'and it ain't going to stop just sudden now, is it? And Caffery knows that soon the jacker will choose another random car, and another driver, the only important thing being the child in the back seat. It'll be a girl. A girl he's going to steal away.Caffery's a good and instinctive cop; the best in the business, some say. But this time something's badly wrong. This time the jacker seems to be ahead of him - every step of the way .

Sometimes the nightmare can last forever...Nikki Grant has her whole life ahead of her when she discovers she's pregnant. But she welcomes the news with joy - the baby will be a wonderful addition to the happy household she shares with the love her life, Spencer James, and three close friends. Nikki's parents have a very different view of what the baby is going to mean to their daughter's future. Deeply disapproving of Spencer and the friends Nikki has chosen, their frustrations reach breaking point when Nikki refuses to be controlled by them any more. After she storms out, a rift opens up between them that breaks their hearts, but they are all too proud to back down.Baby Zac arrives and is perfect in every way. And with Spencer's career taking off they are ready to make the big move to London. Then suddenly events start to rush them down a very different road and nothing could have prepared them for where they find themselves. It is a frightening and alien place with Zac at the centre of it and Nikki desperately trying to hold onto her baby, her life, her dreams. And as they become evermore embroiled in a world they cannot escape, the love between Nikki and her son is put to the kind of test no parent should ever have to face.

A world that exists in the shadow of our own . . . John Twelve Hawks's previous novels about the mystical Travellers and the Brethren, their ruthless enemies, generated an extraordinary following around the world. In The Golden City, Twelve Hawks delivers the climax to his spellbinding epic. Struggling to protect the legacy of his Traveller father, Gabriel faces troubling new questions and relentless threats. His brother Michael, now firmly allied with the enemy, pursues his ambition to wrest power from Nathan Boone, the calculating leader of the Brethren. And Maya, the Harlequin warrior pledged to protect Gabriel at all costs, is forced to make a choice that will change her life forever.

The lovers in the age of indifference are tough romantics from every corner of the planet: a marriage splinters during a game of mah jong; a depressed fiancee is lifted by a mid-air encounter with a Hollywood legend; a mountain keeper watches over a lonely temple but is perturbed when, finally, a visitor dares to arrive.In this engagingly maverick collection of stories, writer and filmmaker Guo zooms into tender and surreal moments in the lives of lost souls and lovers, adrift between West and East. Her personal, provocative and charming fables capture the sense of alienation thrown up by life in the modern world, and we join her characters in their search for human contact - and love - in rapidly-changing landscapes all around the globe.

Richie had been a celebrated musician, wealthy, popular, and adored by Chrissie and their three daughters. But when he dies, without warning, Chrissie has to deal not only with her grief but with the knowledge that her beloved Richie had another family, one which he had deserted many years before but which now needs to be involved. And their involvement extends not only to the immediate aftermath of a sudden death, but to the longer-term and much more difficult issue - who will inherit his legacy?Chrissie and her girls, comfortably off in London, or Margaret, the deserted wife, living in the North East with Richie's only son?This is an intriguing and timely novel about inheritance, and what happens in a tangled family when someone dies.