A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), The Stranger Times is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable. At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor...well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.

Delia Spark is caught in a maelstrom. Her former life as a London theatre director is on the brink of implosion amid a scandalous divorce, a tarnished reputation, and, for reasons she cannot fathom, things keep spontaneously combusting around her. Her sixties were supposed to be peaceful, but now even her grown daughter won't return her calls. Escape is the only option.

The disappearance of a three-year-old girl from her isolated Highland home one summer shook the nation. A massive police search involving divers in the loch and dogs combing the moorland and mountains had failed to find Lily Masterton. Three years later, the world may have forgotten the blond-haired girl with the big blue eyes, but her grief-stricken parents hire Private Investigator Teàrlach Paterson—an expert in finding missing children—to bring their precious Lily home. But this is no ordinary family struck by tragedy.

Flower shop owner Ellie McEwan is driving home late one frosty November night when a shadowy figure leaps into the road out of nowhere. Ellie swerves to avoid him — and slams head-on into the crash barrier. Days later, Ellie wakes up in hospital — and notices there’s something different. Everyone she looks at — the doctor, the nurse, her friend Carole — is surrounded by a coloured aura. Her near-death experience seems to have given her a new ability. And now Ellie must use her new-found gift to catch a killer.

Gathered together for the first time and featuring two brand new stories, this collection contains all of the short stories and novellas featuring Bunny McGarry, star of the million-selling Dublin Trilogy. Spanning his entire career in law enforcement and beyond, these stories give a whole new perspective on Ireland’s most truly unconventional police officer as he juggles being a force for justice and managing the world’s worst under-12s hurling team.

I didn’t think they’d dismantle the paranormal military with a wave of their bureaucratic magic wand, but they did. Everything I’d spent the previous 15 years of my life doing and being was ripped away from me in an instant, out of my reach—and now that the paranormal military’s gone, I’ve got nothing left to fight for.

Come sit by the hearth and enjoy a pint and well packed pipe with Andrew, a seventeen-year-old tinker from a nearby swamp, in this feel-good slice of life, as he tells a tale of tree horses, Night Watchmen and the mythical being covered in eyes that grants dangerous wishes. It’s Eden Vale, a Festival of Lights, in Jatoba, a cozy village nestled high in the hills where Andrew is trying to ply his trade when a blizzard forces him into the leaning cottage on the edge of town that everyone fears.

Working in a museum under a false identity is Brigitte’s only hope. Until she meets Isabelle Valette, who confides in hushed tones that she is part of the Resistance. And when her new friend tells her of a train leaving Paris that can take children to safety, Brigitte knows her daughter must be on it, even if it breaks her heart. But getting Sophie onto the train is dangerous. If they are caught smuggling a Jewish child out of Paris, they will be killed. And with the enemy closing in, can Brigitte get her beloved daughter to safety before it is too late?

DI Adams fled London to escape bridge-dwelling monsters and magical toasties - a one-time experience she's in no hurry to repeat. She's police, not some cryptid hunter. Leeds has other plans, though. Tasked with the seemingly mundane case of a missing necklace, Adams soon realises she's stumbled into something inexplicable. The trinket is dangerous, and she's the only one who recognises it for what it is - a weapon that could tear the North apart.

It’s the night shift worker who finds them. Huddled in a hospital store cupboard is elderly Edith Higgins. Knifed to death. Sitting behind her is Staff Nurse Lily Frampton, a scalpel clasped in her blood-soaked hand. No one can understand why this kind-hearted, dedicated nurse would brutally murder a frail patient she’s spent months caring for. That same day, mild-mannered schoolteacher Rod Black is found surrounded by the battered bodies of his pupils. Why would a well-respected teacher beat five schoolboys to death?

Every time Sebastien speaks to Finley, she finds herself inching closer to him, and soon love begins to grow. But when he tells her he wants to join the English army, to fight the people who have forced his family to face such horror, she must work hard to crush the devastation in her heart. She knows if she were in his shoes, she would do the same thing, and she must be brave too. She will stay in London, waiting for Sebastien, and helping other refugees like him. As the bombs rain down, and the London streets empty, she knows she faces grave dangers.

Warm beds, quaint mysteries, and the best rosemary bread this side of Pigsend Creek. Welcome to the Weary Dragon Inn. Bev may not know who she was before she showed up in the quaint village of Pigsend five years ago, but that doesn’t bother her much. She’s made a tidy little life for herself as the proprietor of the Weary Dragon Inn, where the most notable event is when she makes her famous rosemary bread.

Meanwhile, Gillan McArdle’s academic career is ending because of one stupid lapse of judgement. Offered a short-term contract, he lands on the Hebridean island of Harris to investigate obscure animal bones. Quickly dismissing the unicorn skull as a thinly disguised fake, he can’t deny there’s something unusual about these bones. Baited by rumors of a majestic tusked horse roaming the uplands, Gill begins to suspect someone is manipulating him. As he gradually unravels the mystery of the skull, he grasps a disturbing conclusion: If this creature does exist, the evidence suggests it’s a killer.

1889: Kitty Gray dreams of attending university and becoming a doctor, but when she is married off to Charles Maclean, one of Glasgow's richest and most eligible bachelors, her aspiration suddenly slips far from reach. Exiled to her new remote home in the Scottish Highlands, with its gargoyles, gothic arches and turrets, Kitty seeks solace in creating a restorative herb garden. Combining her medical knowledge and new-found fascination with herbalism, Kitty spends her days absorbed in a world of herbs and their healing properties until a devastating tragedy strikes...

When the broken body of a seventy-one-year-old woman is found beneath the Humber Bridge, a sign around her neck with the words ‘Pure Evil’ spray-painted in red, Detective Hollie Turner can’t help but wonder–who would want this frail elderly woman dead? As she starts to delve into the victim’s personal life, Hollie discovers that the woman, Sister Brennan, ran a local mother and baby home at the Church of St Mary and the Angels. The unit may have shut down years ago, but the pain and anguish of those who were forced to give up their babies remains.