Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Literature & Fiction

Jessie Burton is lively and intelligent - she wants more than the respectable life in service her mother has planned for her. Times are changing; railways are being built across the land, bringing new freedom and possibilities. Jessie tastes that freedom when she meets an ambitious young navvy, newly arrived in Yorkshire. The attraction between them is overwhelming. And Jared Wilde is determined to make Jessie his wife.

Caitlin's life is a mess. Her marriage to a man everyone else thinks is perfect has collapsed, along with her self-esteem, and breaking free seems the only option. Nancy, her four-year-old daughter, used to talk all the time; in the car, at nursery, to her brother Joel. Then her parents split up. Her daddy moves out. And Nancy stops speaking. But when Eva agrees to host her niece and nephew once a fortnight, Caitlin and Eva are made to face the different truths about their marriages....

When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the LA set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell - both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family's bustling bakery and dealing with her ex. With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven't done since they were kids: switch places.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an enigmatic figure who was deposed in 1886, mysteriously drowning three days later. Eccentric to the point of madness, history tells us that in the years before he died Ludwig engaged in a worldwide search for a new kingdom, one separate, apart, and in lieu of Bavaria. A place he could retreat into and rule as he wished. But a question remains: did he succeed?

Every year the Levin children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic island home, but this year it's not to be. Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby is caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests with her friend Mary Jo Kopechne. And Tiger, the only son, has just been deployed to Vietnam.

In the little village of Barton-in-the-Dale, long-hidden secrets are bubbling to the surface. Ashley Underwood and Emmet O'Malley are set to tie the knot, when a revelation from the handsome Irishman's past returns to haunt him. The town's resident nosey-parker discovers some juicy gossip about the primary school's dishy new staff-member and head teacher Elisabeth Stirling has a very special secret of her own.

On Riddleston Road each house reaches three storeys high, with smart gabled roofs and neat garden paths unfurling from pastel coloured front doors. Wide, sash windows stare outwards from the brick facades, revealing a glimpse of beautiful interiors. And concealing dark secrets. Today a new family has moved into number twenty-three. A family who shouldn't be there.

Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie vanished, she reappears with no memory of what happened to her. But she is different. She's emaciated, with sallow skin, chipped teeth and odd appetites. In so many ways, Julie seems to be the friend they all loved and lost. But in others, she seems to be a stranger.

A&E doctor Kate North has been knocked out of her orbit by a personal tragedy. So when she's offered the chance to be an emergency replacement at the UN research station in Antarctica, she jumps at the chance. The previous doctor, Jean-Luc, died in a tragic accident while out on the ice. The move seems an ideal solution for Kate: no one knows about her past; no one is checking up on her. But as total darkness descends for the winter, she begins to suspect that Jean-Luc's death wasn't accidental at all. And the more questions she asks, the more dangerous it becomes for them all.

In an isolated house on the New South Wales coast, Ruth - a widow whose sons work abroad - lives alone. Until one day a stranger bowls up, announcing that she's been sent by the authorities to be Ruth's carer. At first, Ruth is happy to have the company. Frida is efficient and helpful, and willing to listen to Ruth's stories about her childhood in Fiji and the man she fell for there. But why does Ruth hear a tiger prowling through the house at night? How far can Ruth trust this enigmatic woman? And how far can she trust herself?

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman - and he's playing games with them. For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.

Set in the near-distant future, Spaceman of Bohemia follows a Czech astronaut as he launches into space to investigate a mysterious dust cloud covering Venus, a suicide mission sponsored by a proud nation. Suddenly a world celebrity, Jakub's marriage starts to fail as the weeks go by, and his sanity comes into question. After his mission is derailed, he must make a violent decision that will force him to come to terms with his family's dark political past.

When the bombers appear like a flock of birds over the horizon, Sibil Helinger, 17, is enjoying market day in the small Spanish town of Guernica. With no warning, clouds of German planes are upon them and bombs fall on the town like rain. Reeling with shock, Sibil spends the next few days frantically searching for her relatives in the smouldering rubble. Though she finds her little sister trapped in the ruins, she discovers her mother and the others are dead.

But if her torturers at the court of King James knew of her love for Tom Wintour, one of the executed members of the gunpowder plot, it would mean certain death. Pregnant with Tom's child, hiding under the reluctant protection of her spiteful and ambitious brother, Frances lives in fear - until she is offered the chance to make a respectable - if loveless - marriage and return to court. She will not be expected to sleep with her husband. The only price she must pay for safety is to give up the cause for which her lover died.

Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.

The recently rediscovered short story 'The Lost One', perfect for fans of Daphne du Maurier, Santa Montefiore and Anya Seton. First published in Woman's Journal in 1960, and set against the backdrop of unfenced country and dark winding valleys at night, the aptly named 'The Lost One' features The Wind off the Small Isles heroine Perdita West, who brings her characteristic pluck and courage to this classic Mary Stewart tale of suspense and intrigue....

AD 270. Rome has ruled Syria for over three centuries. But now the weakened empire faces a desperate threat: Queen Zenobia of Palmyra has turned her Roman-trained army against her former masters, and the once invincible legions have been crushed. Arabia, Palestine and Egypt have fallen, and now Antioch, Syria's capital, stands exposed. Cassius Corbulo is a young intelligence agent fresh from officer training. He has been assigned the menial task of rounding up wounded legionaries....

September 1861: All is not as it seems. With these cryptic words, a shocking secret passed down from president to president comes to rest in the hands of Abraham Lincoln. And as the first bloody clashes of the Civil War unfold, Lincoln alone must decide how best to use this volatile knowledge: save thousands of American lives or keep the young nation from being torn apart forever?

Kevin Delevan wants only one thing for his 15th birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660. There's something wrong with his gift, though. No matter where Kevin aims the camera, it produces a photograph of an enormous vicious dog. In each successive picture, the menacing creature draws nearer to the flat surface of the Polaroid film as if it intends to break through. When old Pop Merrill, Castle Rock's sharpest trader, gets wind of this phenomenon, he devises a way to profit from it. But the Sun Dog, a beast that shouldn't exist at all, turns out to be a very dangerous investment.

Dr Paul Allen is a well-respected man. He lives a happy, comfortable life with his second wife and their family - until the night when a knock at the door blows his world apart. A hugely popular presidential candidate has been shot, and they say the young man who pulled the trigger is Paul's son. Daniel, the only child from Paul's first, failed marriage, was always a good kid, and Paul is convinced his quiet boy is not capable of murder. Overwhelmed by a vortex of feelings, Paul embarks on a mission to understand what happened and why.