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

Marcus Didius Alexander Postumus is a special boy. He is 12 or perhaps 11. He has two mothers and various possible fathers, so he worries who will take care of him. He is self-confident yet vulnerable, intelligent yet sinister. He knows not many people like him. When his birth mother, Thalia the snake-dancer, takes him to live with her troupe of exotic performers, Postumus sees it as useful experience even though it involves him mucking out menagerie cages. No one anticipates how much havoc he will wreak.

Sean McNally has sworn his oath to the IRA. But then he'd turned his back on the violence and the hatred, and gone south to the Republic. Life was good, until they came for him to do one last job. But in its aftermath, McNally is captured and is facing a lifetime's imprisonment. Unless he dares think the unthinkable...and becomes a tout. Lieutenant David Ferris hadn't wanted to join the army, but found himself in it anyway. In a cruel twist of fate, his path crosses that of Sean McNally's and he quickly becomes a pawn on the frontline of a brutally tense war of nerves.

Nico Storm and his father drive across a desolate South Africa, constantly alert for feral dogs, motorcycle gangs, nuclear contamination. They are among the few survivors of a virus that has killed most of the world's population. Young as he is, Nico realises that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father's protector. But Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is a man with a vision. He is searching for a place that can become a refuge, a beacon of light and hope in a dark and hopeless world.

We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and 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. And 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.

From best-selling writer Stephen Leather comes an utterly addictive all-action thriller in which a huge terrorist threat to the capital can only be stopped by one man. From the best-selling author of the Spider Shepherd and Jack Nightingale series comes First Response, the utterly addictive new thriller by Stephen Leather. London is under siege. Nine men in suicide vests primed to explode hold hostages in nine different locations around the city, and are ready to die for their cause.

A gripping new Benny Griessel thriller from one of the world's finest crime writers. When Captain Benny Griessel is called in to investigate a multiple homicide, it pushes him close to his breaking point. A former friend and detective colleague has shot his wife and two daughters then killed himself. Benny wants out - out of his job, his home, and his relationship with his singer girlfriend, Alexa. He moves into a hotel and starts drinking again.

Book one in a trilogy following one family over 40 years on an East London estate, Blood Sister is nonstop drama, perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers and Mandasue Heller. There are two ways out of Essex Lane Estate, better known as The Devil's Estate. You make good, or you turn bad. Jen Miller is determined not to make the same mistakes her mother did. She's waiting to find herself a good job and a decent man. Her younger sister, Tiff, is running errands for a gangster and looking for any opportunity for fun and profit.

A year after her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place. As she makes her way along the motorway, she thinks about their life together. She wonders whether she has changed since Zach died. She wonders if she will ever feel whole again. At last she reaches the spot. And there, tied to a tree, is a bunch of lilies. The flowers are addressed to her husband. Someone has been there before her. Lizzie loved Zach. She really did. But she's starting to realise she didn't really know him. Or what he was capable of.

Freya Scott is getting married. Her wedding to Matthew, her long-term boyfriend, is the first of eight in her calendar this year, and as someone who prides herself on being meticulously organised, Freya is intent on making it the perfect day to remember. But when Matthew calls things off hours before they walk down the aisle, Freya's entire life plan goes up in smoke. Humiliated and heartbroken, the last thing she wants is to attend a summer of other peoples' nuptials on her own.

When a British Special Forces soldier goes rogue, carrying out an attack at a US Army base in Syria leading to the death of two men, ex-MI5 controller Charlotte Button is hired to work out what his plan is and to take him down before he can carry it out. When the man returns to the UK, it looks like the threat will be a lot closer to home. Charlotte puts her best man on the case - hitman Lex Harper.

HRH The Duke of Kent has been at the heart of the British Royal Family throughout his life. As a working member of the Royal Family, he has supported his cousin, The Queen, representing her at home and abroad. His royal duties began when, in 1952, at the age of 16, he walked in the procession behind King George VI's coffin, later paying homage to The Queen at her coronation in 1953. Since then, he has witnessed and participated in key royal occasions. A Royal Life is a unique account based on a series of conversations between the duke and acclaimed royal historian Hugo Vickers.

There is something wrong with Mathilda. She's still reeling from the blow of a gut-punch break up and grieving the death of a loved one. But that's not it. She's cried all her tears, mastered her crow pose and thrown out every last reminder of him. But that's not helping. Concerned that she isn't moving on, Mathilda's friends push her towards a series of increasingly unorthodox remedies. Until the seams of herself begin to come undone.

No one can escape their past forever. Ex-SAS operator John Bald knows that better than most. So when the Firm corners Bald in Kazakhstan with a promise to wipe the slate clean, he reluctantly agrees to return to the frontline. His mission: hunt down a fugitive Russian oligarch suspected of murdering a beautiful young Westminster aide. Viktor Klich knows too much. Now Bald must catch Klich - before the Russian security services get to him first.

As a fussy baby, Anne was prescribed laudanum to quiet her and has been given the opium-heavy syrup ever since on account of her continuing ill health. While her mother is outraged when Darcy chooses not to marry Anne, as has been long planned, Anne can barely raise her head to acknowledge the fact. But little by little, she comes to see that what she has always been told is an affliction of nature might in fact be one of nurture - and one, therefore, that she can beat.

Justine thought she knew who she was until an anonymous caller seemed to know better.... After escaping London and a career that nearly destroyed her, Justine plans to spend her days doing as little as possible in her beautiful home in Devon. But soon after the move, her daughter, Ellen, starts to withdraw when her new best friend, George, is unfairly expelled from school.

Summer has arrived in Barton-in-the-Dale and as a new term begins at the little primary school, it's not just the warm weather that's getting people hot under the collar. Meetings with the teachers from Urebank School to discuss the merger are producing more than a few fireworks, a disruptive new pupil arrives, set to cause trouble, and a surprising staff love affair is exposed.

Sometimes, the hardest part of finding love is keeping a straight face... For Jamie Newman, being a single guy isn't proving to be much fun, especially when confronted with a sexually belligerent divorcee and a goddess so far out of his league she might as well be a different species. Mind you, being a girl in search of love isn't a bowl of cherries either.

On the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King comes the explosive new thriller from international best seller Steve Berry that sees Cotton Malone return to his very first case. History notes that the ugly feud between J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King Jr., marked by years of illegal surveillance and the accumulation of secret files, ended on April 4, 1968 when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

Still recovering from his previous assignment in Arabia, imperial agent Cassius Corbulo has been spending most of his time and money on women and wine. Unfortunately for him, word of his achievements has reached Emperor Aurelian's deputy, and he is sent north, tasked with smashing a counterfeiting gang.

For fans of C J Sansom and S J Parris, Holy Spy features the Queen's Intelligencer John Shakespeare in the latest of Rory Clements' acclaimed and best-selling series of Tudor spy thrillers. Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award, "does for Elizabeth's reign what C.J. Sansom does for Henry VIII's" ( Sunday Times). In London's smoky taverns, a conspiracy is brewing: a group of wealthy, young Catholic dissidents plot to assassinate Elizabeth and free Mary Queen of Scots.