Showing results by publisher "Orion Publishing Group" in Literature & Fiction

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. As passions flare and the conflict escalates, the whole community takes sides. Can the solemnity of the church compare with the sinful pleasure of a chocolate truffle?

Stella has life under control - and that's the way she likes it. For 25 years, she's been the trusted assistant to a legendary fashion designer, but after her boss dies suddenly, she's left with nothing to do apart from clear the studio. It seems as though the life she wanted has vanished. She is lost - until one day she finds a house swap website and sees a beautiful old villa in a Southern Italian village. Could she really exchange her poky London flat for that?

Convicted of deserting the German army, Sven Hassel is sent to a penal regiment on the Russian Front. He and his comrades are regarded as expendable, cannon fodder in the battle against the implacable Red Army. Outnumbered and outgunned, they fight their way across the frozen steppe.... This iconic anti-war novel is a testament to the atrocities suffered by the lone soldier in the fight for survival. Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army.

Stationed on the Russian Front and now equipped with armoured vehicles, Sven Hassel and his comrades from the 27th Penal Regiment fight on remorselessly... All of them should be dead: Life expectancy on the Russian Front is measured in weeks. But Sven, Porta, Tiny and The Legionnaire fight to the end, not for Germany, not for Hitler, but for survival. Wheels of Terror is a sobering depiction of war's brutalities, and the violence and inhumanity that the history books leave out.

Escape to Italy with this sumptuous story of secrets and friendships under Mediterranean skies. A recipe for life should be a simple thing: love and happiness, family, friends and a little food. But life is rarely straightforward.... Alice wants to make the most of life - after all, she knows how fragile it can be - and knows she never feels more alive than when she's cooking. Babetta has spent a lifetime tending the garden of her tiny house on the Italian coast, supplying food to feed a family now grown and gone.

It's 1945 and, as the troops begin to return home, the inhabitants of London attempt to put their lives back together. For 25-year-old Millie, a qualified nurse and midwife, the jubilation at the end of the war is short-lived as she tends to the needs of the East End community around her. But while Millie witnesses tragedy and brutality in her job, she also finds strength and kindness. And when misfortune befalls her own family, it is the enduring spirit of the community that shows Millie that even the toughest of circumstances can be overcome.

In a remote Sicilian mountain town, four women arrive at a cookery school, each at a turning point in their lives. Moll is a foodie and an exhausted working mum on the holiday of a lifetime. Tricia, a top London lawyer, is taking a break from the demands of her job and her family. Valerie, consumed by grief following the death of her partner, is trying to figure out how to live a life without him. And recently divorced Poppy has come to Sicily to learn about the place where her grandfather was born before emigrating to Australia.

The aliens are here. And they want to help. The extraordinary new project from one of the country's most acclaimed and consistently brilliant SF novelists of the last 30 years. The Jackaroo have given humanity fifteen worlds and the means to reach them. They're a chance to start over, but...

The Villa Girls is the story of four young women who decide that wherever they are in the world and whatever they're doing, they'll meet every few years for a holiday together somewhere sunny. Despite life's taking them in very different directions, their snatched days in the sun in little hidden villas are crucial to them all. Escape, celebration, recovery--over the years the holidays change their lives.

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered. Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her. But then Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing.

Connie Byrne, a nurse in London's East End working alongside Millie Sullivan from Call Nurse Millie, is planning her wedding to Charlie Ross, set to take place as soon as he returns from the war. But when she meets him off the train at London Bridge, she finds that his homecoming isn't going to go according to plan. Connie's busy professional life, and the larger-than-life patients in the district, offer a welcome distraction, but for how long?

In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable.

It is on a golfing trip to France that Hector Chetwode-Talbot, Eck to his friends, first meets Charlie Summers, a fly-by-night entrepreneur whose latest scheme is to import Japanese dog food into the UK. Soon Charlie lands on Eck's doorstep with his suitcase, intent on staying and relaunching his dog food business in the area. But with the financial crash looming, Eck begins to ask himself if they are so very different....

When a young man washes up, naked, on the sands of St Piran, he is quickly rescued by the villagers. From the retired village doctor and the schoolteacher, to the beachcomber and the owner of the local bar, the priest's wife and the romantic novelist, they take this lost soul into their midst. But what the villagers don't know is that Joe Haak worked as an analyst and has fled the City amid fears of a worldwide banking collapse caused by a computer program he invented. But is the end of the world really nigh?

Brought up in Switzerland, the only son of well-to-do parents, Charles Fryerne is somewhat unprepared for the world he meets when he goes up to Oxford University in the early 1980s. There he meets a fascinating social set, including a stellar young playwright, a student dubbed 'the future leader of the Conservative party' and a mercurial figure with ambitions to become the youngest prime minister since Pitt. When they leave university, the characters go their separate ways.

When fifteen-year-old Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong with Anna; in fact he believes there may be some truth to what she is seeing. Anna is haunted by visions of the desolate world of 2082. She sees her...

Nurse Connie Byrne has lived and worked through the Second World War, has celebrated its ending with friends and patients in the East End of London and is now enjoying a fresh new chapter in her life and looking forward to her wedding. But, as many a young bride-to-be has proved, the path of true love never runs smooth.... Connie's busy professional life and the characters who are her patients serve to give her a much-needed sense of perspective.

A small group of commuters and tube workers witness a fiery apocalypse overtaking London. They make their escape through a service tunnel. Reaching a door they step through...and find themselves on a wild shore backed by cliffs and rolling grassland. The way back is blocked. Making their way inland, they meet a man dressed in a wolf's cloak and with wolves by his side.

Jane is 16 when she first becomes aware of Leonard Campbell. He is a tall, gentle man with full lips and no ring on his left hand. He is her teacher. As he begins to shower her with attention, giving her novels to read and discuss, Jane's interest grows, and slowly she falls in love. They overcome obstacles in the form of school bullies and Jane's parents, and it is only once married that Jane realises she might have settled down too early and given up too much of herself in the process.

From the best-selling author of The Legacy comes an unforgettable novel exploring guilt, love and confronting the truth. April, 1942. Amid the chaos of a night of bombing in Bath, six-year-old Davy Noyle goes missing. Frances Parry, looking after him at the time, is tortured by guilt and refuses to believe that he's dead. As quiet falls and the dust begins to settle on the damaged city, a body is found. But it's the body of a little girl, Frances' best friend, Wyn, who has been missing for over 20 years.