Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

A local woman is found in a children's playground, tied up and burned to death. Her clothes are neatly folded and laid at the base of a nearby tree. Her body, charred and still smoking, is on display for all to see. One town over, another victim is discovered in the scorched remains of a brutal fire, her clothes having been laid out just beyond the reach of the vicious flames.

Meet Theo. Handsome, sexy, funny. kind. And he can cook. He's literally the man of Esme's dreams. But Esme's sensible enough to know that you can't just manifest your perfect boyfriend then have him turn up on your doorstep. Or can you?

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father.

On Whidbey Island, secrets never stay buried. A mysterious girl who won't speak; a coal-black seal named Nera that returns to the same place every year; a bitter feud of unknown origin - strange things are happening on Whidbey Island and Becca King is drawn into the maelstrom of events. But Becca, first met in The Edge of Nowhere, has her own secrets to hide. Still on the run from her criminal stepfather, Becca is living in a secret location.

Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage into adulthood. Like every woman, she holds a map of the future in her skin, every mole and freckle a clue to unlocking what will come to pass. With puberty comes the changeling period - when her final marks will appear, those that will solidify her fate - and that of those around her. The possibilities are tantalising enough to outweigh her worry that the future she dreams of won't be the one she's fated to have - or the fact the changeling period is the most dangerous in a woman's life. A time when abduction is rife.

A modern-day Sleeping Beauty story of love and hope, for fans of Jojo Moyes. Elsa has been in a coma for five months. With all hope of reviving her gone, her family and doctors are having to face the devastating fact that it might be time to turn off her life support.... They don't realise that in the past few weeks, Elsa has regained partial consciousness; she knows where she is and can hear everyone talking around her bed, but she has no way of telling them she's there.

A Stephen King original short story featuring an excerpt from 11.22.63, his latest full-length novel. With the heart of Stand by Me and the genius horror of Christine, Mile 81 is Stephen King unleashing his imagination as he drives past one of those road signs.... At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded-up rest stop, a place where high-school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high-school kids have always gotten into....

Childhood sweethearts Neve and Jamie are inseparable from the moment they meet. Everyone knows they'll be together forever - that is, until tragedy strikes, and Jamie is torn from Neve's life. One street away, Ash is hit by lightning. As he recovers, family members notice a drastic change in Ash, almost as though he is a different person. Years later, chance brings Neve and Ash together- and she is struck by his familiarity. He shares so many traits with Jamie, as if their souls are entwined. Neve must ask herself whether she can love for a second time in the face of her grief.

International number-one best-selling author Stephen King presents a brand-new, never-before-published, audio-only story. In this new tour de force from Stephen King - unavailable in print or any other format until November 2015 - a salt-of-the-earth Maine native recounts how a friendly annual summer fireworks show rivalry with his neighbour across the lake gradually spirals out of control...with explosive results.

Esta has known nothing but Eden's Isle her whole life. Raised by her grandmother, after a fire claimed her parents and scarred her face, she's instructed to piety, to deference and acquiescence by a religious society that will not suffer anything else. Cut off from the moral iniquity of the mainland, the island believes it can stay free of the Seawomen—creatures from the water that came upon land to corrupt God's creation and Man.

Named after a star, war correspondent Maia knows how to find the brightest stories—the tales of survival and strength—hidden amongst the dark realities of combat. Now, travelling to Malta to visit her estranged father, with one more chance to build a relationship with her last remaining relative, she's here to find her own story: never having found somewhere—or someone—she can call home, she's desperate for answers that might show her where she truly belongs.

Joel is afraid of the future. Since he was a child he's been haunted by dreams about the people he loves. Visions of what's going to happen - the good and the bad. And the only way to prevent them is to never let anyone close to him again. Callie can't let go of the past. Since her best friend died, Callie's been lost. She knows she needs to be more spontaneous and live a bigger life. She just doesn't know how to find a way back to the person who used to have those dreams. Joel and Callie both need a reason to start living for today....

The convention of a book synopsis is fundamentally ridiculous. How can I adequately convey in only 150 words the complexity and bewilderment of the past 10 months and the effect the events that occurred have had on my perfectly regulated existence? One would need much longer to record in detail how I was blackmailed into demonstrating the efficacy of my soulmate programme and forced to participate in a series of ridiculous dates. How my life has been forever altered as a consequence.

Winning stories from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams Hodder- Guardian competition. The number one best-selling writer Stephen King presents six gripping and chilling stories in this captivating anthology: 'Wild Swimming' by Elodie Harper. 'Eau-de-Eric' by Manuela Saragosa. 'The Spots' by Paul Bassett Davies. 'The Unpicking' by Michael Button. 'La Mort de L'amant' by Stuart Johnstone. 'The Bear Trap' by Neil Hudson.

The terrifying future of our world after climate change - as predicted by a leading geochemist. As his health begins to fail, a historian in the year 2084 sets out to document the irreparable damage climate change has wrought on the planet over the course of his life. He interviews scientists, political leaders and ordinary people all around the world who have suffered its catastrophic effects, from devastating floods and mass droughts to war and famine.

In the second instalment of Tara Sim's Dark Gods trilogy each heir walks a dangerous path, attempting to undo the damage the gods have wrought across the four realms. But they live on borrowed time. The divine will have their war - and not all of them will survive it.

Years ago, Dana Mayer had a vision of a better world: one where women are in charge. Now her manifesto, The Quickening, has established the rules for a new order, designed to elevate and protect women. A genteel and peaceful society that prioritises nature, good manners and aesthetics. Of course, in order for women to maintain control, the freedoms of men have been necessarily limited.

It's the year 2035 and fiction has been banned by the government for five years. Writing novels is a crime. Reading fairytales to children is punishable by law. Fern Dostoy is a criminal. Officially, she has retrained in a new job outside of the arts but she still scrawls in a secret notepad in an effort to capture what her life has become: her work on a banned phone line, reading bedtime stories to sleep-starved children; Hunter, the young boy who calls her and has captured her heart; and the dreaded visits from government officials.

It's 1953. Britain and her empire are diminished. Nazi Germany controls Europe and a vast African territory. There has been no Holocaust. Instead the Jews have been exiled to Madagaskar, a tropical ghetto ruled by the SS. Returning home after a disastrous mission to Africa, ex-mercenary Burton Cole finds his lover has disappeared. Desperate to discover her, he is drawn into a conspiracy that will lead him back to the Dark Continent.

Four complete and unabridged selections from the electrifying best seller read by a stellar group of narrators. The Raft is the unforgettable tale of an idyllic autumn swim suddenly transformed into an ordeal of unbridled horror. Read by Stephen King. Mrs. Todd's Shortcut is a story in which a middle-aged woman in a Mercedes roadster finds a terrifying pathway to paradise. Read by Dana Ivey. The Monkey - is it merely a child's wind-up toy, or an incarnation of the purest evil? Read by Matthew Broderick.