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

When Finley arrives in Crescombe for the summer, he suspects he's not alone in his attic bedroom. Before long, he is uncovering secrets the remote seaside town has kept for almost two centuries: about ghosts and curses, about a ruthless old smuggling family, and about the young women whose bodies have washed up along the town's rocky shoreline, just below his porthole window. Yet the more Finley learns, the further he's bonded to those who have gone before him - and the closer he comes to meeting the same watery end.

2025: Lee can't remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father's centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother's disappearance almost a decade ago. 1877: A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders of her home to protect her family from slaughter after the abolition of the samurai class. She's not sure how they'll ever survive, not without her father, who has returned from war with a different soul behind his eyes.

With supply in the Scottish cities drying up, Aida is forced back home to live with her mum at their rural farm. For now, they are safe with just enough to get by. Yet at the border, tensions are close to breaking point as more and more southerners chase the delusion that Scotland is an eternal spring - while fewer and fewer are allowed through. The service station where Aida works grows emptier with every day. Then, when suspicious strangers arrive at the farm asking for help, Aida and her family face a terrible decision. How much water can they afford to share?

The comet, Cain, came from beyond our solar system, its debris containing elements unknown. It brought a powerful new metal to the once-declining Midwest, alien fungus to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and now, in the isolated region of Fairbanks, Alaska, the skies shift and stretch as an interstellar dust cloud seeds itself in the atmosphere. The National Weather Service dismisses the anomaly. Then, an hour outside of Fairbanks, a plane shudders its way through pulpy, swirling, bruise-shaped clouds, lit with sudden cracks of lightning. The sky opens. And the plane vanishes.

Early one Monday morning, much like today, journalist Alex Kubelick walks up to a total stranger and slaps him across the face. Hard. He thanks her. They've both just earned Emoticoins in a new, all-consuming game that trades real-life emotions for digital currency. Emoticoins are changing the face of the global economy - but someone or something seems to be controlling the game for their own nefarious purposes. As Alex begins to pick apart the tangled threads that are holding the virtual game together, she finds herself on the run from very real enemies.

You shared your life online. Now how will you get it back? Twitter. Facebook. WhatsApp. Google Maps. Every day you share everything about yourself - where you go, what you eat, what you buy, what you think - online. Sometimes you do it on purpose. Usually you do it without even realising it. At the end of the day, everything from your shoe size to your credit limit is out there. Your greatest joys, your darkest moments. Your deepest secrets. If people want to know everything about you, all they have to do is look. But what happens when someone starts spilling state secrets?

Endland holds a broken mirror to England. In its garish but strangely familiar world of empty tower blocks, 24-hour cyber cafes, and bomb sites, a motley collection of misfits, wanderers and charmed drunks do their best to survive. Nothing is stable in Endland, and what's more, the gods have started drinking at lunchtime, which can lead only to trouble.

The island of Stenland is cursed: women, chosen at random, awaken with three black slashes on their forehead. The first person they meet eyes with turns to stone. This is how Tess Eriksson's mother killed Soren Fell's parents. It was an accident, but that has never made it any easier to forgive. Since then, all Tess has wanted is to leave Stenland. All Soren has wanted is to stay. The only thing they want more . . . is each other.

Josie is at rock bottom. Burned out, heartbroken and recovering from an abusive relationship, she lives a haunted existence after returning to her isolated hometown on the edge of the Forest of Dean. Josie's hopes of a fresh start are horribly derailed when she stumbles across a dead woman's decaying, ant-infested body in the woods. The grim discovery sends her into a downward spiral, forcing her to face uncomfortable truths about the victim and her own past - all whilst battling the swarming black ants that seem to have burrowed into her mind . . . and her flesh.

From the first night they met, Rachel and Josh knew they were meant to be. When Josh makes an extraordinary decision, the future that Rachel felt so sure about seems impossible. Walking away from the love of her life is unimaginable. But with everything that's happened - and all that is to come - how can Rachel possibly stay?