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

The outbreak tore the USA in two. The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness. They call it the Evacuated States. It is here that Henry Marco makes his living. Hired by grieving relatives, he tracks down the dead to deliver peace. Now Homeland Security wants Marco, for a mission unlike any other. He must return to California, where the apocalypse began. Where a secret is hidden. And where his own tragic past waits to punish him again.

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.

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.

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.

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?