Showing results by publisher "Orion Publishing Group" in All Categories

Returning to Penfleet after years in New York, Kate can't help but feel a pang of affection for the little town by the sea where she grew up. If only she were returning in happier circumstances. This last trip is full of farewells: to her childhood home, her once best friend and the life she left behind. Kissing the widow of the richest man in town wasn't one of Nathan's best ideas. Now he can't get Vanessa out his mind.

Smoke opens in a private boarding school near Oxford, but history has not followed the path known to us. In this other past, sin is a physical attribute, visible to all, and children are born carrying the seeds of evil within them. It is in this school, surrounded by the sons of the wealthy and well connected, that two boys called Thomas and Charlie discover that the world of smoke, soot and ash is not as it seems, for sin has a secret history and virtue a politics both intricate and murderous.

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she's got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at age forty he finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Broome is a detective who can't let go of a cold case - a local husband and father disappeared seventeen years ago, and Broome spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time....

Summer 2006, Afghanistan: an apparently deserted village, and a rapidly ticking clock... The relentless Taliban ambush which followed saw several British soldiers dead, two armoured vehicles destroyed - and Corporal of Horse Michael Flynn awarded an MC to go alongside his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Mick Flynn has never backed away from a challenge.

The very far future: The Galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous Galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light...

An alien AI has been sent to the solar system as representative of three advanced species. Its mission is to save the Earth's ecosystem - and the biggest threat to that is humanity. But we are also part of the system, so the AI must make a choice. Should it save mankind or wipe it out? Are we worth it? The AI is all-powerful and might as well be a god. So it sets up some conditions. Violence is now impossible. Large-scale destruction of natural resources is impossible. Food and water will be provided for those who really, truly need them. You can't even bully someone on the Internet anymore.

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble - that it's been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and he still loves her - but that almost seems besides the point now. Two days before they're supposed to visit Neal's family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells him that she can't go. She's a TV writer, and something's come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her - he is always a little upset with her - but she doesn't expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

There's an old Cornish saying: "Save a stranger from the sea, he'll turn your enemy...." When her reclusive grandmother becomes too frail to live alone, Gabriella Blythe moves into the remote waterside cabin on Frenchman's Creek which has been her grandmother's home for decades. Once a celebrated artist, Jaunty's days are coming to a close, but she is still haunted by events in her past, particularly the sinking of Lancasteria during the war.

Two minutes can be a lifetime. But break the two minute rule and it's a lifetime in jail. Ask anyone on the wrong side of the law about the two minute rule and they'll tell you that's as long as you can hope for at a robbery before the cops show up.But not everyone plays by the rules. When an ageing ex-con finally gets out of jail, freedom doesn't taste too sweet. His son is gunned down in a drive-by shooting.

When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go and victims to sacrifice before their work is done.

The mission seems simple enough: extract a pharmaceutical magnate from Russian soil, a volatile man who holds the secret to a deadly bioweapon. But nothing is as it appears to be. A conspiracy of world-shattering scope unravels as Tucker and Kane struggle to keep one move ahead of their deadly enemies. From the frozen steppes of Russia to the sun-blasted mountains of South Africa and Namibia, a biological threat millions of years in the making strikes out at the heart of America.

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.

In a secret room in Washington DC John Tanner is asked to stake his life - and his wife and children - on a gamble whose goals and risks no one will fully reveal to him. In a small suburban town, where only the nicest people live, friends, neighbours, everyone and anyone could be part of a monstrous conspiracy of international evil. The machinery has already been set in motion.

Some moments can change your life for ever. Have you ever wondered, what if....? A man is walking down a country lane. A woman, cycling towards him, swerves to avoid a dog. On that moment, their future hinges. There are three possible outcomes, three small decisions that could determine the rest of their life. Eva and Jim are nineteen and students at Cambridge when their paths first cross in 1958. And then there is David, Eva's then lover, an ambitious actor who loves Eva deeply.

Sometimes childish, sometimes rude, always clever and always very, very funny, this book has delighted most, and outraged a few, Tolkien fans in the US for more than 40 years. Pulling in references to popular culture and fantasy literature as a whole, this is a killingly effective parody of The Lord of the Rings. From the dreary Goddamn (Gollum) to the feckless Arrowroot (Aragorn), the bungling Goodgulf (Gandalf) to the timid, mean-minded boggies Frito (Frodo) and Dildo (Bilbo), no character is safe.

Nurse Millie Sullivan is now Nurse Millie Smith, having married aspiring MP Jim Smith. The war has ended and the NHS has just come into action, so the nurses are busier than ever as the community realise that they no longer have to pay for the services. Minor ailments need attention, babies need to be helped into the world and some of the larger-than-life characters need keeping in line so Millie has enough drama to deal with without having to deal with more from home.

Before The Beach HutWild Oats. Jamie Wilding's return home is not quite going according to plan. A lot has changed in the picturesque Shropshire village of Upper Faviell since she left after the death of her mother. Her father is broke and behaving like a teenager. Her best friend's marriage is slowly falling apart. And the man she lost her heart to years ago is trying to buy her beloved family home.

Tony (A. P.) McCoy has collected a record 20 consecutive jump jockey titles to date, and since 1992 he has ridden over 4,300 winners. This powerfully honest memoir looks at life at the very top in National Hunt racing - and beyond, discussing fatherhood, writing novels and his decision to retire while he's still a long way ahead. It is a definitive autobiography that is themed around A. P.'s 10 most important races: his first ride, first race, first fall, first win, greatest disappointment - and greatest triumph.

General MacKenzie Hawkins is a living military legend, a hero and a rogue. When he gets kicked out of the Army for conduct unbecoming to an officer, his options are limited - but not for long. He has a plan, a plan so ambitious it will shock the world and make him a very rich man: he is going to get $400 million - a dollar from every Catholic in the world. And he's going to do it by kidnapping the Pope...

A prisoner sits on death row in a high-security prison. His only escape is through the words he dreams about, the world he conjures around him using the power of language. For the reality of his world is brutal and stark. He is not named, nor do we know his crime. But he listens. He listens to the story of York, the prisoner in the cell next to him who has been sentenced to death. He hears The Lady, a mitigation specialist who is piecing together York's past. He watches as The Lady falls in love with The Priest and wonders if love is still possible in this place.