Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in All Categories

In Born Liars, Ian Leslie takes the listener on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy and explores the role played by lies - both black and white - in our childhoods, our careers and our health, as well as in advertising, politics, sport and war.

Elijah, seven years old, is covered in scars and has a history of disruptive behaviour. His adoptive mother Nikki believes that she and her husband Obi are strong enough to accept his difficulties - and that being white will not affect her ability to raise a black son. Elijah's birth mother Deborah loves her son like the world has never known. Elijah thinks it's his fault they can't be together. Each of them faces more challenges than they could have dreamed, but just as Elijah starts to settle in, a shocking event rocks their fragile peace and the result is devastating.

Written by a retired British soldier, Trouble at Zero Hour is a breathless and vivid story, dramatising three of the key Allied operations that turned the tide of the Second World War. 6 June, 1944, somewhere over the Normandy coastline: Robbie Stokes sits in a glider, his Bren resting on the floor between his outstretched legs. The nose lowers and the glider descends rapidly: 10 minutes of stomach-churning twists and turns until suddenly the call goes up to 'brace'. The belly makes contact with the ground and the first Allied troops tumble out into occupied Europe.

From the winner of The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize comes the final heart-stopping installment of the Dark Wild Trilogy. This is the story of a boy named Kester. He has rescued the last wild animals in the world and saved his capital city from destruction. But now he must face his greatest challenge yet because: 1. The only blue whale on the planet has brought news from across the ocean. 2. A mysterious steel dome has risen from the Four Towers. 3. Out there, somewhere, a brave mouse holds the key to the future....

Former childhood star and die-hard romantic Millie is bound for Key West from Washington DC, determined to fulfil a promise to her elderly best friend, Mrs Nash, by reuniting her ashes with her long-lost love. And if this grand gesture also happens to reassure a recently heartbroken Millie that believing in love isn't foolish, all for the better. When flights are grounded, Millie is forced to catch a ride with Hollis, an also-stranded near-stranger from her ex's grad school.

What if you could see the toll that over-work, too much sugar or bad sleep really take on your system? What if you knew what boosts your energy, and what saps it, and when you are heading for burnout? What if you could feel more vitality and joy, have stronger will power and live longer? With the aid of your phone, smartwatch or a wearable heart rate monitor and The Pulse Cure, you can. The key lies in measuring your heart rate variability - the distance between your heart beats - which indicates what is happening in your autonomic nervous system.

On a deserted road in Calabria, Greek aid worker Anastasia Cristakos is driving alone to visit one of the new refugee centres funded by billionaire Denis Hisami, whom she has recently married. She slows down to greet two African migrants she recognises. Too late she realises they are not her friends. This is an ambush. She manages a desperate phone call to Hisami before her Mafia kidnappers silence her with a powerful drug. Hours later she wakes up in the pitch dark on a container ship powering eastwards across the Mediterranean.

There is one great love in everyone's life. For Ducky, Princess Victoria Melita, hers was a Romanov cousin, a member of the doomed Russian royal family. Her father is Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son. Her mother is Grand Duchess Marie, the daughter of Tsar Alexander III. Ducky seems doomed to be a pawn on her grandmother's dynastic chessboard. But Ducky is not so easily controlled.

When Ann Tran gets the call that her beloved grandmother, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. She lives in a beautiful lake house and has a charming professor boyfriend, but it all crumbles away with one positive pregnancy test. With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who's always held them together.

Faye is 39 and single. She's terrified she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own. Then she discovers a co-parenting app: Acorns. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don't want to do it alone. When she meets Louis through it, it feels as though the fates have aligned.

Patricia Wilson's carefully composed ads for the writers' retreat she runs at her 13th-century Italian castle promise so much. But while the splendour of their surroundings and chef Aldo's melanzane never fail to wow the guests, huge maintenance bills and bad news from the bank threaten to close Patricia down. It's make or break time for the Castello.

With her marriage in danger of falling apart, Joanna returns home to the beautiful but dilapidated Mulberry Farm Cottage in Dorset, where her sister Harriet is struggling to keep the farm afloat and cope with their eccentric mother. When Joanna discovers a bundle of love letters in the attic, written by a watercolourist named Emmy, she is intrigued and sets out to discover Emmy's true story. Emmy's letters take Joanna to the picturesque alleyways and bridges of Lisbon, Prague, and the most romantic place of all: Venice - where a whole new magical world seems to unfold in front of her.

Banff, Scotland in the 1620s. A young man walks unsteadily through the streets. Is he just drunk or is there something more sinister happening? When he collapses in front of two sisters on that dark, wet night, the women guess that he's been poisoned. His body is discovered in the house of Alexander Seaton - a fallen minister, the discovery of whose clandestine love affair has left him disgraced.

Trixie and her fellow lumberjills are back in Scotland, newly stationed at the MacKay estate. When they arrive, they are shocked to find the place dilapidated and neglected and the taciturn and secretive Noah MacKay not at all happy to be meeting them. It quickly becomes apparent that MacKay was expecting men from the forestry commission to take charge, rather than four young women. Trixie, Jo, Hen and Vi decide he needs to be proven wrong - after all, don't they have stamina, skill and strength?

Ten days before Gwen Kingston turned twelve, her beloved mother - with whom she shared a birthday - died. She left behind two chests - one for Gwen and one for her brother - filled with lovingly wrapped presents and letters marking the milestones she would miss: driver's licences, graduations and every one of their birthdays until the age of thirty. Each gift a chance to reach back into the past and, for the briefest moment, hear her voice again.

Manifesting. Big Magic. The Law of Attraction. There's no denying that whatever you call it, using your mindset to bring your desires into reality is having a moment. But what if your life experiences so far have demonstrated the exact opposite? What does manifesting look like if you're not white, thin, traditionally pretty, or able bodied? Candice Brathwaite is here to tell you exactly what it looks like. Supported by her four pillars of Seeing, Believing, Doing and Being, Candice will guide you towards the life you deserve and show you that manifesting can be for everyone.

Lydia Grajauskas will never forget the face. The face of the trafficker who brought her to Stockholm: the man responsible for three unrelenting years of forced prostitution and slavery. DCI Ewert Grens will never forget the name. The name of the prisoner the day his life was destroyed: the man responsible for 25 years of torturous heartache. Sweden will never forget their revenge....

June 8, 1954. Alan Turing, the visionary mathematician, is found dead at his home in sleepy Wilmslow, dispatched by a poisoned apple. Taking the case, Detective Constable Corell quickly learns Turing is a convicted homosexual. Confident it’s a suicide, he’s nonetheless confounded by official secrecy over Turing’s war record. What’s more, Turing’s sexuality appears to be causing alarm among the intelligence services - could he have been blackmailed by Soviet spies?

What goes through a woman's head while she's having sex? Women on Top of the World is a collection of 51 first person testimonies by 51 women from around the globe, from all ages and from all walks of life. Searingly honest, they reveal their innermost thoughts and feelings during sex to writer Lucy-Anne Holmes. The result is an incredible compendium of true disclosures that are funny and sad, shocking and tender.

Daphne believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it - the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she'd spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favourite Los Angeles restaurant, there's only a name: Jake.